Turn Of The Year Mayhem

After returning from Hong Kong we immediately started preparing for my step-daughter to visit and join us in bringing in 2016.

We headed to Tokyo on New Year’s Eve day, as is our tradition while in Japan, and had a reservation at our favorite little boutique hotel (Sakura Fleur Aoyama)in Shibuya.  The decor is cute, gothic french quarter, at least that’s how I describe it.  The step-daughter found it creepy and hard to fall asleep in.  However, the mayhem of bringing in 2016 started about an hour before that when I accidentally dropped my wallet at Shinagawa train station.  Normally, this is not reason to panic because everyone knows if you lose something in Japan there’s a 99% chance someone will turn it in or you’ll find it exactly where you dropped it.  Of course, I was the 1% who dropped it and never saw it again.

The lobby wall paper is skulls

Let’s do an inventory of everything in my little Coach coin purse that someone took off with:

• Military Dependent ID
• Joint Credit Card
• Personal Credit Card
• Checking Account Debit Card
• 13,000 yen
• Pasmo card with about 3500 yen on it

I went directly to Lost and Found at the station but it was not turned in.  Trying hard not to have a complete meltdown my husband sobered me up asking is this going to ruin the night?  Should we go home?  No! I wasn’t going to allow that to happen so I sucked it up and we bought a ticket to get me to Shibuya.  Cue in hotel drama… Cancelled credit cards and notified the bank -Anxiety –  we wanted to take a nap so we would be energetic for a late night out but it was a bit difficult.  We did get about an hour.  Then off to find some food and a pretty good time at Hobgoblins, an English type pub in Shibuya.  We were there last year as well, they throw a pretty decent party with a small live band and always happy people.  It was fun and we ended up with new friends from Australia.

Went home the next day and continued cancelling stuff.  Completely stressed and upset to the point of an upset stomach for a couple of days and to reward myself, my body then decided to produce a cold sore on my lip.  Something I inherited and been plagued with most of my life off and on.  There it is.  I said it… I get cold sores when I stress out.. go ahead and make fun.

Then Monday while rushing to get my ID taken care of my left foot slid off the edge of the sidewalk and I very neatly sprained the hell out of my ankle which swelled up and had me pretty much out of commission all this last week.

Did I mention I joined a Yoga Camp for January?  Yep, it started on the 1st and is a new video every day which I was not able to do for the first few days.  I have started doing it but only partially because  I’m an idiot who sprained her ankle.  So, I just did day 4 and just received day 8 notice on email.   Diana’s Fit Club Diary entry for 2016 is starting off with a twist…ha!  See what I did there?

On a happier note:

I survived the first week of 2016!  With the help and motivation of my friend Shirley to push thru and start the daily yoga habit and I am happy to be using my new 2016 Date Book and loving it!   Also, I have joined a Reading Challenge for 2016 and a monthly book club through Travel Blogger – World of Wanderlust.

Also, we have been given the go ahead to announce publicly that we are NOT going to Hawaii next as we thought, instead we are preparing to move to Naples, Italy in March.  Yep, ITALY!  I’m so freaking excited I can hardly stand it.

More on that as it gets closer.

To sum up…The turn of 2016 tried to break me but I survived the onslaught and am ready to take the rest on.

Oh and to my mother:  there is a new pizza place just outside the gate here which I have avoided (because pizza is bad) until a couple of days ago and it was amazing!  The young pizza chef is straight from Napoli and makes a killer pizza.  I was chatting with him and he said he makes the tiramisu (we are going back to try it) then asked if I like Limoncello… why yes, yes I do!! … he promptly grabbed two shot glasses and poured us a shot.  It was lovely.  Nice priming for our move in March.

Cute plates

Check out the olive oil decanter!!! I want one!

We ordered the special, which has Japanese sausage on it, mozzarella and red pepper.