Today is Kuniko’s 35th birthday, and fittingly she is spending it working until late tonight. We drove into work today because it will be much quicker and easier (and warmer) for her to drive back tonight. She expects to get home between nine and ten.

No mercy for the birthday girl.

I’ll be home waiting for her with a pot of nabe – we’re still trying to kill vegetables. The last few nights have been chock full of fresh foods, and I think we won’t see an empty fridge until next week sometime.

Good news on the health front – all my exercise bike time is beginning to pay off. I’m continuing to lose weight steadily, and it has been a great chance to catch up on TV shows while I ride. This is a habit I intend on keeping for a long time.

It is getting to be the time when we have to declare our holidays for the next year. Unfortunately, my schedule is pretty set, and I have to choose my days off 8-12 months in advance. It takes a lot of forethought to make the right choices.

Today I’ll submit my list to the front office, and hopefully I’ll hear back within the week. The amount of holidays are never the problem, rather it is the spacing between holidays that they seem to be sensitive about.

Kuniko has confirmed that she’ll be able to take a longer holiday this year (there is a long story behind that), so now it is all up to my HR department. Fingers crossed!

Once I get dates approved, it is off to buy tickets and get started on an itinerary. With any luck we might get a chance to see my folks in Europe this summer…

This weekend I pretty much had the place to myself during the day, as Kuniko was stuck working both days. Besides doing housework and laundry I did manage to get in some episodes of House of Cards. I’m looking forward to the restart of Survivor and Amazing Race soon, but until then I’m watching some old stuff that I didn’t have time to see until now.

Also, this weekend we received a bunch of wine that I ordered. I was able to try one bottle – Evodia a 100% grenache from Spain, and it was pretty good for the price. We’ll try some of the other bottles later this week, and hopefully we’ll find some other winners.

I also had a visit from Kuniko’s parents. They stopped by to drop off a lot of homegrown veggies, and give us some other presents that they have been stockpiling. Kuniko’s dad has a bunch of wood that he’d like to grow shiitake mushrooms on, so I promised to head over there one of these weekends and help him out. It sounds like a fun project, and I’m looking forward to grilling those up this spring.

He also passed on an inquiry from one of his friends, who has been studying English and would like a chance to speak English now and then. I may go and spend some time with his friend once or twice a month, and help him out a little bit. I’ve got to speak about with Kuniko, though. I don’t want it to interfere with the already small amount of time we have together during the weekends.

This week should be a pretty standard one, except for Kuniko’s birthday on Wednesday. We’ll be celebrating at Anonim on Friday, so there is something good to look forward to at the end of this week!

Today has been a good day.  Since I had the whole day to myself, I could sleep in a bit, and then start working on a pile of little things that I’ve been meaning to take care of.  I always push stuff to the weekend, and then get caught up in something else.  Today I knocked out a bunch of those little things, and it felt good.  Our new jukebox computer is running pretty well, but I still have bugs to iron out now and then.  It is 100% more stable, though, and I’m spending a lot more time listening to music and less time waiting for something or other to load.

I spent the day inside, trying my hand at some penang curry soup.  The weather was good enough for one load of laundry, but I barely got out there in time when some rain clouds came in.  Tomorrow I’ll have to get out and do some shopping, but otherwise it should be a pretty quiet day on my own.

This is the first time in a long time that I have written on the blog! Thanks to my mom giving me a hard time about not writing, I’m back at it (for the time being). What the heck have I been up to? Well, not a lot.

That’s not entirely true. I’ve been spending time looking for a go-to wine that we can drink at home. For the past year or two we’ve been drinking a lot of Malbec from Argentina and Zinfandel from Ravenswood (thanks, Costco!) In an effort to branch out, I’ve been experimenting with lots of other wines to try and find one that is a good value for everyday drinking. It is sometimes hard to do here in Japan, the land of overpriced wines. This weekend some shipments are coming in, and I’ll have a chance to do some “research”.

