Christmas in Japan

In general, Christmas is no big deal here. Of course, they have tons of Christmas decorations and light ups everywhere. Sometimes even more than what we have back home, which is weird, because they don't actually celebrate it. Families with young children might buy some presents for the kids, but once they reach junior high school, it's over. Same applies to birthday in most families. Couples might go on a special Christmas date, and friends might organize Christmas parties, not to feel lonely if there's no boyfriend or girlfriend around. Twisted.

Also, we are supposed to save energy because of the March disaster, remember?? Well, with this much light up and wasting electricity, I wonder what their idea of saving energy is.  Just look up "Nabana no sato".Here's the link: http://www.esankei.com/ryokou/sp/nabana.html .  It's in Mie prefecture, not so far from here. It's a gorgeous and unbelievably huge light art creation, but c'mon, do we really need this, while some people in the North/East are still struggling to get back to their normal lives? They used 5800000　LED lights to do the Mount Fuji thing only....Not that I don't want to go and see it at least once in my life. However, this year, due to that disaster, we could be a bit more modest...shouldn't we?

Christmas decorations in Umeda, Osaka

I tried to make our Christmas as European as possible. My Mom had sent us chocolate ornaments and the famous Hungarian "szaloncukor", which in mirror translation would be "parlour candy", as in old times the Christmas tree used to be displayed in the parlour, so guests would be able to admire it when entering the house.They come in all kinds of flavours and beautiful, stylish wrapping. If you happen to travel to Hungary in winter, you definitely should try them. 

I spent about 2 hours on skype on Christmas Eve, talking to my parents, opening presents. In my family, we open the presents in the evening of the 24th. Some families do it on the 25th. So I neatly placed the presents we got from my parents under the tree. We did "kampai" (the Japanese equivalent of "cheers") with some "umeshu" plum liquor and ate a Christmas cake I did from ready made materials in about 15 minutes. I refuse to spend too much time in the kitchen during winter season, due to the extremely poor insulation of Japanese homes. It's freakin' cold!!
But yeah, it was  a nice Christmas, despite the fact that I was away from home. Never happened at Christmas before...LOL.. It was really busy, especially buying and sending tons of presents back home to friends and family.  But hey, I totally enjoyed it! :)

The cake, our tree, the candies, the presents and the plum drinks :)

I don't have any Japanese style New Year's decoration in my home, but I've seen a few really nice ones displayed in shop windows. Next year is going to be the year of the dragon, so obviously, most of the decorations include dragons! 

By the way, how do you like my new visitor counter little globe on the right? I found it on another blog, tracked it down, and installed on my page too. Pretty cool, huh? Now you'll be able to see, how many visitors I have, and from which part of the world!! I could check it in my stats since I started this blog, but the info wasn't visible on the blog.

600 Page Views

Today I checked my blog and it has just reached 600 page views!!! Wow! 

Thanks guys! Thanks to all of you who have read it at least once! Tons of thanks to my regular readers! 

Special thanks to those who bothered to comment!

Today, at least one more post is coming up...after I did the laundry...soooo STAY TUNED!

Have a Merry Little Christmas...♪

Well, it's here again! The most beautiful and emotional celebration of the year. Having only a plastic tree, unfortunately, this year without the magical scent of Blue Spruce or Nordmann Pine... 

But I made wonderful soft gingerbread cookies. 

Anyway, I don't have much time to write today or tomorrow, but I promise that I'll update the blog before New Year's and, in 2O12 I'll write more often. I have tons of stories to share with you, it's just hard to find the time to type them.

So, once more, I wish you all a Wonderful and Happy Christmas, hoping that you can celebrate it together with your loved ones.

Santa comes to Japan

Today is the 6th of December! Which means that Santa comes!!! Yes people, in Hungary, Germany, and maybe a few other countries, Santa comes on Saint Nicholas Day, and not Christmas! We clean and prepare our shoes, so Santa can put presents into them. The custom is that Santa brings the presents either in the evening of the 5th or morning of the 6th of December.

 I decided for the sake of our future family, that we are going to keep this custom alive even in Japan! So, I got these plastic boots, which look real cute and are sold for Christmas, got some European Santa shaped chocolate, and both of us bought a little present for one another. :)

Cute, aren't they? Of course the blue is mine :)

Santa shaped American chocolate. We also had
some European Kinder buenos.

Santa from Mom and Dad :) Kinder, Milka, Haribo, etc...all the delicious European stuff!!!

Also, with perfect timing, Mom's Santa arrived by post this evening too! Wow, tonns of delicious chocolate! And Christmas candy that we often give on this day, and also use for decorating the Christmas tree. Yummiiiiiiieeee.

 

I got this  chocolate advent calendar a few weeks ago. You can buy them in most import food selling supermarkets for about 600-800 yen. I hope I'll be able to make this Christmas like the one  at home. This is going to be the first ever Christmas that will be only the two of us, and I'll stay in Japan. Of course, it's going to be a bit lonely without family, but hey, we have skype :) and, as you can see, decoration and stuff for celebration you can find here as well. The meaning of Christmas here is not deep at all, but you can make it deep in your own heart. So why bother about how, or whether or not other people celebrate it ;)

Halloween party and a creative new hobby

Wow, it's been quite a while since the last entry. Things have gone a bit out of hand lately. I've been sort of busy working 6 days a week...and came down with a cold last Friday, for which I had to skip a drinking party that night, and call in sick on Saturday. My high school job was not busy at all, I guess it's just the lack of sleep...is taking a toll on my body right now. Gotta be more careful from now on, after all the cold and flu season just started. Man, I hope I won't get the flu this winter either. That would suck big time.

