Happy Holidays

メリークリスマス！
I hope everyone had a happy holiday season this year!

I try to always spend Christmas with my family, but the cost to come home this year was a little out of my budget. Lucky for me, it is the same for many other foreign students here, so I was still able to celebrate in some way.
Christmas exists in Japan, but it is a bit different from what I am used to. There are plenty of familiar features like Christmas trees, lights, garland, and carols, but that's where the similarities end. Japanese Christmas is a couples' holiday. One person actually told me that they were not going to do anything for Christmas this year because they were not dating anyone. People typically go on a date to eat some KFC (seriously), and then enjoy some "Christmas cake" which is just a sponge cake with some white frosting and strawberries.

This is supposed to be a photo of a huge Christmas tree and the moon...

I celebrated the holidays in the American/European fashion with lots of friends and food. With relatively short notice, I planned a potluck dinner and gift exchange. The Europeans told me that they had never used the term "potluck" before, but they enjoyed the party, and everyone brought great food.

After the potluck, some of us went to Nagoya Port to see some Christmas fireworks! It was a really nice show that had Christmas music and a cute story where a mother explained Santa-san to her child.

Nagoya Port Winter Fireworks. Photo by Sandi Rais 

All of that happened on Christmas Eve. On Christmas day, I had a video-chat with my family before I went to a small party where there was a Swedish mulled wine called glögg and some french fondue and foie gras. It was a great Christmas!

So, now it's almost the new year. The New Year celebration is very important to the Japanese. This is when they usually spend time with their families, visit shrines, and send New Years cards to everyone they know. According to the Chinese Zodiac, 2012 was the year of the dragon, and 2013 will be the year of the snake, so there are lots of snake themed cards and gifts around. The story of the zodiac is really interesting. I found this explanation from Peter Payne on the Jbox.com blog:

 "On the day of the New Year, the Gods (or Buddha, depending on which version you read) declared a race among thirteen animals to come and offer New Year's Greetings. The Ox knew he was the slowest animal, so he started out before the others. The Rat noticed this and hopped on his back, jumping off at the last minute to claim first place. The Ox came in second, followed by the fleet Tiger. The Rabbit was next, with the kind-hearted Dragon behind, who was delayed helping the Rabbit across the river. The Horse ran along then, but the Snake slithered between his legs and startled him, beating him to the finish line. The Sheep, Monkey and Rooster were working as a team to get across the river, and arrived next. Then came the Dog, delayed because he stopped to take a bath along the way, with the Boar coming in last -- he'd gotten confused and climbed the wrong mountain, forcing him to backtrack. The thirteenth animal was the Cat, who had forgotten what day the race was held and asked his friend the cunning Rat, who told him the wrong date. This is why there's no Year of the Cat, and why cats hate rats and mice today."

I still haven't figured out exactly what I will be doing at the moment 2013 arrives, but I know it will be fun. Happy New Year! よいおとしを！

All-you-can-eat

The Japanese are known for having small portions of food with rice for their meals, but there are still various fun and interesting ways for hungry Americans to eat way too much here.  A few weeks back, I visited my very first kaiten sushi restaurant. It's really entertaining. The tables are placed next to a conveyor belt that moves little plates of sushi throughout the restaurant, and you can take whatever you want. At the end, you are charged by how many plates you took. I always have to try one of everything, so I ate way too much on this particular day, but it was totally worth it.

Another amazing feature of Japan is Nomihoudai, or all-you-can-drink. It's quite common, and really fun. For a pretty reasonable price, you get as many alcoholic drinks as you want for 2 hours. At the place I went to most recently, we paid around 3000Yen or $35 for unlimited drinks as well as a set menu of tasty food. I was super full by the end of the 2 hours, but worked off the meal with some hardcore karaoke afterwards.

"Nomihoudai" means all-you-can-drink, and I'm sure you think it sounds wonderful, but it gets even better....
There is also tabehoudai, or all-you-can-eat. For my birthday, I went for tea time at a cafe that specializes in dessert tabehoudai. That's right. All-you-can-eat CAKE! The cafe was in a super ritzy hotel, and the treats were delicious.

Round 1 of sweets

 It's quite popular, so we made a reservation. To begin with, you are served the specialty of the moment. Since it is December, we were given a variety of pretty Christmas-themed treats. After you finish the first plate, you're let loose at an entire buffet of sweets.  As usual, I tried as many things as possible. There was tiramisu, cakes, tarts, fruits, cookies, mousses, and more. So yummy and amazing. It was pretty much the best thing ever.

Me in front of the Sir Winston Hotel. I'm smiling because my belly is full of sugar.