time flies
Anywhoo - thought I'd update you all on my fabulous New Years celebrations. Here, everybody goes home and spends time with family for New Years so my workplace was closed and I expected to just stay in studying Japanese, reading books, drinking tea and sitting in pyjamas but I got the exact opposite and boy, was it awesome!
New Years Eve day I headed out to Yokohama. Yokohama is technically a separate city from Tokyo but when you're on the train out there, you wouldn't know the difference. Yokohama is a port city that is supposed to have a good shopping area, some interesting sights, and an intense China town. Since it was January 31st when I headed out there, it wasn't too bustling.
The perma-docked ship at Yokohama's port
Afterward I headed back into central Tokyo to do a tiny bit of shopping for the evening out. For New Years eve, I met up with my Polish-Canadian-friend and his visiting girlfriend to celebrate the countdown in Roppongi. Roppongi is (one of) the major area(s) for partying in the city, but it definitely is the gaijin (foreigner) party district. Being that most people celebrate New Years here with family, Roppongi really was our only hope for a New Years eve party. At first we headed to a small bar, that was a bit of a dud and we headed later to another bar that was CRAZY. I've never seen such a packed bar. The place was DEFINITELY breaking a few fire-codes - everywhere you tried to move was like being crushed in a person-vice.
You can barely see my purple zebra print dress I bought that day :)
You can barely see my purple zebra print dress I bought that day :)
After getting home at 5 am the next morning (although we could have been home earlier had we known the trains were running all night) and sleeping for about 4 hours, I headed out with my roommate to his Japanese teacher's parent's place. I had met this teacher when we had our all-night Christmas dinner but I never thought I'd be so incredibly welcomed into her family's home just after one meeting.
We were invited to Fujisawa (which is about 1 hour away by local train) and south of Tokyo. We got out to Fujisawa for dinner, along with my roommates other classmate. OH MY GOODNESS is all I can say. Although the teacher spoke outstanding English, her parents (who prepared the extravagant meal) did not, somehow, through translations, body language, etc. we were able to have quite meaningful discussion along with an AMAZING dinner of traditional Japanese fish, meat, rice, vegetables, and everything you could desire. We stayed up until about 3am again, eating, drinking, and generally being merry.
The sun setting over Mount Fuji as we arrived in Fujisawa on New Years Day
We were invited to Fujisawa (which is about 1 hour away by local train) and south of Tokyo. We got out to Fujisawa for dinner, along with my roommates other classmate. OH MY GOODNESS is all I can say. Although the teacher spoke outstanding English, her parents (who prepared the extravagant meal) did not, somehow, through translations, body language, etc. we were able to have quite meaningful discussion along with an AMAZING dinner of traditional Japanese fish, meat, rice, vegetables, and everything you could desire. We stayed up until about 3am again, eating, drinking, and generally being merry.
The sun setting over Mount Fuji as we arrived in Fujisawa on New Years Day
Our hosts
(my roommate's teacher on the left and her two parents,
with her father doing most of the cooking)
(my roommate's teacher on the left and her two parents,
with her father doing most of the cooking)
The next day, January 2nd, Japanese people still celebrate the new year so we joined in. We headed out to Kamakura. Kamakura is a city with a particularly high concentration of shrines and temples, and over new years that is exactly where everyone heads - to pray. Kamakura is also famous for being a surfing town and for having the biggest non-covered Buddha statue. The day was BEAUTIFUL. The weather was PERFECT and we spent half of the morning on a natural high on the beach just chilling and enjoying the beauty that is this life.
If you click on this image, and look closely, you can see Mount Fuji
Afterward, we visited the big Buddha, ate some okonomiyaki (basically delicious veggie and seafood pancakes), visited a couple other temples, said our prayers, got our fortunes (mine of course suprisingly telling about my character) and eventually headed back into the city.
crazy crowds at the temples over new years
Since we had all just had such a fabulous couple days and we didn't want the high to end, we headed into Shibuya (part of downtown Tokyo) to do some glow-bowling :) And get this Saskatonians, we bowled on the 4th floor of a skyscraper.....so bizarre.
loving the kimono-bowling shoe combo
The last little while were probably some of the best days since I've been in Japan. Hooray for life!
1 comments:
awesome
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