Happy anniversary to meeeee...

So, today is my first wedding anniversary. It was… well, a nice day but kinda sad, I didn’t get to celebrate with my husband ☹.

Cooking class was meant to be first up but it got cancelled – so we hit the town instead. We found an awesome sock shop that sold hundreds of varieties of toe socks, tabi socks, normal socks, leg warmers, you name it. I was SO tempted but didn’t have enough money so I didn’t buy. Then we went into a shoe shop – again, tempted by a really cute pair but they were too small and cost too much. After that, we discovered another Hyakuen store (remembering that hyakuen, 100 yen, is about $1.50 by todays’ exchange rate). I am definitely doing all my present shopping at a hyakuen store before I come back!

We decided not to try and brave the cafeteria for lunch, instead eating at a little ramen shop just up the road. I had katsukare, or pork curry, and it was really good. I got quite a substantial bowlful – I couldn’t finish all of it – for 560 yen, or about $9.50, which wasn’t bad. Came with as much free tea as you could drink. That’s something I really love about Japan, is that no matter where you go, you always get free tea with your meal. It’s really nice! Well, I think so anyway, but then I like Japanese tea.

After lunch, we had Japanese class. We had to present to our teacher one piece of exciting news in our lives – mine naturally being that today is my anniversary, hooray – and then do a timetable of a typical day in our lives. When we explained that for Australian students, there’s really no such thing as a typical day, we just timetabled an ideal or favourite day, and I timetabled my wedding day as I could remember it. After that, though, class became somewhat more challenging. We played a game where we were given a topic, like Japanese Traditions, and we had 5 seconds to come up with an answer, each time. It really put us on the spot, even if we weren’t doing anything that seemed difficult, it really put us out there because there was so many to remember but they were so hard to recall! It was heaps of fun.

After Japanese class, it was time to head for home, where Saki and I put up the Christmas tree. It looks pretty awesome. They put a Santa Hat on top of the tree here, instead of a star or an angel, but I guess that’s because in Australia, it’s a predominantly Christian society, whereas in Japan, it’s a predominantly Buddhist society and Christmas is a purely commercial thing – and Santa represents commercialism. So, yeah, logical once you see it through a Japanese lens. Miki cooked a special dinner in honour of the occasion – tsukiyaki, kanigohan (rice with crab meat in it) and fish. It was quite tasty, especially the tsukiyaki. Usually those foods are only eaten at special occasions, so I was quite honoured!

It’s now about 10pm and Sogo’s just gotten home. I’ve just spent the last while talking to John on skype – how sad is it, when you spend your first wedding anniversary in Japan on your own, and talk to your husband on Skype? He’s planning to take a couple of weeks holiday in the new year sometime before I have to go back to uni, however, and we’re hopefully gonna do something then.

Okay well, I’d best be off then, it’s lateish, and I’m tired. My sore throat’s much better – the copious amounts of tea I’ve been drinking lately must have boosted my immune system to the point that it didn’t get much past a sore throat, and even that’s faded now.

So, catch y’all later!!

Be good, take care!

ジャ〜

Nat!