Merry Christmas!
It is already Christmas morning in Japan. It is different in Japan. Christmas in Japan is basically a commercial holiday. It makes sense, since it is a Christian holiday and the Japan culture is based on Shinto and Buddhism beliefs. But after having a big family gathering for the past 28 years every Christmas Eve, it feels strange. New Years is the big holiday here. So, I am working today on Christmas and the rest of the week. It is the first time that I have worked on Christmas since I delivered The Detroit News everyday, back in high school. So, we pushed everything ahead a day early and had a big dinner on Saturday for our “early” Christmas Eve meal and opened presents on Sunday morning. Mayumi made a great western meal with everything that I am used to (for New Years we will have a traditional Japanese meal). We even cooked a whole turkey that we ordered from The Foreign Buyers’ Club (link is in side bar under “Japan Related Sites”).
It was a beautiful sunny weekend. A little chilly on Sunday with the breeze off the ocean, but nothing like Detroit. Winter has been off to a really mild start so far. The coldest it has been at night was 6 C (43 F) and that was only once or twice. Normally it was been getting down to 8-10 C (46 – 50 F) and a high of 10-14 C (50 – 57 F). When I was here in the past it would get to 0 C or below all the time through out the winter months in Yokohama and Tokyo.
I am looking forward to the first week of the New Year as that is when we get our time off in Japan. We don’t have any travel plans. We will stay around the Minato Mirai area and take a look at some different areas around Yokohama to start planning for our next place to live. We won’t be moving anytime soon, but want to highlight and cross off some possibilities on our list. We will also be picking up a new digital camera. Our Nikon 4300 is now 5 years old, that is like 100 years old in the digital world. Time for an upgrade. It served us well, but it is extremely slow between shots compared to all the new point and shoot models and relatively large for taking it around everywhere to capture pictures of Arisa running around. I am leaning to the Nikon S7 (not sold in the US, but the same as the S7c without wi-fi) or the S8 for daily use and the Nikon D80, if I can get a good deal with the lens kit, to start my new passion to replace the motorcycle cruising world that I gave up (put on hold) when we moved to Japan. That’s all for now…
Merry Christmas everyone!!!
