big in japan: christmas in tokyo

it's HERE. sorry for the delay. here's an abbreviated synopsis/review of our holidays in tokyo, conveniently laid out in categorized bullets.

the good:

• the hotel: we originally thought we'd been bunking with the son of a friend of klara's (which had the potential to be very small and imposing) and when that fell through we were upgraded to two rooms at the shinagawa prince hotel, in which we had our own room and access to 8 in-house restaurants.
  
• being within walking distance to tokyo tower; being able to see it lit up at night from our hotel room window.
• our day tours: we signed up to do a city tour of tokyo on boxing day + a tour of mt fuji the day following and both were really informative, well-organized, and highly recommended. if you're heading to tokyo on a time limit, let me suggest checking out viator's sightseeing options
• seeing the top of mt fuji from breakfast at our hotel on the 38th floor - the sky was clear enough to see it, more than 95kms away.
• to go from seeing mt fuji from breakfast in downtown tokyo, to visiting the fourth station in the trek up its slope - 2020m high.
• exploring meiji shinto shrine, asakusa kannon temple, and the imperial palace's east garden.
• visiting nakamise shopping street, a colourful shopping arcade crammed with tiny food vendors and souvenir shops: perfect for purchasing kimonos and t-shirts and phone charms and fans
• a cruise of tokyo bay: awesome for photo ops of the tokyo skyline and the iconic rainbow bridge
• later taking the rainbow bridge to man-made island, odaiba.
• vending machines. everywhere. literally, at least one on every block. selling only beverages, of course. snacks aren't necessary to maintain svelte-ness.
• driving on the other side of the road. yes, that's right. the japanese join the ranks of the british and kiwis with left-lane right-of-ways.
  
• the weather! we escaped the cold and snow of winter in korea and embraced the mid-fall temperatures of japan. i even got away without a coat one day, it was wonderful.
• free admission to the aquarium housed within our hotel.
  
• high speed bullet train! we took the shinkansen back to tokyo from mt fuji, and it turns an 1.5 hour bus ride into 30 minutes, at 300km/hour. futuristic-ly fast.
  
  
  

the bad:

• the traffic, both vehicular and human. people, people everywhere. (that being said, this is highly similar to seoul ...)
• we never got to take the subway! i really wanted to see if those "pusher" people are for real.
  
• the prices. tokyo lives up to its reputation in the expensive department. our christmas day dinner was a delicious though minimal spread of nine sushi and sashimi rolls, an order of tempura, mysterious meat skewers, and two asahi draft beers and equaled almost $100 CDN. outlandish.
• a minor food poisoning experience. i blame the raw tuna, but i was a tad unwell our last day in tokyo.
  
• time constraints. as with any vacation, you can't see it all. and while we did well for our 72 hours in japan, i wish we had had more time to explore. driving through harajuku and ginza shopping district just didn't cut it!

the weird/unique/wish-i-lived-in-japan stuff:

• the overall aesthetic of the city. organized urban planning, numerous tall and extremely slim buildings, structures built into unique situations (ie, coffee shops built into underpasses), creative ways to fit a massive population into a minimal space.
• cleanliness. i saw barely any litter and every bathroom i visited was spotless. and had soap and jet-powered hand dryers.
• architecture. (slim buildings included.) the fuji television headquarters for instance.
• everyone in tokyo runs. maybe it's a maintaining-thinness-in-the-city thing. we saw a lot of runners.
  
• the christmas decorations. gorgeous trees and tinsel the day we arrived, all quickly vanished come december 26th. xmas isn't a big deal for the japanese, and with oshogatsu (or new year's) ranking significantly more important, they ditch the trees ASAP and begin decorating the town with kadomatsu, or bamboo wreath displays, that are supposed to bring good luck for the new year.
  

all in all, a christmas/holiday success. a massive thank you to klara for her generosity, curiosity and enthusiasm for asian culture, for being a mom (and a surrogate mom to me) during the i-miss-my-family festive season, and of course, for putting up with mark and me for 10 days.

hello twenty ten.

i've got an upcoming post about our amazing christmas vacation in tokyo with mark's mom, klara (and it includes balmy snow-free weather, sushi, mt fuji, shrines, kimonos, tokyo tower, and much much more), but by "upcoming" i mean: still in my brain needing to be formulated and my laziness is getting the better of me. the new year didn't bring me a glorious, non-procrastinate-y work ethic, unfortunately!

because, YES! it's 2010 ... in case you didn't know. twenty ten ("two thousand and ten" is too long and tongue garble-y, let's simplify) seems far too futuristic to be present day. it also briefly worried me that i could clearly recall what i did to celebrate NYE a decade ago, when i was sixteen and foolish. this is the third decade-change new years eve i've been alive for, which also reminds me that i'll turn 30 this decade. dear god. i then reconfirmed my youth by reminding myself that this was the fourth decade-change new years for both of my sisters, and then i felt better. wink!

this year, instead of party-going and boozing we shared a quiet night inside our apartment and spared ourselves the -22° C temperatures outside. in lieu of a ball dropping in times square, seoul offered a bell being gonged at city hall at midnight. there was minimal countdown hype, which was kind of nice. we watched the live broadcast (which mostly involved lip-synching k-pop performances), played yahtzee, blew noisemakers, and called family members post-midnight for "happy new year from the future!" phone calls. all in all, it was a simple but sufficient celebration.

our holiday excitement came to an end this morning, with klara leaving on a flight home. it's always nice having visitors, and a mom over the holidays was particularly wonderful! we were sad to see her go, but her departure also indicates the last and final stretch of our contract. we've only got 100 days left - so, happy new year! and see you soon!

o christmas tree

so, i gave in and dragged mark to the minimal christmas section of lotte mart tonight. i'd be trying hard to let my frugal conscience (wait, my what?) do the decision-making and recognize that decorating our apartment for the holidays isn't necessary since we're leaving for vacation on december 25th ...

but, that ideology didn't really work.

our apartment felt sad without a christmas tree. i'm a sucker for the holidays, and a tree is the most important part! i know that christmas this year is going to be significantly different than years prior, what with being on the other side of the globe and all, but that's no reason to dismiss its excessiveness entirely. despite its only one-time use (for us, i promise i'll try to recycle it to new friends), a ₩20,000 artificial tree felt like a good deal.



i haven't yet determined whether south korea's lack of hype about christmas is going to be a blessing or a curse. sure, there are a few lights and decorations here and there around our neighbourhood; mostly in storefronts and restaurants, and of course, the life-size creepy and bald/hat-less santa that went up in our school's lobby this afternoon ... but you definitely aren't inundated with christmas in this country. i'm sure it could pass somewhat unnoticed if you wanted it to.

but really, who would ever want to do that??

our tiny tannenbaum is no griswold family christmas tree, but it suits us just fine.

elf yourself has reached new levels

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

ah, it's that time of year again! this, of course, had me in hysterics. i would've posted the "disco" themed one, but there were far too many choreographed elf pelvic thrusts involved ...

happy december from your favourite christmas elves, like woah!