Another year has gone by, and I thought I would discuss some of the interesting things that happened that I haven’t posted until now.

First, a list of events or incidents that occurred…

• This December marked my 10-year anniversary of teaching abroad, although I didn’t do anything special to celebrate. (I actually forgot about the timing until someone else mentioned it.)
• My trusty bike that I bought when I first arrived in August 2022 is no longer with me. The bike lock became jammed and wouldn’t budge, even with the key. I ended up having to have it picked up, as I wasn’t about to try to wheel it all over town looking for a locksmith with one usable wheel.
• After a year of quite low monthly health insurance payments and no residential tax, I finally started to pay residential tax and saw a significant increase in my monthly health insurance payments (by a full place value). Great, now I feel like a real resident.
• After 1.5 years, I was finally able to reunite with a dear friend from Shanghai who had moved to Qatar. This also ended up being my first trip ever to the Middle East (more on that in a future post).

Along the way, I also captured some interesting sights.

Grocery Store-Food

Sunsets

Miscellaneous

Welcome to 2024!

and…

Well, Japan has wasted no time in staring off the new year with some excitement. I wonder what other events will happen.

Stay tuned for my next post about my trip to the Middle East.