I`m Alive, don`t worry I`m Alive!! Part 1 Winter Break

Seriously!!??? It`s been half a year since I did jack shit to this thing hahahaha...

Wow... Major Procrastination... Well, before I throw myself under the bus, I do have to admit that I got much busier than expected following the winter Holiday.

I will try to explain the past 6 months in a three part series.

PART 1 - Winter Break

So, my last post was right before I took off on a three week trip to Kansai for Winter Break. You may be wondering how it is that I was able to get so many days off. Well, it`s a combination of Winter Holidays, Nen-Kyu 年休, and Dai-kyu　代休. Essentially the days off that we get for winter holiday plus, paid leave, and over time leave. 

If you`re in the JET Programme, you will have Nen-Kyu or Paid Leave. How much might depend on your contract and such, but it is generally 20days of every year, if you re-contract. My town is awesome and gives me Dai-Kyu, which is an over time system. On days that I work my English Conversation Circles, or stay in the office past 4:30pm, I clock that time in as over time. This accumulates and I can eventually use this toward taking days off without losing precious Nen-Kyu!

For Winter Break, I had accumulated about 72 hours worth of Over Time and used a large majority of that plus Nen-Kyu to take my very very long vacation.

Here are some pictures of that winter trip.

Snow at Obihiro Station. I had to leave a day early in order to not get stuck in my town. Luckily I made it out safely

My Girfriend and I went to Universal Studios Japanon Christmas Day... It was very windy and cold, but still a lot of fun

Cool Car... but the ride was Blahh

This was cool. I had a lot of fun on the Jurassic Park Ride. I ended up getting very drenched... which wasn`t fun in the cold

Probably one of the coolest rides at USJ.

Traditional New Years Food. First thing you do is Drink!

That`s my Predecessor. We met up in Kansai and he joined me any my Girl Friend`s family for Osecchi

I`m not drunk. It`s like 9:00am... well not drunk yet.

All this food lasts about a week or so. It is eaten every day following new years for a certain perioud of time.

Later we went to the Kobe Aquarium

View from the Aquarium

Then we hit up China Town in Kobe. This place is awesome. Nankin Machi. Check it out if you`re ever in Kobe

Was able to meet up with my friend Sho. It had been over a year since we last hung out. It was good to see him again.

Stick around for part 2.