Happy New Year! I hope you had a nice, relaxing time during the holiday. How did you ring in the New Year? We went to Sengen shrine in Fujinomiya on January 1st. It wasn’t as busy as I had expected so we got to the front of the shrine after only 5 minutes of waiting! Maybe that’s because we went in the afternoon instead of the morning. I remember last year it was very cold there, but this year it has been unseasonably warm, so we had a nice time looking around the shrine.

Over Christmas we went to Yokohama for three days. It was our first family trip with the three of us, and I noticed how much extra planning and packing has to be done when you have a one year old child. We stayed in the Prince Hotel on the 37th floor! We went to the Anpanman museum on Christmas Eve. As you would expect there were hundreds of children running around and having fun. My daughter is a big fan, so she had a fantastic time seeing her hero dance around on stage. On Christmas Day we went to Ueno Zoo in Tokyo. I liked the dark nocturnal horse, but I think it scared my daughter. Later that day we went to an illumination near Tokyo Station. There was a big path of lights leading up to the front of the station which was lit up in many bright colours. It was an amazing holiday, there’s so much to do around Yokohama and Tokyo!

I hope everyone is well rested, and now that “Shogatsu” is over it’s time to get back to work. I’m looking forward to another great year in 2016.

Alan