here, there, everywhere

Happy 2010! 2009 began for me on a random side street in Hanoi with Iain, listening to the sounds of the giddy motorbike traffic, and ended Princes Street Bridge in Ediburgh, amongst men in kilts, fireworks, and people drunkenly making up the words to Auld Lang Synge. It was a nice, laid back way to say goodbye to what had been a really wonderful year: we travelled around Vietam by motorbike (twice!) and spent three months with my mom and John in California and I saw almost all of my family; I drove Iain all around the states (on highways! without crashing or crying!); we went to China, where I almost fainted on the Great Wall, and Amsterdam (for 5 hours); I met Iain's awesome family in Scotland; we worked our butts off in Tokyo and studied a lot of Japanese. I took way too many photographs and knit a lot. I got to do all of this with an amazing boyfriend who makes feel me like I'm home no matter where in the world we are; I feel so lucky to be doing what I'm doing right now, and I'm so excited for whatever 2010 brings.

Merry Christmas, a few days late; we are keeping warm in sub-zero Aberdeenshire (well, I'm keeping warm; Iain is running around in the snow in t-shirts and generally proving himself to be much more comfortable in this weather than me; see: photos.) At any rate, I had a very nice Christmas with Iain's family, which was made all the better by being able to talk to my sister and mother over Skype, as well.

Since Christmas, we haven't done too much, although I spent my first-ever Boxing Day snowboarding* for the first time ever!

Above: Iain trying to push me off a cliff, as if I weren't doing a good enough job of it all by myself, everytime I strapped myself to a snowboard. 

Anyone who knows me knows that I am terrible at all things involving the cold, heights and fast speeds, so you can imagine how good I am at snowboarding. Despite this, I actually had a great time when I wasn't falling flat on my butt and/or clinging to Iain for dear life; at any rate, I'd like to do it again and to hopefully get a bit better. This whole 'winter sports'** thing is quite foreign to me; I tried blaming a childhood spent in California, and when that didn't work (Tahoe what now?), I tried blaming a childhood spent with an un-athletic family (quiet, Maggie), but I think we all know the real excuse is that I am a great big wimp with lazy tendencies, which I wouldn't mind getting over at some point, even if it does involve falling down a lot.

* Or, if you want to be all concerned with things like accuracy, intermittently flailing down the kiddy slope with Iain's help, and spending a inordinate amount of time sitting in the lodge's cafe reading Wolf Hall. 

** Fine, this whole 'sports' thing, period. 

Our last days in Tokyo are a bit of a blur, although we did (finally!) manage to drag ourselves to Tsukiji Fish Market for an early morning sushi breakfast like we'd been planning to all semester.

Less delicious and much more sad, however, was saying goodbye to everyone, especially my students. I know I said it before, but I really lucked out by getting some of the friendliest, funniest and just generally all-around-awesomest students in Tokyo. As you can see from the pictures below, we found lots of highly educationally enriching ways to commemorate the end of the term.

 (Clockwise: me, Ryo, Hiroe and Akio).

Like making everyone wear funny hats.

(Left to right: Mari, Haruna and Yuka)

And letting them make snowmen out of marshmallows.

And doing the limbo.