Speaking of wine, we were able to meet an ex-student of mine in Sannomiya Wednesday night after work. He brought along his wife, I brought along Kuniko, and everybody hit it off very well. We mostly used Japanese because his wife didn’t feel comfortable with English, but they were really nice people, and I think we’ll probably get together again in the future. Making new friends is always a good thing.

Our holiday situation this year still hasn’t crystallized. However, we are pretty sure we’ll be in Taiwan at the end of March for a food marathon. Last weekend we had dinner with Yoshi, Mamiko, and Akira, and they expressed an interest in joining us. Mamiko is an expert on Taiwanese culture (and food) and so I think they’ll be good companions for a long weekend trip.

This weekend Kuniko is working both days, so she’ll be out of the house most of the time. We are celebrating Valentine’s day today a little on the late side – she expects to get home around 10 pm tonight. I hope I haven’t succumbed to cocktails before she gets back!

It has been a long time since my last post! Coming back from the holidays we’ve kind of settled into the familiar rhythm of work – early morning alarms, icy cold mornings, teaching all day, and then back home for a delicious meal and a ride on the exercise bike before bed.

January is pretty quiet for us socially. We have some get-togethers planned for February, but for now we are staying home where it is warm and they play all our favorite music.

I’ve been riding the exercise bike almost every day. I usually ride for about 45 minutes at a time, which is just enough time to either watch two episodes of The Office or one of Amazing Race. Kuniko also rides the bike now and then – a regular fitness couple, I guess.

The big thing on my mind these days is figuring out where to travel this year. Because of Kuniko’s work schedule we didn’t expect to do much travel – mainly staying in Asia. I’m craving a little bit longer trip, but we’ll see if we can pull it off. Lots of things to work out before we buy any tickets.

Well, that’s all for now. I’ll check in later if something interesting happens!

Well, we’re back from our journey to the homeland for the holidays.  Overall the trip went pretty well, thanks to all the efforts that my family went to in order to host so many visitors.  We were all in one house for the first half of the trip, and then we spread out into two houses for the second half.  The Degliantoni’s down the street donated their place to put everyone up, and it helped a lot with the sleeping arrangements.

I think that Kuniko’s parents enjoyed their first visit to California.  Kuniko’s dad was intensely curious about everything around him, and we spent a lot of effort trying to keep him informed and answering his questions.  The only problem was that they weren’t that comfortable just lounging around doing nothing.  They spent hours and hours on puzzles and since they couldn’t really communicate with anyone I think that at times they got lonely.  Luckily once Kuniko’s sister and her husband arrived there were more people they could talk to.

Now that we’re back in Japan we’re looking at our plans for 2014, but there are some question marks in our careers that will need to be sorted out before we do anything major.  Hopefully some of these will be resolved in the near future…

…of this year, unless my plane goes down today and then it is a totally perfect title.  I have a rare amount of free time today before we fly out to San Francisco this evening, so I figured I’d sit down and blog a bit.  This trip is the first to California in three years, and we’ll spend a very quick 10 days or so before coming back and starting back up at work.  I’m looking forward to seeing friends and family, and spending time in front of the fireplace and eating lots of Christmas foods.  Maybe some wine and eggnog, too!

Before our trip, I thought I’d take a moment to sum up 2013, and reflect a little in this post.

Travel

The year started in Bali, as we spent the New Year on the beaches and in the cafes in warm, tropical weather.  Once we got back from the trip we went right back to work, and kept busy through most of the year.  In the summer we were able to knock three countries off our list of must-see destinations, and spent a little more than two weeks in Turkey, Spain and Greece.  Every time we go to Europe we have a great time, and this was no exception.  However this time was a little less structured than usual, and a hiccup in Santorini was a real test of our stress-busting skills.  As usual, as soon as we got home the not-so-great experiences became great stories, and we’ve got nothing but good memories from the trip.

I recently locked down my career for another year, which means that is time to start thinking about where to go in 2014.  Kuniko is in the middle of an uncertain period in her career, so we’ll have to keep an eye on that situation before making solid plans.  I’d guess that this year we’ll probably spend more time in Asia – we want to go to Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea for sure – those are weekend trips.  A big trip might not happen this year, but if it does we’ll have to figure out where we’d like to go.  Next Christmas Thailand is calling our name – you just can’t beat walking around in December in shorts and sandals eating delicious Thai food and getting massages all day.  Hopefully the political situation will have settled down there by December next year.

