2015 - Year of the Ram

This January 1st was the first time I have celebrated New Year’s outside the United States - away from confetti, streamers, Times Square broadcasts, Dick Clark, and Auld Lang Syne.  Personally, it was a little underwhelming.  But that was my own fault.

New Year is one of the biggest celebrations in Japan.  It is a time for family, rest, travel, and new beginnings.  Very different from my American celebrations.  This year I spent the holiday between both worlds.  I was traveling in Tokyo with watashi no ryoshin, so I missed the champagne soaked gaijin revelry in Dotenbori, but I also shied away from crashing traditional Japanese celebrations at the larger shrines in Tokyo.  Not only did I feel it would be irreverent, but I was also uninterested in dealing with the epic crowds.

Instead I was in bed early, as happens more New Year’s Eves than not.  Dad was snoring, not so softly, nearby, and between episodes of anime I thought about my New Year’s guidelines. 

I call them guidelines because resolutions seems so rigid.  Also because I hear the word in Geoffrey Rush's Captain Barbosa voice -

This year, however, I feel confident I can follow my guidelines.  As I lay in the rented apartment in Tokyo, trying to ignore the snoring, I thought about what I truly wanted to accomplish by living in Japan one more year (as compared to moving back in March).  What would haunt me if I didn't do it?  What was superfluous fluff I would never accomplish?  What goals could I set to become a better person?  I had already accomplished one of my perennial guidelines - lose weight - just by moving here, so what would I set out for myself for 2015?  Well, here it is.  Short and sweet.

-Learn Japanese

-Write more - especially on my blog

-Cook more Japanese food

And, most important

-Take every opportunity to travel and do Japanese things

Learning Japanese aside, I am doing a pretty impressive job of fulfilling these.  I am excited to spend this year abroad, doing all I can to better myself.

While I may have been asleep at midnight, I did make it to Kiyomizu Kannando in Ueno Park on January 1st with Okasan and Otosan where this interesting guy gave me my fortune for the new year.

Here's what it said -

In the valley nightingales are singing, and under the edge of eaves plum blossoms are beginning to open.

Hard time has gone.  You are becoming happier and happier like flowers beginning to bloom.  Try everything with confidence.

Happy belated New Year from Japan.  I hope you will all have a happy and prosperous 2015.  Even if you can't keep all of your resolutions, I hope you are able to achieve the ones that will make you a happier person.  Ganbatte and akemashite omedetou gozaimasu.