The Rest of the Break

My ten days off is drawing to a close. On the whole it's been fairly relaxed, but I'm still feeling exhausted - or maybe that's from having done two all-nighters in the week.

The first one was a sayonara (farewell) party for Eras, my Dutch housemate - and one of the house 'family'. I organised a big surprise party with twenty people at the Keio Beer Garden in Shinjuku and actually managed to pull it off without him finding out. After a couple of fun and noisy hours in the beer garden we ended up with a few hours of karaoke, finally tumbling into bed at 5.15am -

and getting up at 8am to tumble into a car and drive with Eras to the airport for a sad farewell.

Anke, another of my house family, leaves at the end of the month. It IS inevitable the people you get close to here leave. I've had lots of good friends leaving in the time I've been in Japan - but it doesn't make it easier.

The rest of the week has been filled with lunches, hanging out, exhibitions and generally having a nice relaxing time - and clubbing last night.

And the has gone nasty - lots of rain and it's cold. brrrr!!!