Aye It's All Signed.

So on Tuesday I signed and handed in my form. The form of decisions. THE form.

And of course, I'd already made my decision to stay 2 years some time ago. So really it wasn't a big deal. Though it did feel weird seeing the dates on the letter "Until July 30th 2014". The time here seems to be going quite fast anyway, I mean it's already February tomorrow! Madness.

I'm looking forward to the weather getting a bit warmer, and for it to start getting darker later so my evenings seem longer.

There's been no classes this week. The third years are finished school now until graduation at the start of March. And my second years are on work experience. So I've actually been doing some Japanese studying =O YES. I am shocked too.

And now I'm debating whether to continue my Breaking Bad marathon tonight and get it finished off... (only 5 episodes to go! Well, until the second half of series 5 comes out) or to go out for a couple of beers at my local place... I can see this being another lazy tv night I think.

How much tv will I have watched by the time I return to Scotland? A LOT.

So, Christmas in Kochi

 

Yeah it seems Blogger wants to let me use photos today, awfy nice of it. And since I'm in the mood, I should do this, why not?! So at the start of December there was a winter lights lantern type festival on at Kochi Castle. So me and my friend went along to check it out. Turned out to be pretty smart indeed. There was like SO MANY candles and lanterns it was crazy, and very pretty.

 

 

 

In the park beside the castle they had this made out of candles. Thought that was pretty smart.

 

 

It was obvious folk had put A LOT of work into the whole set-up.

 

 

And this festival was on two weekends in a row. I feel very sorry for whatever poor souls had to keep lighting all those wee candles...

 

 

We got to hold lanterns too, like the festival in October. And a manny was determined to take our photos beside the castle. Looks pretty good though, so alright then.

 

 

I bought a lot of Christmas decorations. My predecessor had left some, but I wanted my own. Christmas decorations are sort of a personal thing in my opinion anyway. I used the tree though haha and I think I did a pretty good job indeed.

 

 

I also decided to make mulled wine. I was considering making gingerbread men or something, but cooking biscuits or cakes inside a microwave that has an "oven" in it too, I decided against. Mulled wine was easier to go about, plus my supervisor had never tried it before.

 

 

I made many litres of the mulled wine, maybe like 3 litres. Gave my supervisor a good chunk of it, then sort of mostly drank the rest myself. I made more for another Christmas party later... and pretty much drank all that too..

 

So yeah, that was pretty much my preparations for Christmas. Besides finding presents for folk that weren't too big or heavy, and of course buying Christmas presents for myself. I declared my early Christmas day to be December the 23rd, as in the day I would leave for heading to Korea. I opened my presents with my family on Skype (awwww I hear you say haha). I ate a ridiculous amount of food, like cheese and crackers for lunch, lots of chocolate and a steak for tea.

 

Was all pretty good, and a good start to the Christmas holidays overall.

Good day.

That title there pretty much sums it up. But none the less I'll go on to explain further.

Today is a pretty good day. It's like January, and the sun's a blazing. I like that. It may be chilly here in winter, but there's only like a couple of cloudy days each month. Which is nice. Especially when you're used to Scotland and it's cloud obsession..

Also, I have no classes today. And neither do any of the other teachers because the kids are all off doing stuff. So everyone is pretty relaxed, and the office is nice and calm.

I've also started drawing more, and writing pointless stuff for things I probably won't get around to doing. But still, it's fun.

I just came back from lunch too. Lunch is of course a wonderful time of day. Went to my local, got fed A LOT. It was good. Came back, and spoke to the two Golden Retrievers that live near the school. Since you probably know me, you'll know that I love dogs. And petting some insanely cute retrievers on a sunny day after an amazing lunch, makes this a good day.

It's Thursday too, so I have an Enkai (drinking party) with my teachers tomorrow night WOOOO! Should be a laugh. No, it WILL be a laugh as always.

I am due to clean the teachers toilets this week... but think I might leave that until tomorrow. Wouldn't want to ruin the atmosphere of the good day now would I?

A KOCHRISTMAS!

Yeah that doesn't really work.. Kochi... Christmas. You get my point.

On a side note, or even a pre-note before I start this, someone is really falling behind in cleaning that fish tank in the office. I can see green. And shadows within sort of swimming around... Poor fish.

So anyways! Before heading off on my trip to Korea, I attempted at making Christmas as normal as possible. As normal as it can be when I'm in Japan. I listen to Radio 1 a lot, and even from early December they were playing their Christmas songs. Weird to think that was like a month ago now...

On the 8th of December I decided I wanted to get all my Christmas stuff up. So my friend came over, and we put up my Christmas tree and decorated the house. Whilst drinking mulled wine and listening to good old Christmas music.

OK BLOGGER, WHY are you not letting me upload photos?!?! WHY?!

Fine.

I shall deal with this later when I return home. Let's put this tale on pause for now ;)

Back to work I go

Yep. After all the "WOOOOO HOLIDAYS!!" excitement, it's back to work for Pam. Of course, wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't managed to catch one mutant cold the day I returned to Kochi >=|

So here I am, sitting in my office, eyes all nice and bloodshot, coughing like a maniac. It's fun. Super fun. WOOOOOOO! At least I don't really have to talk to anyone until tomorrow... I HOPE.

Last weekend was probably the quietest weekend I've had since coming here. I was attempting to rest away my disease haha BUT I did buy a Playstation 3. Which was obviously the highlight of my weekend XD That and my sister and her friends have booked their flights for coming over to Japan in June YEAAAH!

So that's exciting. I should really write a bit about my Christmas holidays on here... and I will. Probably today tbh, since I don't think I have much else to do. And I need something to distract me from coughing, otherwise my co-workers will be quarantining me very soon.