First two weeks of November

So November 1st marked my three month anniversary in Japan and Stuart had just gone home the night before so it was a day of mixed emotions, although playing futsal with a few JETs after work helped run off some nervous energy. After taking most of the two weeks while he was here to spend with him there was more than enough work to keep me busy when I got back to the office so this blog post should be short and sweet.

Luckily, the 3rd of November was a holiday and Reichell happened to be over from the Philippines for work at Rokko Island, Kobe for the week, so I headed out there on the 2nd after work for okonomiyaki and a sleepover and we went to Spa World the next day and enjoyed the day just chilling and finished with takoyaki in Shinsekai afterwards - perfect! Lovely to catch up with such an awesome girl

Had an international "saloon" event on Saturday the 6th where a couple of Western guys who are married to Japanese girls spoke about adjusting to life here (luckily I didnt fit the criteria so didnt have to give a speech) just mingle and chat with people about differences in living in Japan compared to New Zealand - like being able to pay your gas and power bill at the convenience store at the same time as you're buying an ice cream....That night I went over to Louises place in Shirasagi for a scary movie night where we watched Scream and a Spanish film "Rec" and ate far too much pizza, lemon slice, popcorn, marshmellows and coke but had a great night.

The main thing in the last two weeks though was gettting Sakais presentation all ready for the Regional Promotion Seminar that would be held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tokyo on the 18th of November and I had a CIR Conference in Chiba from 15-17 so it all had to be done by Friday the 12th. Only getting the Japanese presentation on Wednesday the 10th (and they added one more slide and made a few changes on Thursday) meant it was quite a full on couple of 12 hours days to get it all translated and the speech written but it will be worth it!











So with a week of seminars and presentations to look forward to (in the upcoming blog) on Saturday the 13th I headed off to Tokyo to enjoy a couple of days with old friends...