New Year

It's 5:30pm on the last day of 2008. What a year! I always get slightly sentimental on New Year's eve, thinking of everything that happened in the prior year, and saying goodbye to the year's digits, haha. Also, we were recalling that exactly one year from today we shared our first ever kiss. I remember it well because we shared the moment earlier in the day and I was a bit apprehensive about whether or not we would in front of our friends at the party later that evening when the ball dropped. We didn't, and I was relieved. :-) Now, we've been married six months, and have been here in Japan for nearly that long. It's gone by so quickly! Part of me still feels like I'm in a dream that I'll wake up from any time and my life will go back to the way it was at the beginning of the year.

Tonight, Jeremy and I are playing some games - Agricola and Scrabble so far (I won both) - with Galaxy Trucker and Red November to follow (*edit* he won both of those!). I neglected to call friends about getting together this evening... there comes a point where I feel embarrassed to call them because it's been so long since I have. :-p I need to get better at that. Maybe, that'll be my New Year's Resolution, haha. We need to take advantage of the national holiday the next three days though, and get some people together for gaming. We don't know what kind of outrageous fun we'll find on TV tonight, but we'll keep our eyes peeled. Perhaps tomorrow, we'll get up early to see the sunrise - I hear it's a common tradition here. And later in the day, we'll be online to wish you all a wonderful new year. Hear from you then! ;-)

*edit again* We didn't see the sunrise. We DID, however, get up at 6am to check the weather to see if it would be worth getting up for it - it was raining, or snowing... or a mix... not sure which, so we just went back to bed, haha. Maybe next year we will see the first sunrise of the year. :-) After the games, we spent the rest of the time watching a New Year special on TV with all kinds of famous Japanese music stars, a big mix of genres and styles, and at the end they did a flash back to all the performances and announced a 'winner' - I think. We were amazed at how many of the songs we recognized!! It was kind of neat to put faces to the voices we hear on the radio. The program finished exactly 15 minutes before midnight and the cameras cut over to a shrine with a priest ringing a giant bell (they ring it 108 times for good luck in the new year or something like that). It was like just like that for the remaining minutes of 2008 and at midnight there was a 0:00 in the corner of the screen. No singing, no whistles, no music, nothing. It was VERY different from NY's Time Square event I've watched every year since I can remember! We went to bed shortly after, and woke up to some snow this morning. Happy new year!!

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/12/31/new.year.photos/index.html