of Weird and White Christmases

May the spirit of consumerism be with you!

So Christmas has come and gone, and thank goodness I am living in a dorm with other foreigners who have Christmases similar to the ones I am used to. Because despite all the commercial pre-christmas hype in Japan, that's all there is to it. depressing. yes.

Never mind getting a holiday on Boxing Day, Christmas day itself is...a WORK day. And the 'Japanese Christmas' tradition is for couples to go out for dinner on Christmas Eve...er, I wonder what they do on Valentines day then...gather around the Christmas tree and sing carols?

so yeah luckily Uni closed for Winter Hols on the 22nd so we could try to re-create at least a sliver of the 'normal' Christmas the rest of us are used to...and it actually turned out to be quite okay. It was more a Latin-American Xmas thingo but a few of us non-latinos joined in on Xmas eve!..helped with the chopping, mixing etc and sat down to a yummy feast of lamb, potatoes, sweet potatoes (score!!!!!)and some yummy cakes etc etc. then stayed up till midnight to wish everyone Felis Navidad which lasted till 4am!!!!

There was a lot of reminiscing (ofcourse!) on what would be happening at home, "ahh, I would be scraping about a dozen coconuts for the Palusami etc right about now"..."oh, ppl would be opening their lovos around this time"...sigh.

Tomorrow am heading out to a place about 4hours outside Tokyo called Nagano for a few days and looking forward to my first ever sighting of...SNOW. So far this is the advice I have gotten:

-its wet
-its white
-its cold
-don't eat snow...unless you're outside Tokyo and know that it is fresh
-don't lick telephone poles.

So yeah, I think I am ready for my first ever snowy experience.