Happy New Year! Time to start losing weight.

あけましておめでとうございます！今年もよろしくお願いします。

Happy New Years in Japan is all about the postcards. Everybody sends there custom made New Year's cards to the 500 people they know and the people they may not know just in case they left someone out. I can't believe how much work the post office does to deliver all of these cards to your house on New Year's Day.

This past holiday was filled with friends, travel, and of course, food. Around this holiday season, the Japanese people now how to eat. I think every event or party is based around food. I participated in only 3 Christmas parties this year. I first had my English class Christmas party where we had very little food for substance and way to many sweets. Followed by our BEST Christmas party and then our church potluck dinner for our Christmas Eve celebration.

I then went on a 3 day retreat with three other mid-term staff to Karuizawa where we had our American getaway while still in Japan. And of course what else would we do but eat all the food that we normally can't get. Thus having three days of stuffing ourselves with delicious food.

I then went down to Osaka and enjoyed a week with my roommates family. It is very interesting how Japanese view foreigners, especially our roommates mother. There is the traditional size of what a person should eat. Their mother thinks that her sons should eat about 3 times the amount of the traditional size. Then comes in the foreigner factor (aka gaijin factor). This is when she makes so much food your forced to eat about 5 times as much as the traditional size because I am a guy and I am bigger than the average Japanese person. Even though our stomach size is probably similar, it sure isn't anymore. So for about 6 straight days we ate and then ate some more. I am very thankful for their kindness even though I always have to end up dieting afterward.