Musings - Cannot think of anything better to call my random thoughts!

Well Andrew has well and truly finished his job in Japan, although he does not seem to understand that this means he does not need to go to the office (I am sure he will make four out of five days this week!) . We are trying to finalise our plans for moving out - it is looking at the moment like it might be the last week in February before I get the movers in to pack us and finally depart for Hong Kong. Poor Sachi is going to have to put up with many visits from the pet sitter in the next few weeks as I have three trips to Bangkok planned in the weeks before I leave, and we have a week long trip to the snow in the North of Japan over Chinese New Year at the beginning of February.

We will definitely miss Japan, although it makes sense on so many levels to be leaving. I will have much more freedom to find a job that does not involve constant travel, and Andrew's job at Sungard gives him good opportunities to build networks back into New Zealand. It is also a challenge - something his job (although cruisey!) was just not giving him at Metlife/Alico. We will miss the ultra polite culture, the stunningly beautiful winter days where you freeze but the sky is sooooo blue and the amazing food. We are not looking forward to the humidity and smog of Hong Kong, but at least the church is 1000% more onto it :-)

Andrew starts his new job on Monday and is flying directly from here to Vietnam for a start-of-year kick off conference for his company. He will then fly into Hong Kong on Friday and begin the job of trying to find us the best place to live. Please pray for us as we balance the convenience of city living with the affordability of living outside the city. We need to make the right decision as leases in HK are usually for two years with significant penalties for leaving within 12 months. Andrew will also need to make the decision on his own as I cannot get to HK in the next few weeks so that also adds some stress to the equation. On the positive side, I think he has selected 4 out of 5 of our last apartments without me seeing them and he has done pretty well so far!

I am in Bangkok for the next two weeks working with a team from NZ on some nasty performance issues my client has. I have insisted on coming home for the weekend (could not leave the poor cat on her own for two straight weeks!), but in some ways that just makes the whole period even more stressful with an extra set of 6 hour flights to get me home and back. I will be looking forward to that week off!

We spent New Year in Seoul - predominately because it is the closest country to fly to from Japan and it was important for tax reasons that Andrew was out of Japan (and handed back his 'Alien Card' on leaving) on Dec 31 and Jan 1. This saved us about 10% of his 2010 income in tax, so was well worth doing! Here are our photos from Seoul...honestly... don't bother!

The Christmas Tree beside the skating rink in the middle of town.




















A kind of Korean Style Gate... we had to find something kind of local to take a picture of!



















And here are my favourite pictures of Andrew and Sachi this week - very typical poses in the Tokyo cold...


Finally... the view sunset outside my home office window this week - who could ask for more!

Love

Sonia