あけましておめでとうございます！今年もよろしくお願いします！
Happy New Year to all of my friends and family wherever you are on this planet at the moment! I have been enjoying the beginning of a new year and have so much that I will be posting in the coming months to come.
I spent my New Year’s with family down in Yaita, Tochigi Prefecture. I was happy to see my uncle and his family healthy and happy. I explored so much of the area with my family this past week, going to the local shrine in the area to ring in midnight and heading over to Nikko to see all of its world famous temples. I was also able to meet up with a family friend of my mother’s, Yuko, whom my mother taught English to around some 23 or so years ago! How much time has passed!
Well, I will be able to talk about everything more as I get pictures of them posted and use them to better remember everywhere I went and saw. As for the New Year, I am excited to start it quite busy! This Sunday I will be taking part in 成人式 (Seijin Shiki), otherwise known as Japan’s coming of age ceremony. The age of adulthood in Japan is 20 years of age, most likely later than most countries around the world, and I am excited to be able to take part in this important ceremony of my heritage to mark my growth and “hard” work over the past years.
As for after 成人式, I will be finishing up my first term in Japan in the beginning of February and immediately head off to Sapporo for the Sapporo Snow Festival (札幌雪まつり). I am so excited to attend this famous and largest snow festival in the world and will be sure to get lots of pictures and hopefully make a stop at an onsen in the area. I also won some tickets to see the Snow Miku concert in Sapporo while I am there! I am quite a fan of Vocaloids and really enjoy Snow Miku! I will have to make sure to buy tons of souvenirs!
After that, I will have to make a quick trip back home to Sendai to make a presentation of my research at Tohoku University, and then I will be off exploring as much of Japan as I can. My goals include Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima, Nara, Fukuoka, and Mount Fuji. A few of my friends also have some other places they want to go to, so I am thinking I will join! I am hoping to enjoy a magical month and a half when I am out of class here in Japan to see as much of Japan as possible! Maybe even make a short trip to next door neighbor South Korea? (I probably do not have the money for that!)
Whelp, that is pretty much everything I need to check in with everyone for the New Year! Pictures will make it online somehow (as for an important customer, I will be posting my home trip first before getting back to everything I have missed). I will be so busy for the next month and a half at least, so sorry if you all do not hear from me! I will be too busy enjoying myself! またね！