Offline post

I am writing this offline because we are back to borrowing the neighbour’s connection… I’ll connect briefly to post this message.

I hope you are all getting worked up in the approach to chrimbo. I am sorry that you won’t be spending it together Orlo and Bobagh (cleverly disguised names heh?). Good luck with the visa negotiations B! Japan is our first experience of living abroad and visa bureaucracy is certainly not the most enjoyable aspect. I think our Christmas will be strange but I am sure it will be fun. Christmas in Japan is unusual… The Christian origins are even further removed than the west. It is an entirely commercial venture with many people working on Christmas day and KFC being the ‘traditional’ Christmas meal… Anyway… This doesn’t mean that it’s not a big deal. Hamamatsu is not a particularly picturesque city but decorations for Christmas are everywhere and actually look pretty good. I have some pics but can’t post them at the moment. So you will have to take my word for it.

The temperature has dropped again this week and we are probably experiencing similar temperatures to the UK at the moment. The main difference is the clear blue sky which definitely helps to avoid winter blues.

We had a winter ‘party’ at work… Party meaning an extended lesson for our students where we were paid with as much alcohol as we could put away. Each teacher had to sit with a group of students and ‘mingle’. Then after about 15-20mins we had to swap with another teacher… It was strange!

I am going to leave the message and post it. I’ll let you know if we get our connection back….