I won’t start out by complaining about the increasing cold here because I am aware of the coldness that is happening back in Canada right now. I have upped the tea drinking and hat wearing in the house by as much as possible though. There have been a few recent events to update on. I drove to the sea with friends last week. We went to the pacific and it was quite nice. We stopped in Nagoya and went to a club that closed much too early. We also had a delicious Thai dinner at a restaurant right by where we parked our car. It was so nice to have several courses of hot and spicy and delicious food. We just sat and chatted and then went out to the club. Because it closed so early (around 2), we just walked around the town. It was a bit cold for that but we enjoyed it anyways. We took a cat nap back in the car and then ate some bananas and headed on our way again. We drove at a leisurely pace and got there around 1 in the afternoon. We all took turns driving. It was quite relaxed. I was briefly a bit car sick but not too bad at all. I think it may be my body’s innate reaction to wanting to be in control of the driving so whenever I am not at the wheel my stomach feels a bit uneasy. It is amazing how being just slightly south makes all the difference in warmth. Its probably the bit decrease in elevation too. The cabbage was still out on the fields and the leaves were still green on the trees. There were palm trees! There were also some dairy farms which were nice to see. You don’t normally see a big animal in our neck of the woods. There was a bunch of fisherman on the beach who mostly tried to ignore us when we stripped off and jumped in the water. It wasn’t as cold as I thought it would be. We didn’t stay in long though. It was refreshing and quite clean. The beach was pebbly but the actual shore line was sandy. We walk around and took pictures of the fish heads on the beach. Then we headed back up to Nagano for an American thanksgiving dinner that friend was having. We drove back through the mountains which kept us all awake. I felt like we were driving in a circle the whole time. It took about 6 hours to get home. We stayed at the Thanksgiving things for a few hours and then Luke and I went through to Matsumoto to go to a club. We got to Matsumoto around 2 in the morning but everything seemed to be pretty much shut which seemed pretty lame for a Saturday night. We were tired enough anyways so we just headed home and went to bed. On Sunday, it rained so we just stayed in and played cards.
We also had a holiday this past Thursday for Japanese labour/thanks giving day. It is very strange to have a mid week day off and then go back to work for one day. I went out on the Wednesday night before the holiday with some friends in Matsumoto. We went to a nice little university club. It was really small and comfortable. It felt like going over to someone’s house with a dance floor. They all came back to my house around 5 in the morning. It may not sound like it but I have been getting way more sleep lately. I don’t exactly feel relaxed but it is still good. On Thursday I headed up to Nagano City with Dec to meet with Emi and Kosa. We had dinner and saw a fireworks show then drove back down. I don’t get to see Kosa much these days but hopefully we will head off on a Christmas or New Years holiday soon. I wanna go to Fiji! So I am just boiling a big pot of mushrooms for dinner. I don’t want it to be Sunday night just yet but that’s how it goes. This is going to be a short week as it is because we have a conference to attend for two days. I have to give some kind of speech I haven’t started yet and should probably look into with all due haste. I will make some kind of vaguely entertaining power point but I don’t know what it will contain. Power point is always so boring. It is just a visual distraction from what is usually an equally disinteresting speech. I will try and make something good though. I have a pretty extreme amount of ironing that needs to get done so I will take off now and do that. These pictures are of the sea and one we took using Kosa's snazzy new laptop. I wish I had a mac!