New year and Japanese hospitality

The Christmas lights waved their goodbyes as we welcomed the New Year

I spent the new year in the best company with my friend, her Japanese husband and their son, also my godson. It was the most fun I have ever had at New Year and it was all due to relaxed friendly company.

We did quite ordinary New Year things. We popped open bottles of kids and adult's champagne and made a toast with shouts of  "Kampai!". I learnt that if one were to go to Japan and try and toast with the English greeting "gin gin" one would get rather embarrassed looks as it means a man's private parts in Japanese. The things you learn.

We ate a lot of traditional Finnish New Year's food, which is pretty simple including sausages and potato salad. After we had eaten our stomachs full we decided to go outside and view the fireworks and the beautiful night sky. I showed my godson where Otava is, the only constellation that I can find in the night sky. I was reminded that maybe I should learn some more stars, as there are a lot of constellations that I can recognize but do not know the names of. It would be cool to look at the night sky and make some sense of the universe around us.

We also waved around some sparkly sticks, which looked enchanting in the cold dark night. After we returned to the house my godson went to sleep and I got to tuck him into bed. My heart melted because he kept saying how happy he was that I was there and that I was staying the night. After tucking in the sweet but tired 5-year-old his parents turned to their new Playstation 4 and asked me if I wanted to play some Resident Evil 2, a co-operational game where two characters investigate scary locations and fight off zombies. I've never been much of a horror fan but the game turned out to be really exciting. We took turns in playing, I would search the crowds with a character, until a zombie would attack at which point I quickly threw the controller to my friend and looked at the pair of them fighting off zombies with horror. A lot of swearing was involved in my part, but eventually I grew brave enough to  even kill a zombie of my own. Even though, initially, the idea of playing a horror video game would never have crossed my mind as being fun, it turned out to be just that. Perhaps I can tolerate some horror after all. What made it fun, was that we were playing together, fighting the zombies off as a team. I imagine it would have been much scarier to play by oneself. Sitting there, looking at my friends playing a video game together after their child had gone to bed I thought to myself that they have quite a wonderful life in a way. I wouldn't mind a relationship myself where I blast off zombie brains together with my husband after our children have gone to bed.

After spilling enough zombie brains it was coming towards the turn of the decade so my friend's husband went to make us a nice warm bowl of soba, for new year. Apparently soba is a traditional japanese dish for new year, and as the clock turned twelve we made a toast again and slurped up the delicious dish of noodles.

After a lovely evening together it was a time to go to bed, and I was greeted in my bed by four cuddly animals, graciously lent to me by my godson so I could sleep well. I lay smiling in bed thinking about the fun evening and looking back at the year 2019 and wondering what 2020 would bring into my life.

To celebrate the end 2019 here are 19 things that I am grateful for about last year:

1. My family
2. My friends
3. Travels to islands
4. Feeling joy and a love for life and the people around me
5. Being able to attend so many cool improv workshops and connecting with other improvisers
6. Espoo goes Impro -festival, where I felt very loved and accepted as a teacher and improviser
7. Deep conversations with people
8. Overcoming the feelings of failure and disappointment
9. Laughing with my grandmother and great aunt
10. Being able to spend time with my dog brother
11. Rehearsing and practising with Jenni for Jeeves!
12. Reconnecting with old friends
13. Despite breaking my ankle, being relatively healthy
14. Because of the broken ankle, having a break to think and breathe
15. An open mic where I spoke the truth and it moved people, that moved also me.
16. Feeling hopeful
17. Being open about my feelings
18. Finishing some sort of a version of my thesis
19. To be able to end it in such great company

What are you happy about in your life right now? What sort of dreams do you have for the future? I hope to have many new adventures with the people that I love. Perhaps we will share some adventures this year? Let me know, if you'd like that, and we can plan some adventures together :)