Christmas in Japan

We went down to the port to enjoy the lighting of the Christmas tree and fireworks. But we missed the fireworks because they were two minutes long.

We then walked around and window shopped and ended up at the Hakodate Beer Factory.

For Christmas Day with slept in and opened presents from each other.

Then that night Dan's coworker invited us over for dinner. It was really good. Lots of food and sweets so I did get to overeat on Christmas. They have a two year old who is really cute.

I made no bake holiday wreath cookies and buckeyes. We decorated the wreaths with licorice bows from Dan's stash of candy from home. So far it's been a real hit. Most Japanese people haven't seen anything like it. Especially the licorice. They always ask first what is the green color of the wreaths? Then what is the licorice.





Hakodate is Halifax's sister city and they sent over this tree.

What's in my Parfait?

Cornflakes?!


That's okay. I approve.

Totoro Doughnut

Watercolors

Illustrations

Here are some illustrations I did for an Australian company based in Japan.

Dan made it into the paper

So did my neck. That's me standing on the other side of him.

Twice a month there is a Nihon-go salon where foreigners can practice and learn Japanese and it's followed by some cultural lesson. Such as talking about the Japanese New Year and Sumi brush painting.

Well the week we chose to go it was learning how to Rhumba. That was interesting. I can barely learn how to dance when it's taught in English. It was fun. The dance instructor was almost a cliche of what you would think a dance instructor would be. Let's just say he had flair and a three piece purple suite.

This article talks about the salon and how many different countries were represented.

Suggestions

I meet once a week with my neighbor she teaches me a little Japanese and we talk in English so she can practice.
This last week we were talking about confusing English phrases. Such as, He's not cut out for business. Or to do something on the fly. Can you think of anymore more that would be useful? I get stuck when I have to think of example. You can leave suggestions in the comments.

thanks

A taste of home

Sushi

There is a sushi place by house where each plate is 150 yen. You just grab what you want off of the conveyor belt. You can request an order over the speaker at the table. You can see the powdered green tea on the table. You pour some in your cup and there is a hot water spout at each table for the tea. It's in the right hand of the photo.





One of Dan's teachers asked me where I bought this sweater. They said that you would never see this color in the stores in Japan because this color doesn't look good on Japanese women.

House guest

We had a house guest over Thanksgiving weekend. A friend of Dan's needed someone to watch her cat over the long weekend.
Chica is a little old lady cat who just wants to be petted and stay warm. She's very sweet and needy. It was fun having a cat around again.

Mochi

I bought this not know what it was. I just thought the images on it were cute.
It ended up being MOCHi, my favorite.

A hike on Mt. Hakodate

A couple of weeks ago we took a hike on Mt. Hakodate. We didn't go all the way to the top but to one of the peaks on the way.

We parked the car at the bottom of the mountain (see previous post) and walked through some neighborhoods to get to the trails.

I'm wearing a Fraggle on my coat.

Christmas shopping

Hello,
I'm not sure who's reading or how often but I wanted to post that I created a cafepress shop. It's really small and very plain looking right now but here it is.
www.cafepress.com/arsonistcow

I thought I might try to help out with any last minute stocking stuffing. I have a postcard set that would be a good stocking stuffer. That's all.
I'm not on the ball enough to get Christmas cards together.

Here are the details for shipping.

Method Ordering Deadline
(11:59 p.m. Pacific
Standard Time)
Estimated Delivery
USPS December 7 December 22
$5 Flat Shipping December 7 December 22
Standard December 11 December 22
2-Day December 18 December 22
Next Day December 20 December 22
Canada/International December 8 December 22

Here's the color version

Going to Onsen

Trip up the Mountain

Hi here's a little sketch of when our car stalled out on an incline. There's something wrong with the car and we couldn't get it up the incline. A Japanese man hopped in the car and slowly drove it up the hill and parked it. I must reiterate that fact that he had a very hard time doing it as well and said/gestured that there was something wrong with the car.