One week

In exactly a week's time I will be settling into my aisle seat, headphones plugged into some movie that I've never heard of, waiting for the gravol to kick in...and then 24 hours later (but still at 8:00 on Wednesday night) I will be walking into my parent's house, dropping my bags in the porch and snuggling in for a long winter's nap.

Waiting for Christmas day will be nothing compared to the anticipation of next Wednesday.

Sorry for the no posting regularly lately, but December is always a crazy month, add to that a trip to the hospital, a wedding, and no internet connection at home and I think I've got grands for forgiveness.

So, a quick update if you don't mind.

Last Thursday I managed to do something that I've been wanting to do in Japan for a long time but up until now have not been able to. I can now add bouldering to my list of things done in Japan. And the best part about it is that it's right in my backyard! About a 10 minute drive from my apartment! Yay. As a New Year's resolution I will being making this a once a month thing (at least).

Friday after work I caught the train to Kyoto for Ai and Kazz's wedding. Kazz met me at Kyoto station, which is now lit up with Christmas lights and a huge tree for the season. I checked into my hotel and we headed out on the town. Ai-chan was staying with her parents that night so Kazz was all by himself. I couldn't have that!! We found a classy bar, had some great food and even better wine and spent the night talking about life and his new future. It was great.

I slept in Saturday morning and then walked over to the wedding 'place'. In Japan the have establishments set up to fully accommodate a whole wedding; from getting dressed to the ceremony (chapel or shrine), to dinner and anything beyond. The River Oriental
was just around the corner from the hotel -a 5 minute walk. I had to be there at 1:00 to have my kimono put on. I went over my speech a kazillion times in the morning and felt pretty confident. But once I was in my kimono and the ceremony was over, and the photos had been taken, I knew my time was coming...


We sat down in the dinner room (guests and co-workers sit nearest to the couple, family sits farthest). I was at the table right in front of the head table, trying to inconspicuously consume enough beer to calm me down before 'the speech'. I got up, wowed the crowd, and that was that.



The rest of the night was wonderful.


Full of speeches, tears, kimono changes (bride and groom). And then it was off to the second party- a bar downtown. I changed out of my kimono of course. I felt a bit ridiculous walking back to my hotel in it...but then I started to think, "Wow, I'm walking down a quiet, fall-colored street in Kyoto in Kimono, it doesn't get much better than this!"


The weekend was over much too quickly, but as much as I was looking forward to it, I was also looking forward to it ending so that I could move on to the next big countdown.

So here it is, one week until I depart. I have something to do every night until I leave -and I haven't even begun to think about packing yet! I will do my best to fulfill requests, but no promises. It might be just my tickets, passport and my frantic self (as a friend suggested) on the flight home. If only it were that easy!

So there's the latest.

I'll try to post photos of my Christmas classes this weekend if I can find the time.