I’ve spent the afternoon cleaning. It’s actually been quite good. I cranked Ben Folds Five on the stereo, then got my scrubbing brush and orange power cleaner out and tackled two bathrooms and two toilets. Read more
or a Happy New Year to you!
This post is somewhat late, but i thought i would just put a note about what we did new years eve. Yasu worked until about 6:30pm, and was home at 7pm. At 7:30 pm we sat down and began to watch 紅白 on NHK (Kouhaku means Red/White, in this case Red Vs White, Women Vs Men).
I was looking forward to seeing Sexy Bucho make an appearance, and we also saw the cast from the movie Ponyo on the cliff by the sea (崖の上のポニョ). The little girl was sooo cute, and now i can’t get the song out of my head! There’s a great video clip of the song on youtube here.
They had the usual performers like Smap, Hamasaki Ayumi, Speed, Aiko, Exile, Kiyoshi, Akiko Wada, and Perfume (Yasu’s favourite of the night) and ALOT of Enka singers, in fact, way too many for my liking. It seemed like an NHK concert night with a few jpop-ers thrown in.
Nakai-san from Smap was the host for the night, and was also joined by a few guests like Hige-danshaku but sadly no DJ Ozma, but i noticed one guy lost his pants down to a fundoshi, no doubt that will give the old ladies something to complain about.
Yasu and i were a little bit disappointed with the talent, or lack thereof this year and kind of glad it was over. The last half hour they showed people going to temples and shrines to pray for the new year and we had a conversation about western people making new year’s resolutions. It seems that Japanese people prefer to go to shrines, pay money and pray to make the God’s carry out their wish or resolution for them. Western people seem to struggle with making a resolution or keeping them, maybe the better way is what the Japanese do, pay someone else to do it! At least we can’t blame ourselves if it should fail.
This is the only New Year where we haven’t had a drink. Neither of us felt like it. We both stuck to Coke Zero and juice. Older and mellower? Maybe.
We rang the parents in Japan and they were getting drunk on Shochu with Yasu’s sister. Yasu’s dad asked when i was going to show my face in Japan again, and said he wanted to hug me. haha. Weird. I told them they should be asking Yasu that question but they said no, they would rather see my face! Yasu doesn’t mind, he’s happy we all get along so well.
And that’s about it really! Yasu and i said Happy New Year to each other, Yasu said 明けましておめでとう to me and bowed, and we went to bed.
The next day i went to work with Yasu, but basically it was uneventful.
Happy New Year to you! I hope 2009 will be a great year!
I had a hard time getting to sleep last night because i couldn’t stop coughing. I have been taking antibiotics, and i took one just before bed but i couldn’t get to sleep. So i stayed up and played Jewel Quest on my ipod touch while coughing myself silly. Finally i couldn’t stand any more, and about 4am i took half a restavit sleeping pill. Within 20 minutes my eyes started to get droopy and i crawled into bed and must have fallen asleep because the next thing i knew Yasu was waking me up to say goodbye, he was going to his baseball game at 8:30 am. I said my goodbyes and crawled back into bed, the next time i woke up it was 1:30 pm in the afternoon and i felt pretty shocking.
I got up, got dressed and attacked the big sink of dishes waiting for me from the last two days. Yes no maid here to come and do them for me! No fairies either it seems. Just after i finished those, Yasu came home from his game, his team had lost, and he recanted all the funny things that had gone on.
Yasu’s sister had bought him a Japanese itunes card so he got on the itunes store and created an account and set about downloading some of his favourite bands, including Chage and Aska (or in my words “creepy music”). I don’t know how i could meet someone with such different tastes in music. Ugh. Anyways, he spent the whole afternoon downloading music onto his ipod, and then uploading music from his cd’s, and then he started singing… ugh. Not again. He always sings in the car, drives me crazy, he’s such a songbird, i wouldn’t be surprised if he was a canary in a past life!
Yasu watched the latest episode of 篤姫 (Atsuhime), the current Taiga Drama on NHK. I love all the costumes on that show and the female lead is such a good actress. Later on Yasu downloaded the soundtrack from the show on itunes so i had to hear the song over and over. Now it’s stuck in my head.
I made a big pot of chunky potato and bacon soup and some home made garlic bread for dinner, though we didn’t get to eat it until 8:30 pm as Yasu was stuffing around on itunes. It was yum though! A couple of pics from my phone below.
Chunky potato & bacon soup
My home-made garlic bread
I watched CSI: Miami, a double episode tonight, then served dessert – fruit and icecream. Yasu went off to bed with his earphones in, very annoying as every time i talk to him now he doesn’t answer because he can’t hear me. Boys and their toys! I guess i’ll just have to bear it until he loses interest in his new gadget.
Looking ahead to a busy week of cleaning, scrubbing and washing until our guest comes from Japan.
