{"id":2238,"date":"2012-11-28T14:27:48","date_gmt":"2012-11-28T05:27:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/?p=2238"},"modified":"2012-11-28T14:27:48","modified_gmt":"2012-11-28T05:27:48","slug":"december-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/2012\/11\/december-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"December 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Season\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Greetings!<\/p>\n

The Christmas tree is up outside the school office. Seeing it this morning, I am not going to lie, I gasped in delight and was therefore very happy that it was in the middle of first period and no-one else was around. Christmas is upon us! Okay, not for a few more weeks, but when you count weeks by weekends, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s practically tomorrow. I should really get on and try to do something resembling Christmas shopping. Or just claim shipping is far too expensive and decide to ignore it (though where\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the fun in that?)<\/p>\n

A small part of my being still rejects the idea that I have to take nenkyuu so I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to work on Christmas Day, and a Christmas cake should still involve a fruit cake rather than a pile of strawberries and cream, but Christmas is Christmas is Christmas. Fairy lights twinkling, Christmas songs playing and shop windows\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6displaying(?) all give me that little skip in my step that makes me feel like a five year old again. I may not decorate my house\/room\/desk in any way at all (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Whaaaat?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I hear you cry) but that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stop me ooing over decorations and cards in Loft (sooo pretty, but sooo expensive ><) or appreciating the indignation on my ex-coworker’s face upon being told he couldn’t put Christmas lights on his desk because of the resulting increase in the school’s electric bill. Whether you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re spending the holidays in Japan, overseas, at home, with family, with friends, on your own or some combination of the above, I hope fun times are had, and far too much food is eaten (since that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the point of Christmas right?)<\/p>\n

So anyway, what do we have for you in this month\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s edition of the HT? Nothing overly festive (the wonders of writing for a deadline halfway through November no doubt) but wonders nevertheless. The second installment on the Pilgrimage trail takes us to Hokkezan Ichij\u00c5\u008d-ji, and yours truly got a bit carried away writing about the Ogasawara Islands.\u00c2\u00a0 We also have a new contributor in the shape of Ulu Mills who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s looking to help us actually become eco-friendly rather than just use it as a topic for speech contests\/to sell people new electronic equipment\/more cars\/etc. Hope springs eternal in Love and Relationships, we have a restaurant review for when that hope proves fruitful, and another delicious installment in the recipe corner that I am very excited to try out as lotus roots are really tasty. This month\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s message from the block (6 that is) comes courtesy of the lovely Anna.<\/p>\n

It is getting colder, so grab a hot chocolate, curl up under a kotatsu, and enjoy.<\/p>\n

And MERRY CHRISTMAS!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Season\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Greetings! The Christmas tree is up outside the school office. Seeing it this morning, I am not going to lie, I gasped in delight and was therefore very happy that it was in the middle of first period and no-one else was around. Christmas is upon us! Okay, not for a few more weeks,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false},"categories":[305,278],"tags":[238],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/DSC_0398-e1354080247871.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2238"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}