Month 52 Roundup – November 2016

I’ve been in Japan for four months now, and I’m definitely starting to hit my groove. Things are sailing along in my classes and the teachers and students seem to like me, so that’s good! I’m now a pro at the grocery store, the self-serve gas station and ordering at restaurants. I am still a small disaster at the post office, full-serve gas stations, and I haven’t even bothered to try going to a doctor or dentist. (Baby steps!)

I feel like I’ve had a luxurious time here, but I think a lot of that is from:

a) not working for 8 months before I got here
b) living in a third-world country for 4 years before I got here
c) working a job for the last 4 years before I got here with no such thing as weekends, and scraping by every month

So right now, and especially this past month now that I’m settled in, I’m just fully enjoying having 8:30-4:30 work hours. I love having 2-day weekends and holidays off. I love having days off in lieu of overtime. I love having a steady, consistent paycheck and low enough living expenses that I can pay off debt and still buy whatever I want at the grocery store without looking at prices, furnish my house with a style that I like, and buy myself clothes and all kinds of goodies on Amazon. I can afford to travel! And I get to do it all from a beautiful country with first-world conveniences and amazing places to explore. I think the word I’m looking for here is: I’m content.

Is every single thing sunshine and roses? No, of course not. Living somewhere that I’m 80% functionally illiterate and unable to communicate has a whole slew of stress I couldn’t have imagined. But after living on a rollercoaster for four years in Honduras, I’m SO enjoying cruising straight along on the kiddie ride.

I’m sure this feeling won’t last forever, so let’s get on with the roundup!

1. My most-liked photo on Instagram this month:

While there were a couple close seconds this month, this photo of me in front of my city’s very own “Canadian Coffee House” was my most-liked photo this month:

And I’ll give you the close second-place one too, because it’s my coffee at the coffeehouse! Check out the teeny tiny cream jug:

Note: my personal policy is that Instagram is a give and take platform. My profile is private and if you don’t have any photos on yours or you’re selling crap, I won’t accept your request, sorry! There’s just too many scam/spam profiles out there, so I don’t accept anyone who doesn’t look like a legit user.

Bonus photo not posted online – here’s a peek at the inside the coffeehouse! Super cosy and cute. Fun fact – the owner has never been to Canada, he just thought it was a cool name. (And it is, duh! Yay Canada!)

2. In case you missed it:

Well, this is two more than I did last month, so there’s that? I set a personal goal of one post a week so I kind of hit the goal of four… but I did them all in the last two weeks of November. Oh well!

• You Shook Me All Night Long




• Islands of Japan: Miyajima




• Islands of Japan: Megijima




• Dreaming of Indonesia

Another Islands of Japan series post is coming up next!

3. One second every day – November

I’m using a new app, 1 Second Everyday, to quickly chronicle my time here in Japan by taking a one second video every day. At the end of each month the app puts it together and you end up with a 30-second video of the month. I like it because it shows what I’m really doing each day, not just all the highlights of super fun stuff once in a while. I think it gives a good insight into my daily life. (Not sponsored! I just like this app!)