Booked!

Whew! It took many days of internet searching, much reading and conferring but we are finally booked and our travel dreams will come true!! My Mum arrives on December 30th and we'll have a few days of relaxing and showing her around here before we head to the Hawaii of Japan... Miyakojima. We have a full week there to explore and there won't be any snow!! I'm so excited! On January 11th we will fly to Tokyo and meet my sister. We have two nights in Tokyo and plans to watch a live Sumo Wrestling match while we're there. We found some cheap flights to get us around instead of the train so on the 13th we will fly to Kobe where we'll pick up a rental car and drive to Hiroshima. The only thing that I absolutly don't want to miss is the Peace Museum in Hiroshima so we're doing that right off. Then we'll drive back to Kyoto and turn in the car and stay there for four nights. Kyoto is the heart of cutural Japan and the main place to see original buildings that were not destroyed during the war. We found some inexpensive train/bus tickets so we'll be able to get around fairly well I think. On January 18th we will all fly back to Sapporo where we'll show Aurora and Mum around a bit more before sending them back to Canada on January 21st. I'm SO excited! We'll have lots of news and pictures to post in Januay for sure!
For now though, I'm still reaching to find anything to write about. Life just keeps on keeping on. Not much new or interesting. Last week was the AET Conference in Sapporo. It was in the same place as last year so I felt very much at home. Katherine (the JET AET from Date) came up on Wednesday evening and I drove us to Sapporo. Joisan ditched school for the two days and came with us as she wanted to explore and do some Christmas shopping. I did have to really think about it before I would agree to my 13 year old exploring downtown Sapporo by herself but in the end I realized that not only is it a very safe city (crime is very low here) but I was able to navigate the subways and find my way around last year when I had even less Japanese than I do now!
We had a great time - Joisan took herself to the JR tower and to another shopping centre where she was able to find a Subway for her lunch! I skipped the JET socializing and took the subway to meet her at the JR tower for dinner and some shopping. The next day I missed some of the afternoon session - which was really not applicable to me anyway - and met her for some more shopping. We did really well and finished up most of our Christmas shopping. There are some photos somewhere - I'll add them soon.
On the way back from Sapporo we stopped at Costco where I managed to spend almost $400. Wow! It goes fast! We are planning a Canadian Christmas dinner for the 25th and we'll probably have around 20 people for that. I was very surprised to find a turkey at Costco - last year we couldn't find one anywhere!
I've been going to Yosakoi (Japanese Folk Dancing) for about a month and a half now. Unfortunately, it seems that my back is suffering - despite much warming up and cooling down. There are many low, bending moves and lots of jumping. I've been careful about my knees - particularly since they dance on a concrete floor covered in carpet. There have been "twinges" over the last few days though that tell me that my dancing career is at an end! Too bad :(
I am completely wracked by guilt most of the time due to my lousy blogging lately. The computer situation at school has deteriorated again - I no longer have access to the internet on a regular or reliable basis. However, it is my New Years resolution to be posting at least once a week after we get back from our travels. I'll have lots of cool photos and stories to share then I'm sure.