Big in Japan

I was trying to think of something creative for the title of this blog post, but instead this 80's song popped into my head instead. Hehehe I love the 80's.



So I recovered from my flu last week. I'm still a bit nasally sounding, but the worst is definitely over. Thank goodness for that because it's rather busy around here this week. Bear's daughter's basketball team made it to the state playoffs, so I look forward to cheering the girls on to victory. They won state last year and it was such a great experience to watch these girls work towards their first state championship win. I'm hoping for a back to back win this year and am really excited and nervous!



I haven't posted any knitting content in awhile too, so an update on that. I'm still slowly trudging along on the monkeys. I just turned the heel on sock number 2 last night. It's already been a month since I started the sock, so I really need to get these socks finished! I really haven't been in a mood to knit lately, so that's part of the problem why it's taking so long. In due time, due time...



So... back to the title of my post. I've shared this with some people already, but I've been dying to share it here. Perhaps it was because I was a little hesitant to share something I wasn't certain about or was skeptical whether this was really true, but holy crap it IS! I WON A TRIP TO JAPAN!!! Can you believe it???



It all started last fall, when I noticed that a juice company had an ad in the local Japanese paper for a sweepstakes with a grand prize trip to Japan. Now I'm not usually a person who enters sweepstakes, but on occasion (and usually if it's for a product I use/like), I thought I'd give it a shot. For this entry, you had to select which prize you wanted to enter for. They had prizes ranging from a trip to Japan, to gift certificates to a sushi restaurant or a free case of their juice (which is really delicious, albeit a tad pricey). The funny thing is, I was kind of eyeing the case of free juice as the prize rather than the trip to Japan. But I thought if you're gonna enter a contest, you might as well go for the top prize, right? So I changed my mind and checked off the Trip to Japan option.


I totally forgot all about this sweepstakes until late December, when a Fed*x envelope was left on my doorstep. Not expecting a Fed*x delivery, I was a little puzzled. After opening and reading the first word of "Congratulations!" on some official looking letterhead, I started to get all nervous and shaky saying, "OMG, OMG, OMG, is this what I think it is????!!!???" Bear had no idea that I had entered such a contest, so he was pretty skeptical about the whole thing, but there was no "pay in advance" sort of scam or anything that involved payment of any kind, so it didn't seem fishy, but still, we were a little cautious. These days you just never know, you know?



There were some affidavit of liability documents to sign and a name and number for me to contact. I called the next day and I spoke to the person at the company who deals with promotional stuff for companies. Well after all that was said and done, we've finally got the travel itinerary confirmed and I will be going (with Bear because I won a trip for TWO!) next month for a week! 5 days in Tokyo, one night in Kyoto, with some promotional visits to their HQ and factory or something too. I.AM.SO.EXCITED, people! I still cannot believe I won a trip, it's still all too bizarre to really sink in. I'll probably still be shaking my head in disbelief as the plane takes off on the runway.



This couldn't have come at a better time, as Bear and I could really use a real vacation. I've been wanting to take Bear to Japan almost as long as I've known him, so this is wonderful! Ok, sorry for all the gushing, but I wanted to share in my good news and send some good juju to others in blogland. So if there's a sweepstakes sponsored by a company whose products you enjoy and thought "there's no chance in hell" you'd win... go for it, because you really never know! :)