Happy Moo Year

Yes, we are neck-deep into week 1 of the Year of the Cow (or "ox" if you wanna be all old-school, but cows are moar cute yuh-huh). It's supposed to be my year. Thus far it's been a mixture of awesome and failure. Awesome mostly coming from my winter vacation in the FROZEN NORTHLANDS Oh My God Snow!!!! :D And chocolate, and REAL cheese, and sloppy joes for dinner & waffles for breakfast, and fireplaces, and homey Midwestern-Americans who pronounce their o's kinda funny but at least they don't need to keep giving me verbal cues to constantly reassure me that our social relationship is A-OK.

Not that I didn't miss Japan. I totally missed out on New Year's Eve + sunrise at Ise's sun-goddess shrine, and that only happens once a year :c Also I missed the national transportation system that actually works. Most of the time. When I don't bork my timing. That was the failure I mentioned way up there ^

After a day of risking pulmonary embolisms in planes, (for some reason I never think "ohmygod what if the plane crashes????" - it's always "ohmygod what if the blood in my legs clots because I can't goddamn move and it gets into my lungs or my brain and I DIE????" I'm getting aisle seats from now on, because apparently nobody in the world has properly functioning kidneys anymore so they NEVER PEE or get up to do anything EVER and I'm stuck feeling like a jerk 'cause I made the 6'8" guy who just found the one comfy position in his undersized seat move to let me out again) I was finally in familiar territory in Nagoya. Express train from airport to main city station, express train from main city station home. Easy.

Except I took the wrong express train home. Not really the WRONG one, just the one that left for Toba 13 minutes too late to catch a local train back to my town. And by "left for Toba" I actually mean "left for Ujiyamada and you have to take the local Toba train to actually get to Toba." In my defense, I hadn't eaten for about 4 hours and used those 13 extra minutes to find food.

Totally against my defense, though, I'm already well-versed in the weasely bait-and-switches Kintetsu likes to pull with their train service, so I really should have just hopped the first train back to be safe. I knew better. In my defense again, though, 15 hours of airline travel. Brain not working at full capacity.

Oh well. All the craptacular travel experiences Japan can throw at me (and really that's been the only one thus far, and not nearly as harrowing as being stranded somewhere in the States or, yanno, any other country that's not Japan. Both of which have happened before) won't take away from the awesome winter break I had. Movies and music and hanging out and sleeping in, and even though I am contractually obligated as a former Chicagoan to forever grudge Macy's their blackhearted takeover of Marshall Field's, I DID find an awesome fitted shirt there, and a jacket as well, both on sale thank you shopping mojo <3

So, to wrap up, things the new year holds:
shopping mojo (always)
little ceramic cows that go "dingle-dingle-dingle!"
enough Americana to last for the next 18 months
books, books, all kinds of books! (thanks, Mom & Dad!)
grad school apps
new first-year students
at least 3 new babies (lots of young married teachers in my office)
at least 1 new prime minister (lolz j/k...or AM I???)
AT LAST a new president
adventure, alliteration, serial commas, and onomatopoeia