Thanksgiving

Friday was a holiday here in Japan (Labour Thanksgiving Day), and since it was the day after the American Thanksgiving Day, a great big "pot luck" party was enjoyed at Andrea's house.

Of course it was a fantastic success. Roast turkey perhaps being the best thing, and the huge cockroach appearing probably being the worst (for the hostess at least)! In one of my chat's with new ALT James, he mentioned that by searching for my local wellness resort Windy on Google (who's name is only mentioned in the comments section, not the actual post), he stumbled upon this blog and quickly identified it as mine. I guess posting pictures of myself isn't helping me hide my digital footprint very much, is it.

But that's not my point. My point is that I checked out the post he was probably talking about and found it to be this one: The Changing Seasons of Toyama. The interesting coincidence is that I wrote that nearly exactly one year ago (November 21st), after I had just spent this long weekend in Tokyo.

It was nice to have a record of life one year ago and has shown me the value of recording the things that happen. If you don't keep a blog, I hope you keep a diary!

In the entry, I talked a little bit about my decision to re-contract or not, and so far I'm glad I have stayed. I don't think I would have been emotionally ready to leave, but I almost certainly will be this time.

I've got a bit more of an idea about what I'd like to do from now on, but I'm not going to talk about it any more, I'm just going to do it.

Question of the day.

Why is Japan ok with the fact that in any toilet you can wash your bottom with a jet of warm water, and blow dry it, but you have to wash your hands in ice cold water, and be offered no place to dry them?

Charity Widget

YOU can make a difference

This Christmas I'll be travelling again. This time to Malaysia, Singapore and Cambodia. While Singapore is fully developed and Malaysia not far behind, Cambodia has had a difficult past and listening to my friends experiences who have already been, I wanted to do something before I set off.

With this in mind I have started the fund raising of $10,000 with my travel buddies, Jake, Andrea and Jose, to a build a library in Cambodia. We're already 1/20th of the way there, and with a lot of people giving a small amount, we'll make it before my Christmas deadline.

We've organised a charity dinner for next week which costs in the almighty British currency about £10 to attend, with £2.50 of that going to our charity - Room To Read

Room to Read, the not-for-profit who will do the building, will keep us posted on every step of construction, and their work was recently commended by Bill Clinton at his Clinton Global Initiative (And you know I'm a fan of his now!).

To all my friends outside Japan, sorry, I know you'd want to attend the dinner if you were in town. But don't worry, please just use the fund raising page below where you can easily leave your $5 (it's an American website) or what ever you can afford by credit card and receive a record of your donation. It's completely safe and secure.

Here's my page, and even if you don't have anything to spare, please just click on the link and have a look:

http://www.firstgiving.com/cambodianlibrary

Thanks for helping to make a difference.