Christmas and New Years in Japan

There hasn't been much time for a blog post over the last three weeks with the traveling and celebrating I've been doing with Carly. The chain of events started on December 22nd, when I hopped on the shinkansen after work to get to Yokohama to spend Christmas with Carly. We spent four days together there sightseeing and exploring further in Yokohama, making an excursion to Tokyo and Tokyo Disneyland, and fixing up some Christmas treats to enjoy during the grand exchange of gifts with family over skype. Then back to Kyoto we came, together, and since, have been enjoying the state of having nothing to do but relax.

Carly and me at the aka-renga in Yokohama enjoying the Christmas land.

From her own exploring, Carly has come across an American-type convenience store in Yokohama that sells pre-brewed coffee in 12- and 16-oz cups, the simple pleasure not normally found in Japan unless you're willing to buy Starbucks. Imagine Wawa or 7-11 coffee. They have 7-11s in Japan, but don't sell coffee in this way. Oh, how we enjoyed walking the streets with a 125¥ coffee in our cold hands. We had a nice lunch here, too, of sandwiches and noodles.

This is the aka-renga in Yokohama, which means "red brick." Shopping boutiques make up the entire interior of the old buildings initially built for something having to do with shipping or immigration since it's right on the water. But now it's a place for fun, like ice-skating in the winter.

Japanese Santa Claus made an appearance!

We enjoyed some mulled wine, German Christmas stollen, and viewings of the decorated trees here by the water. Then we had a photo op by the Christmas tree.

We had a cinnamon stick to stir the mulled wine.

That night I made some eggnog that was not as tasty as it looked, but it looked festive.

Carly's tree in Yokohama sent by her Uncle Lee in Arizona. Thanks, Lee! It made the holiday.

The next day being the 24th, Christmas Eve, we were determined to set out into Tokyo to see the lights, seasonal decorations, and maybe do a little shopping if we saw something irresistible.

This ad almost looks too beautiful to be for a department store. It looked rather English to us.

The Ginza (shopping district) in Tokyo at Christmastime.

1990's era Christmas album cover.

After a lunch at Subway, we were off to Tokyo Disneyland, to make Carly's (and my) dreams come true in seeing Mickey and the gang in Christmas garb. Tokyo Disney is only a 30-minute subway ride outside the city center.

Massive Christmas tree at the entrance to the park.

Carly and me waiting in line to ride the "It's a Small World" boat tour ride.

We caught the 3:40 "Let it Snow" parade in the park, which featured classic Christmas and Disney characters like Santa, Rudolph, Mickey, Goofy, giant Christmas cookies, many elves...

A Japanese Christmas elf.

...and aliens... Those Japanese sure are creative when it comes to Christmas. That being said, it was a wildly entertaining parade. There were a few foreigners dressed up in the parade to look like the real deal for characters like Snow White and Alice from Alice in Wonderland. It was always Carly's dream to be featured as a Disney character at Tokyo Disney, and Belle was always her go-to. But we saw no Belle, and decided that they just hadn't found the right foreigner to play her, indicating that the position was still waiting for Carly.

One advantage to being a foreigner at this parade was that we stood out to Santa! He waved right at Carly, as if to say, "Yes, friend, I, too, am a foreigner in this strange land."

After the parade, we rode the Mark Twain steamboat ride, and nothing was so beautiful that day as these American flags. For just a moment, as the rest of the park disappeared around the bend during the ride, it seemed as though we were actually back in the States.

The Disney Castle all lit up as we were leaving the park.

The next day was Christmas! The day was filled with our gift exchange, skyping with family, and eating treats we had fixed or those that had been left over from Car's Christmas party the week before.

Carly tearing into one of her gifts from me, a luggage set she had seen in Kyoto.

On the 26th, we rode back to Kyoto. Carly wore her kimono that she received from her mother for Christmas. She was quite beautiful.

Dreams coming true in this picture.

On the shinkansen.

Car showing off her flexibility and yoga poses.

And then, on New Years Eve day, after five days of not much doing, it snowed for the first time in Kyoto! We went out to go grocery shopping and to take pictures.

One of the most beautiful streets in my neighborhood.

On New Years day, as is tradition in Japan, Carly and I ventured out to the nearest Shinto shrine to get some good luck for the coming year. It's a real festival at shrines, with people praying to kami, getting their new year's fortune told, eating delish vendor food, and taking pictures. It was Carly's dream to visit in a kimono, so we got her all dressed that morning, and I in my suit, and we trudged through the snow to Shimogamo shrine.

A true beauty!

I was somewhat disappointed to get a fortune foretelling "small luck" for me. Carly got "big luck." An example of my competitiveness.

Once you read your fortune, you tie the piece of paper, folded, to the string with everyone else's.

This, below, is the long path that had vendors spread out all over it. You can see it was very crowded. I had fried, sugared sweet potato sticks, a banana and creme crepe, and mochi.

The sweet potato fries covered in sugar.

Waiting for the bus outside the shrine to go back home and eat New Years osechi.

Carly, like any traditionally-minded Japanese housewife, spent the entire day of the 31st making osechi, the Japanese new years foods that many Japanese households eat from the 1st to the 3rd. We had here boiled daikon, lotus root, mashed sweet potatoes with chestnuts, daikon and carrot salad, black beans, pickles, dried young sardines, fish cake, prawns, yellow tail fish (baked in miso), and octopus. What a feast!

Me getting into the osechi.

The spread.

And now today is the 2nd and the osechi feast continues! We have been lounging most mornings, reading books we got from each other for Christmas. Carly is reading, as she is right now, Bill Bryson's At Home, and I am reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals, a book about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. We're missing all of our friends and everything holiday-like in the States, and frequently think about how we'll be spending our next Christmas and New Years in the company of old friends in a familiar country. But this one has been one of a kind and has been well worth experiencing and enjoying together.