Work

As I mentioned before, my work is set for the next year.  Last year was a pretty busy one for me, and recently I’ve been asked to teach some extra classes (for extra money) before my usual work day starts.  For the past few years we’ve been getting up every day at 4:30 a.m., which sounds brutal at first, but is something you quickly get used to.  My company recently got some (very) big contracts in the USA, and so I can clearly see a need for more English training.  For the time being, it looks like I have some job security.  The steady salary and great benefits are really nice, and I feel like I’m starting to become a fixture at the office.  There are also some intangible benefits to working for a huge company.

Kuniko’s work is more in flux, and I can’t go into it much here.  But this year will be an important year for her whatever happens.

Health

For most of this year I exercised less than before.  I hiked once a week during the spring and autumn, but the summers here are brutal and it is hard to go out in that humidity and exercise.  After a warning from the doctor during my company health check, I decided to go out and get an exercise bike and just make a habit of using it.  So far, I’ve gotten some pretty good results, and I feel much better every day.  I also got my appetite back.  Before exercising so much I felt like I was never hungry – now I definitely know when it is time to eat.  I’ve only been biking for the past month or two, but I’m looking forward to the result after winter is over.

Kuniko has a lot of stress at work, and this year it manifested itself in some health problems that put her in the hospital for a couple of days.  She missed out on her school trip to New Zealand, and I think the experience really opened up her eyes to what she puts up with at work week after week.  Lately she’s been changing small things about how she deals with situations at work, and hopefully that will result in better results down the road.  We don’t want to go through another hospital visit in the near future.

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So that’s a quick wrap-up of last year, and I’m looking forward to some new adventures next year.  We’ve had a great run with lots of good luck since we’ve been married, and we both know that sooner or later that wheel will turn and we’ll have to get through some hard times.  For now, we’re just enjoying our time in the sun, and saving away some funds in case the rain decides to come our way.

Now, off to California…

These last few weeks I’ve been cranking through classes and closing in on the end of this year.  We’ll be taking the Japan family and heading to California to celebrate Christmas and New Years there.  Before we head out, I’ve got to get my contract for next year straightened out.  Tomorrow night after work I have a meeting with the department head, and we’ll talk it out.  I’m not sure how things are going to work out – it could go anywhere from unemployment to a big raise.

Whatever happens tomorrow, Kuniko and I have plans to go out and enjoy some dinner at a local restaurant in Okubo.  The weekend is here, and it is the last weekend before our trip.  Can’t wait!

During the last weekend Kuniko and I pretty much holed up at home for some rest and recovery.  It had been a long time since Kuniko had two days off in a row, and we made the best of it.  We got some Christmas shopping done, ate, drank, exercised, and watched lots of movies while curled up on the sofa.

So imagine our surprise when suddenly Kuniko’s parents show up at our door.

It’s not like they didn’t call before.  Kuniko’s dad had left a message on her phone, but since it was upstairs we didn’t get it.  They also left a message on our machine, but likely we were out shopping at the time and didn’t get that either.  Luckily the house was in a reasonable condition, and we served them coffee and accepted a wealth of fresh vegetables and even a big bottle of sake.

They had some questions about the upcoming trip – how much money to bring, how to handle their visa and all kinds of other things that they were worried about.  We’ve traveled this route enough that we don’t really think about this stuff anymore, and it is easy to forget that other people might be wondering about what the heck is going to happen.  This is only their second time overseas, so we’ve still go to work on the basics.

Just a couple more weeks until departure for California.  Can’t wait!

Recently I’ve had my head down working hard and teaching lots of classes.  Over the past two months only two students have been absent from my class, which is pretty unusual.  Generally once or twice a week something will come up and some students can’t show up for class, which gives me a chance to catch up on paperwork and plan future lessons.  Not this time around – just work, work, work.  I’m not complaining – I like the schedule – but it does feel like a full day when it hits 5 pm.

