Christmas!

As you've probably guessed by the fact that this was posted in January, it is no longer Christmas. But I have vague memories of said event and I will dispense these memories...now.

I occasionally forget how unimaginably beautiful Toya is.

The day the holidays began, myself and the other volunteer I live with; James, were engaged in some last minute cleaning. As we knew the other volunteers would be coming up to visit us the next day, we decided that it would be an unsavory gesture to leave the house looking like an abattoir that had been inhabited by homeless drug addicts. After getting the house to a state that could have been considered semi-habitable by an only somewhat corrupt health inspector we got out our presents for our guests and placed them beneath our plastic Christmas Tree. Soon enough we found ourselves in a car on our way to the local train station, (which it turns out is not that local actually) to meet the other volunteers. For some reason I was feeling quite anxious. Maybe it was because I hadn't seen them in a long time, or possibly because I was worried whether or not they would like Hokkaido or perhaps  it had just been too long since I had used the toilet. Either way I was feeling a tad queasy. Sure enough though the train pulled up, the girls got off and all was agreeable. We had embraces, "How are you!?"s and all that kind of stuff. Unfortunately we didn't get too much time to be with the girls and just relax as it was quite late by the time they arrived and as they were spending their first night in our bosses house we couldn't exactly stay out until the small hours of the morning hollering from the tops of trees. So we said our good nights and went home.

A balmy morning in Mid-Winter Hokkaido

Over the next few days we showed the girls around the winter wonderland that we have made our home. We went for long walks, showed them some of our places of work, saw "The Hobbit", had celebratory drinks and there was even a Christmas party organised by some of our students and co-workers. One thing that some of our co-workers remarked upon was the length of time the volunteers were staying for. It's tradition for the other volunteers posted in Japan to come up to Hokkaido for Christmas but normally the length of the visit is only three or four days, we however, found ourselves staying in Hokkaido for a full eight days and definitely towards we end we began to feel signs of cabin fever. With tensions running high and everyone not being in the best of moods it made for a truly authentic Christmas that brought me back to childhood memories of Christmas days sitting around the table hating my family...oh Christmas I love you so much.

Christmas Day: Our House

Regardless of any hiccups though it was fantastic to get a break as working in nurseries three days a week makes mass genocide look appealing and the hectic schedule was beginning to catch up with me and James. So all in all a good first half of the break...Next post; New Years in Tokyo.