Last week of classes for the year

It's Friday Dec. 23, which means it's the Emperor's birthday, which means it's a holiday as well as the start of my Xmas vacation. All during December there are many End of Year parties for friends and companies in Japan. You often have to reserve tables at restaurants and bars well in advance. On Monday I went with my community class from the school to an Italian restaurant (or more specificaly a Sardinian restaurant) for our class year-end party. We had some good food that we shared with each other.
Yesterday, Thursday, I wanted to go to the library, but for some reason it is always closed every fourth Thursday. It was a bit cold and very windy yesterday, but I still decided to ride to the beach after I found out that the library was closed. Since the weather was very cold for Hamamatsu, nobody was there, but it was nice walking along the windy beach and seeing the birds playing over the waves.
Actually it was cold enough that there was some snow on the ground.

On my bicycle ride home, I was very happy to see a Japanese loon in the river I was riding beside. There are actually a great variety of birds in my city since there's the ocean and a river near my apartment and it's not a far drive to get to large forests and the mountains. I often see hawks flying about. One new year's resolution for myself will be to do more birdwatching around here.

On Thursday night, I had another year-end party with a company class (Roland DG who make printers). It was nice way to have my last class for the year.^^

After this party, I went home where there was a get-together of my school's teachers before they we all took off for different countries for our winter break. And so now I can start making more specific plans for my break now. All I know now is that I'll be in Korea with Ayako from Dec. 28 to Jan. 4 and then visiting my Canadian friend, Craig, in Osaka and seeing Kyoto for a few days. Many pictures to come next year...