久しぶり or whatever

So it's 2013! When the hell did that happen?! I guess a little over a week ago. Happy new year and all that.

My (not so) new job is going really well. I'm thrilled that my new coworkers are AWESOME. They really made the transition seamless and now I consider them to be a part of my Tokyo family. It's really nice to have coworkers who share the same sense of humor as me as it sometimes lands me in hot water hahaha.

Since August I haven't been up to anything too crazy as I have significantly cut down on drinking. I've DJ'd a few times, including one night where I played for about four hours, so that was fun. There are no upcoming events to report at this time.

I went up to Fukushima to visit an old coworker of mine waaaaay back in September. It was really cool to get out of the city and see some parts of the country I had never seen before. I went to this place called "British Hills" and it was a total trip! This place was all built with wood from England and it was built in England and barged over to Japan... every building was built according to traditional British architecture. The place is stunning! It really brought me back to the brief times I spent in England. At British Hills there is a tea house and a pub that even serves good old fashioned British food (that actually tastes authentic) -- it kind of made me home sick for my mum's cooking lol.

I went to a Japanese wedding reception for the first time in November. I went as my boyfriend's date as it was his friend from junior high school's wedding. His friends were really nice so that was good as my Japanese still sucks!

I finally returned to Disneyland! Only twelve years after my last visit haha. Unfortunately we chose to visit on what might have been the busiest day of the month at the very least. I did get to take a lot of fun pictures wearing Minnie ears though and I found, with the right company, the crowds weren't so noticeable. :)

I had a week off at the end of December and beginning of January so I hopped on a plane and went back to the good old Pacific North West to pay my family a visit. What I'll never understand is a family's need to take their infant on trips around the world. On my flight in to Vancouver there was a family of five with what had to have been a three to four month old baby... They had clearly gone to Tokyo to do some sightseeing and I couldn't for the life of me understand why they would bother. Nothing infuriates me more than babies on a plane with indifferent parents. Granted, for that flight I was fighting a nasty cold and was quite sleep deprived so that didn't help. The visit was a lot quieter than the ones in past years had been. I spent a lot of time hibernating on my parents' couch and saw some good friends. I did some shopping and had some quality time with my favourite foods haha.

Going back to Vancouver is always strange for me. I feel like I am interrupting the lives of everyone I see. It feels like we are almost strangers again because there is so much we don't know about each other again. And yet, returning to Tokyo always feels like I'm falling into a mass of concrete and I'm back to getting lost in a vast sea of people. It always takes me a while to get back into the rhythm of things.