Japan: 6-28 January, 2007

After a 6 hour stop over in Seoul Airport, we made it into Japan late on 6th January. Just in time to catch the end of the New Year celebrations. Staying with the Takahashi's in Nishi-Kawaguchi, we visited their small local shrine and made our New Year wish.

Leaving Japan in June 2006 had been rushed, to say the least. We bearly managed to do the essentials, leaving little time to bring this chapter of our lives to a close on an emotional level. 7 months have passed and it still feels like home. But a little more distant. Japan that will probably always feel like one of our homes. But we are both content with our decision to move on. Sad but cotent.

We have been busy seeing our lovely friends and host families here. Saying hello, happy new year, catching up, and saying farewell all in one.

Ingelheim, Germany: 3-5 January, 2007

We left the cold and overcast Edinburgh and flew to the cold and overcast Frankfurt. It had been 7 months since we arrived in Frankfurt from Japan. Now it was time to retrace our steps. The sunny warm days we had experienced in Germany in June were over, but the towns were still beautiful and almost too close to perfect to trust. We had been kindly invited to stay at Mr & Mrs Haffner's house in Ingelheim, meaning that we have now stayed at all the Haffner's households: Max and Angelika in Mainz when we arrived in June, Michael and Rike in Hamburg after their wedding, and Tilman and Viveca in Bern after cheese making in the Alps with them. Mr & Mrs Haffner's are both architects so their house was a delight to spend time in. Possibly the most well organised home I have ever set foot in. Unfortunately it seemed like Zoe had exerted herself too much with the Scottish dancing and had come down with a cold, so spent most of our time in Germany in bed. But Craig borrowed a bicycle and road north along the Rhine River, discovering yet more Germany castles.

New Year Celebrations in Edinburgh

We left the US on 28 December and slowly made our way back to Southerness. We had a couple to days to recover, prepare, and say our farewells to friends and family in Southerness before heading up to Edinburgh to see 2007 in. Similar to the Arts Festival in August, Edinburgh is abuzz with events at this time of year. The main event being the street party: the center of the city is closed off with about 5 stages for various bands to play and a fireworks display from the castle. 120,000 people were expected. But gale force winds caused it to be called off. Seeing we made a special effort to be there for it and Craig's relative Kyles had kindly got passes for us, we would usually have been quite disappointed. But fate had it that instead we had a great time at a traditional Ceilidh (Scottish Country Dance Party). Zoe was a natural. Noone would have known that she had never danced a Scottish dance before. We even sung and danced to the traditional Scottish Auld Lang Syne. We had been given tickets from Craig's relatives, Janelen and Derek (since Derek was sick), so their friends taught us the steps and encouraged us to try almost every dance. A lot of fun and sweating was done. Sore muscles the next day too.

After a couple of days to recover from the festivites, we had a feast at Janelen and Derek's house with their sons Malcolm and David. It was our last night in Scotland, and a good end to this chapter of the trip.