David @ Tokyo

Yesterday I booked my flight back home for my christmas holiday.

Schedule:
2005/12/17 - Depart Tokyo
2005/12/18 - Arrive home (11:55)

2005/12/25 - Christmas!

2005/12/26 - Hopefully boxing day cricket and lots of Tui beer...

2005/12/27 - Depart home (07:00) (yes, ouch that early - options were limited)
2005/12/27 - Arrive Tokyo

Grand total cost of 171,310 yen (2,228.31 NZD). Holy smokes huh. That ain't cheap. Next year I could spend the same amount and probably visit 3 Asian countries for some nice tropical beach holidays. That might be on the cards - I've not travelled much at all in the 3 years I've been in Japan.

Obviously would like to be able to spend longer at home (and not at work) but I've only got 4 more days paid vacation left and you never know when you'll get a nasty flu that puts you out of action for 2 weeks (i.e, like this year in Feb 2005 when it cost me 1/4 of a month's pay since I was on probation).
Also work is going to be busy at year end - lots of happening on the first couple of business days of 2006 so our 3 strong team will have to be out in full force. Hope the others also manage to schedule a holiday for themselves...