Anyway, since the last entry a lot of things have happened. First of all I had two Halloween parties. One at the language school for sexy Marie Antoinette, and one at the high school for Marie Antoinette's ghost...

The King and Queen of France :)

Also, I could finally finish the embroidery on my denim jacket a few weeks ago. Here we still have about 22 C everyday, so it wasn't too late. I can still enjoy wearing it, before the actual winter comes. Probably by the end of November. The design is similar to the famous Kalocsa embroidery of Hungary, except that I'm not a pro, so this is as good as it gets. How you like it? 

 

 It took about a month in total, usually not spending more than about an hour each day. It wasn't as difficult as a I thought it would be. Haven't done any embroidery since junior high school...about what, 15 years ago??? Wow...I'm getting old. Anyway, I went home this summer and met up a college friend who is also an English teacher, but as a side job she does this on quite a professional level. Thanks to a bit of practice with her, and getting patterns from her book, I was able to do this. It was fun. I might continue this hobby. :)

School for special needs children

This Monday, with the Aussie teacher, we went to our sort of field trip to a special school for physically and mentally challenged children. We were supposed to teach two short, 15 minutes lessons, one to junior high kids, and the other to elementary 2nd and 3rd grade kids..

To be honest, the night before I got really nervous...I was terrified. My experience in elementary school was a rather horrible one, and I never intended to teach kids again. Even this trip was supposed to be just a trip to that school, take a look around and come back thing. One day, all the teachers from my school went, and we were supposed to go with them, but they canceled for some reason...still have no idea why.

They asked us later if we wanted to go, if we have a chance again, and I said yes. After teaching in so many different schools, I wanted to know what this kind of schools are like. Then turns out, this time it's only the two of us going (plus one teacher to help us with Japanese), and well, why not killing two birds with a stone, they asked if we could teach two lessons. We were taken advantage of...as often is the case. Whatever...at least we can try out ourselves I thought.

Anyway, the big day came, and I woke up with a headache, in a really bad mood.  I cursed myself thinking "curiosity killed the cat, and gonna kill me too...I should have said no". But how could I? Our principal is the kindest Japanese woman I've ever known, she came to the school the same time I did, and she was a principal in such a special school before. I could never turn down her offer or say no to her request. So, I added a 400 mg Panadol to my breakfast and headed to my school. We talked a bit about what we would do there...that made me less nervous. At least we had a plan.

The vice principal of the other school came and picked us up by her car. The principal and all the other teachers we met at the special school, called "Shien Gakko" in Japanese, were very kind and welcoming. I didn't feel out of place there at all. My headache was gone too. 

We went to the junior high kids first. They were about elementary 3rd grade 4th grade level, 8 students in total. Classes here are much smaller, usually with about 3 teachers supervising the kids.  I was surprised that some of them knew the alphabet, and with a help of a chart they could write their names in English. They were all cheerful and friendly...maybe more friendly than my self-conscious regular students. We played fruits basket game with colours, everyone enjoyed it. I was relieved. 

Then we went to the elementary school kids...they were a bit more difficult to teach, because there were a lot of students. You would think 26 is not a big number when you face classes of 40 students everyday. However, I have to admit, 26 is a big number when it comes to kids who are mentally or physically disabled, or have some behavioral problems. They were constantly jumping around and screaming. 5 classes together. Probably it would have been a better idea to teach only one class at a time. Somehow we survived, passing time with shaking hands, some kids were eager to hi5 us :) So cute. Some of them just came up to us, and hugged.  We had flying shoes and a pig, long minutes of screaming, and one kid even practiced for days to say "Thank you" when our lesson was over.  

Honestly, these kids made me feel so much better. By the end of the trip I just felt happy. That's what the principal was telling me about before, but you wouldn't understand until you have the experience. I think I'm lucky I had the chance to go there and meet these kids. They are far more adorable than those spoiled  little brats I taught at those regular elementary schools. 

We even got some presents: a small hand towel from the kids, a box of Halloween cookies and hand made tissue case covers (made by the principal's wife) from the principal. They asked if we could come again, once in a semester (there are 3 semesters in one school year here), and we said yes without thinking. 

The neatly wrapped presents.

The hand towel: designed for the school.

Getting in mood for Halloween

This is my new love in the kitchen!!! I ordered this cake stand on the internet from Rakuten...it's like the Japanese version of Amazon. As you can see from the packaging, you can use it to display not only desserts but other food as well. Can't wait to have a luxury Continental breakfast at the weekend with my boyfriend. Unfortunately I gotta get up so early on weekdays, I just force down a bowl of cereals and rush to the train station....

Also, it means I can throw some lavish home parties, coz now I have everything to serve a stylish lunch or dinner! Can't wait to actually have some friends over. I don't know if I have mentioned it here already, but my hobby is baking sweets and stuff...so...maybe a smaller Christmas or New Year's Party would be nice. Of course with a limited number of people. The apartment is small and we don't have enough chairs either...lol

It just would look soooo gorgeous with a Christmas cake on top, some gingerbread cookies in the middle, and maybe a few orange chocolate cupcakes in the bottom. Or beigli? But I don't think I can make beigli... (Hungarian Christmas rollcake)...I don't think I could find all the ingredients here, plus it's troublesome. Well...we'll see.

And here are some Halloween cookies I made last weekend, mainly for my co-workers. They are just simple vanilla butter cookies with royal icing. It was the first time I tried royal icing, and turned out pretty good. Although it was quite time consuming, but I guess it's gonna get better with experience.

I was trying to be very Japanese her. I wrapped them all up in Halloween cellophane bags and put them in a lovely box. 

Looks pretty cool, huh?