Life in Fukuoka "English"

【Look Back on 2021 & New Year's resolution】

Well, it is the last show of the year today as we are very quickly approaching 2022. How was the past year for you?
Mine was pretty good. Camping has become quite the popular activity over these last two years due to not being able travel internationally and so there has been a lot of focus on camping supplies in shops and online. As a result, I've found so much great camping equipment and managed to go camping a few times this year. There are so many wonderful campsites in Kyushu, we went to a few in the Kuju area and even did a camping van trip in Hokkaido this year. I think next year we'll continue with this new hobby of ours.
I also started a patisserie course at Nakamura Culinary School in Hirao. I'm always really impressed with the cakes and other confections I see at shops around town and decided to give it a try myself. We're only halfway through the course, but I've made so many different things and I think I'm getting better at it although recent attempts at cake decorating haven't been as good at home as at school.
Some exciting news over the year that happened in Japan was the opening of Super Nintendo World at USJ. Well, personally, I found it exciting. I don't really play games but grew up with Super Nintendo and Mario and it feels like my childhood come to life. I haven't been yet, but I'm planning on being there tomorrow. Fingers crossed it's everything I've always imagined it to be.
Generally speaking, I guess a lot happened around the world this year, some good, some bad. For me, I thought these two stories were nice. First, the Perserverence touched down on Mars back in February which was a huge event. And the mini helicopter Ingenuity that Perserverence carried to Mars even flew on the planet, which is just amazing technology. And, new animal species were discovered, including a tiny nano chameleon, small enough to sit on the tip of a person's finger.
At home in the US, the biggest news was that my great aunt turned 100! My family turned out to celebrate with her, they gave her a big surprise party. Otherwise, it was life as usual for the folks back home it seems.
There was a lot of other news but rather than reliving some of the things we'd probably rather forget, I guess it's time to move on to 2022. So what do you think 2022 will be like? Fingers crossed we can get out of this pandemic, I know there are a lot of people who haven't been able to meet friends and family in person due to travel restrictions and I hope next year that people will be able to meet up again. I imagine next year we'll see more technology, that seems to be changing so fast all the time anyway.
Is there anything you want to do in 2022? I'd like to learn how to bake bread like I see in the bakeries here, guess I'll have to find a good course for that. I'd also like to get my Japanese level up a bit higher, I took the JLPT exam earlier this month but I'm so out of practice that I don't think I did that well. I guess my new year's resolution is to study harder!
I guess we still have a few more days before we have to make our new year's resolutions though, plenty of time to think about what to do in the new year.

Well, enjoy these last few days of 2021 whatever you do, whether it's a bit of travel, spending time with family and friends or getting some quiet “me” time in.
Thank you as well for joining me throughout the year for Life in Fukuoka. I hope the information has been useful and interesting for you.
There will be plenty more of it next year as well, so hopefully we can continue helping you out with information on how to make life a little more comfortable here in Fukuoka City.