Luna's super Marios meet Super Santa!

As Christmas sneaks up on us, in tow comes our annual Christmas party!
A huge thank you to everyone who came to celebrate with us and a special shout out to Yukari for the incredible organisation of food, venue and fun, Cedric, Matt and Naomi for helping to keep the whole thing afloat, Jim for being the backbone of the entire celebration, and Santa himself for taking time out of his busy schedule to help us spread Christmas cheer!

Complete with games, smiles and presents galore, it was a brilliant way to end 2018.
We look forward to seeing you back at Luna from the 7th of January.

Take a peek at the festivities with the link below:

https://flic.kr/s/aHskP7zoey

Merry Christmas everybody!

The Unseen Danger

 There has always been a stigma around solo female travellers. As one myself, the questions “you’re travelling by yourself?” and “aren’t you scared something will happen?” have hung around like a bad smell ever since I left home. I’d always had the idea in my head that I would be fine; I’m smart about how I travel, I contact my family every chance I get and I trust my gut. I’ve always been a very trusting person, believing the best in people until proven otherwise. That is, until now.

On the 1st of December 2018, a young woman went missing. She went by the name of Grace Millane and she was six weeks in on a year-long trip around the world. Having spent most of that time in South America, she headed to New Zealand and explored the Far North before checking into a backpackers in Auckland. Here she stayed for less than a week before supposedly going on a date, and this was the last time known that she was seen alive.

New Zealand is globally recognised as one of the safest countries in the world. I should know, I grew up there. What some people fail to recognise is that this could happen anywhere, any time, to anyone, regardless of the situation. I’ve always walked around and believed that as long as I stick to what I know and don’t put myself into bad situations that everything would work out okay. I travelled and lived in South America for seven months believing this, just as Grace had done. But the thing is, she never did anything wrong. She went about things in the right way, but it could happen anywhere.

The fact that some people pinned the blame on her, saying that she had ‘asked for it’ after speculation arose that she had met her date on Tinder is absolutely ridiculous. People should be free to go on dates with whomever they want, without being worried that their date will harm them. People should be able to walk down a street without being worried that the person walking behind them will harm them. The world is developing at an incredibly rapid pace, but no one is going to truly benefit from any of it until the people living in it do as well.

After reading - SHERLOCK THE SIGN OF THREE - How main characters have changed one year later

John and Mary have a girl and spend happy life.  John is busy for work and is out of house frequently.  Mary is also busy for taking care of the girl, but she understands John’s job and their relationship remains good.

Janie has not gotten married yet.  She has met many men, but has not been interested in them.  She sometimes meets Sherlock and enjoyed talking with him at John’s house.  She has been waiting for his offer of date.

Jonathan Small has been in prison and sometimes writes letters to Bainbridge and Sholto to make apologies to them.  Sholto received the letters from Small, but he has never replied to Small.  In the meantime, he looked back at the fight in Afghanistan and recalled Small’s brother.  He decided to visit the grave soon.

Sherlock has been busy to solve many crimes.  He sometimes works with John and sometimes works alone.  When he visits John’s house, he looks forward to talking with Janine.  When she is not available, he looks very disappointed.  John and Mary believe he begins to love her, but Sherlock does not realize it at all.

The letter from five children to the Psammead

Dear Psammead,

It has been a long time, Psammead. How have you been doing? We are all doing fine.

We thought we could learn a lot of things from meeting you when we were children.

We are writing this letter to tell thanks for that.

In those days, we asked for a lot of wishes to you. The wishes were to be beautiful, have the wings, and be rich, etc.

You could fulfill any wishes we asked for. But any wishes had never given us the happy end.

We had been in trouble every time you fulfilled our wishes.

We could know the important thing in our life from your giving us wishes. That is ‘easy come, easy go’. We learnt we cannot get anything easily.

We could have ever grown up from this. We could get our wishes in each way now.

We really appreciate you.

We look forward to seeing you again someday.

Best regards,

Five children

Who is your favourite Smurf?

Yuu's favourite Smurf

I like Papa Smurf because he is the leader.

He is very old.

He can make magic

Yuu K

Yuu's favourite Smurf

 I like Poet Smurf because he is Smurfette's
good friend.

He writes poems for her.

Yuu H

Moeka's favourite Smurf

I like Papa Smurf because he is the leader.

He is very old.

He can make magic.

Moeka

Kei's favourite Smurf

I Like Poet Smurf because he is Smurfette's good friend.

He writes poems for her.

Kei

Yokohama - city profile for visitors

Sightseeing

Yokohama city is full of interesting places to visit. Minato-mirai town is a beautiful area. It has very beautiful views at night. If you want to see modern Yokohama city, then go to Sakuragi town. There are lots of new offices, shops, restaurants.

Shopping

Yokohama Market is a busy area with lots of shopping malls. Yokohama station & Sakuragi station are fashionable shopping areas with designer stores like Bulgari and Gucci.

Eating

Famous food in Yokohama are Shumai sweets. There are many shops in Yokohama & various things can be eaten eg a shop called "Kyoken". This area is famous for its pancakes.

Getting around

Transport in Yokohama is great but expensive. Taxis are always busy so you need to spend a lot more than in Matsumoto.

Posted for Yusuke

It's a boy!

Congratulations Ayano & family!

As you will have noticed, Ayano eventually needed to leave Luna as she was expecting her first child... delighted to be able to share that she had a baby boy on Dec 11th & mum and son are super healthy, if a bit tired!

We are very happy for Ayano, and at the same time would like to thank her for her hard work in the short time she was with us as assistant manager this year. We are all looking forward to a peek at the young man son :)

Festivals around Nagano prefecture, Japan - by Ayumi

Ayumi's after reading "Festivals around the World" poster