Kuniko has also been totally busy at work, and she’s in the middle of a stretch of two weeks without a day off.  The good news is that she seems to be keeping things together, and not feeling too stressed when she gets home.

The long and the short of it is that we’re both looking forward to the end of this month and our trip out to California.  Can’t wait to rest up and see friends and family!

Last weekend Kuniko and I celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary by going out to dinner on Friday night to Anonym.  As usual we had a great dinner, and although he kept us guessing with some of the dishes, we found a couple of things we didn’t care for this time around.  Still, the guy is genius and I am perfectly willing to accept a couple of misses considering how often he hits.

Saturday Kuniko was off to work, and I met Yoshi in Sannomiya to climb the hills for a while.  This was the first time that I’d been hiking since my daily exercise bike regimen started, and I was pleasantly surprised with how much energy I had.  Yoshi also noticed that I seemed to be operating on a higher gear than normal, so I guess this daily exercise stuff really works.

We got up to the top of the mountain to a place called Morimura tree park.  We paid a paltry 300 yen and entered the park to have lunch.  The place was pretty nicely kept up, and I had no idea that it was even there.  I’m really happy that we live so close to the mountains – the range behind Kobe is always surprising me.

After lunch among the changing leaves we headed down the hill and walked right past Kuniko’s school on the way down.   In all it was about a five hour hike, and I was really glad to be back on the trail.  It’ll start to get cold soon, and hiking is a lot more of a hurried affair when it is too cold to stop and rest now and then.

Sunday Kuniko and I vegged out at home watching movies and letting her recharge her batteries, and then it was back to work today. At the end of this week I have a couple of year end parties on the schedule, so I’m hoping to burn off a few calories before then.

We had one of those working weekends recently.  By working weekends I mean, of course, that Kuniko was working.  I had lots of free time during both days, and I turned my attention to the exercise bike and a good book.

I blitzed through a book that my uncle Lynn recommended – Ready Player One.  It was a pretty geeky book that seemed to hit on just about all the memories of my childhood – Dungeons & Dragons, the Atari 2600, Apple II computers, the TRS-80, Zork, you name it.  The guy did his research and it hit just the right note.  I had some criticisms too, but overall I really liked the book and didn’t put it down until late Sunday night.

This week should be a doozy.  Wednesday is our wedding anniversary (we’ll celebrate at home) and then Thursday I’m meeting up with Antoine after work.  Friday Kuniko and I will go to Anonym for our “real” anniversary celebration, and then Saturday I’ll climb a mountain with Yoshi.  I’m hoping my legs have some energy left by then.  I’ve been punishing them on the bike on a daily basis.

Hopefully I’ll have some time to write more soon!

I bet you thought I had given this up!  It seems like I have been so busy running around planning lessons that I don’t have any time to blog.  Luckily for the blog (and unluckily for her) Kuniko is working late(r) this week and I’ll have some time here and there to write a bit.

Work continues to be busy, and I really like the group of students that I have this term.  All of them are motivated and are showing up to classes each and every time.  Sometimes I wouldn’t mind an odd cancellation to get ahead on planning and other work, but it is good to be busy.

One big event happened today – I received the results for my recent company medical check.  I was looking forward to seeing the results of my blood work.  Last year at this time I got a cholesterol reading that was getting close to out of normal – I was still in the safe zone, but it said that I should be careful as I ease into my forties.

Unfortunately this time around my cholesterol was well into the risky zone, so it is time for a change in strategy.  I know that I’m pretty good about what I eat – red meat about once a month, and we eat vegetarian between three and four days a week.  Instead I’m going to focus on more exercise.  I’ve been riding the exercise bike every day for 30 minutes, and I’ll keep that up through winter and into spring.  I also bought some vitamins and fish oil, and in combination with the fiber packs I’ve been dumping into my morning coffee every day I should be seeing some improvement.

Other than that, life is going pretty well.  I’ve got plans to meet up with Antoine, Yoshi, some ex-students, all before the end of this month.  Maybe my partying lifestyle is the root of all this…