Bing Bong ! ( that is the sound for door bell in Japan ) 4 pm sharp and the first guests , a mother and her little daughter (kawai ! means cute in Japanese)  arrived.

Just a little background regarding this party… after moving into our new home at Yaotome, Sendai we went to all our neighbours ( 70 households ) to introduce ourselves to them and invited them to our Christmas cum House Warming party on 25 Dec 2013. We wrote an invitation card ( personally written in Japanese ) and together with a small cake we went to invite our neighbours. They were invited to come anytime from 4 pm till 9 pm. We managed to invite 40 plus households cos some were not in and some did not accept our gifts. We prepared our food , decorated our apartment , prepared a simple slide show to introduce Singapore , our families and what we do.

So it was a pleasant surprise when the door bell rang at 4 pm and our first family arrived and they kept coming throughout the time from 4 pm till 9 pm. All in 9 households and 2 Japanese teachers came to our party. What was so amazing to us is that the families came at different times although they were not scheduled. If everyone came at the same time our little living room would not be able to accommodate everyone. So as each family came , we were able to serve them food , chit chat with them , screen our slide show , sang Christmas songs and watch a Gospel Hula performance ( 2 of our Japanese friends Rose and Violet  who lives in Sendai came to join us ) . Violet did her dance and shared about how she uses this dance to bring joy to the people living in the Kasetsujyutaku It was a wonderful evening as we connected with our  teachers and neighbours , ( they enjoyed connecting with each other too cos they may have lived in that block for a long time but never got to know each other ).

The weather was cold outside ( 1 degree C ) but our hearts were warmed by the friendship we make with our teachers and neighbours.