A new year...

has begun. It is the year of the tiger and a year that will mean a lot of change for us. We have six months left on the contract here in Tokyo and after that we will be moving back to Stockholm. Not only have we sold the apartment in Stockholm but also I will be out of job as my office in Kista will be closed shortly after we return. So we basically move back to no house and no job. We are not too worried about that situation but instead it feels like we have an opportunity to try something new, both when it comes to what to do for work as well as where to live. And I hope it will result in some time off from the working part of life and spend some time with Maki and Kai.

We will start the new year in a good way. On Monday we leave for almost two weeks holiday in Australia. As normal we have not made much detailed planning but on a high level we will fly to Melbourne and stay there for a couple of days with Maki's cousin and her family. After that we will take a few days and drive a rental car 1000km up to Sydney and spend a week in the Sydney area, partly with a friend and his family. So it will be quite an adventure to bring Kai on this trip but we have a lot of time and no need to stress so think it will be very nice trip.













This is how big little Kai grew in 2009. On the 3rd month's checkup he measured 64cm and 6,8kg (a 134% increase).


















In japan it is tradition to go to the temple on new year's day. This is a small temple close to our friend's house where we spent new year's eve and stayed over night.















New year's holiday equals "lucky bag" season. A lucky bag (fuku bukuro) is a closed bag with mixed clothes or any other things with a total value of 5-10 times more than the bag is sold for, at least this is what the stores claim but I must admit it often seems to be a pretty good deal buying one of these bags. The thing is that you can of course not see what's inside if you like it or not.

There is nothing Maki like more than shopping for lucky bags and here is the first one she bought on the way home yesterday.















And this is the second one she bought today. The clothes she got was so good so there is a great chance that there will be a third one tomorrow!















Have to agree with this tiger. Happy new year 2010!