Happy New Year!!

Happy new year everyone!! Been a while since I posted last. A lot has happened since the last time I posted. I was pretty busy for the holidays. But I spent a lot of time with Reiko so naturally I had a great time.

Reiko and I spent Christmas Eve together (Christmas Day in Japan was a regular working day and I had to work) . We had roasted chicken and exchanged gifts. Reiko is pretty low on cash since she is taking classes finishing up her college degree so we had a low budget Christmas but that's the way it should be anyway. The important thing was spending time together.

New years is a big thing in Japan so I had 4 days off of work. I spent most of that time with Reiko at her house with her family. We went to see the "Mysteries of the Human Body" exibition near her house at the Saitama Arena. On New Years we went to a local shrine to ring the bell but there was a huge line so we opted to just drink tea and watch others for a while. On the 2nd we had a party with Reiko's family and had lots of new years food.

Unfortunately, I had to work on the 4th but I took the 5th off instead so it balanced out. On the 5th, Reiko surprised me and came to my apartment and cooked me yakisoba for lunch. Then we went to Meiji-Jingu (Shrine next to Yoyogi Park) for Hatsumoude (first visit to the shrine in the new year). We went to Meiji-Jingu last year when we met in Tokyo, so we remembered some memories from last year, and made prayed for the new year.

On the 6th, Reiko came over again and we went to the Edogawa-ku Sports Center and played badminton for a couple hours before coming back and watching Piglett's Big Movie :-P My mom gave it to her for her birthday last April but we never got to watch it together.

Sunday, we went to Ikebukuro and returned some DS games that we didn't like. I returned Kanji-Ryoku since it's too hard for me. Reiko returned the Mario Basketball game I got her since it's too hard to play. We got some new games instead, Tales of the Tempest, and an English language game. I stayed at Reiko's house that night and we ate gyoza dumplings. Today we went to eat kaiten sushi with Reiko's family and went shopping.

After such a long break from work it'll be hard to go back. :sigh: I have to work this next Saturday so it'll suck, but I can see Reiko on Sunday probably so I'll look forward to that. Anyway, Reiko and I bonded a lot during the time together these holidays. Since the 30th, we have been together every day except the 4th when I was working. No matter how much time we spend together I don't feel like we've spent too much time together