Holidays in Japan

I meant to write this during  the holidays, just after New Years, to encompass both of the holidays.  I got distracted.  Frankly, everyone should be used to that by now.  It`s ingrained into my nature as much as the sarcasm and tea-drinking.

Please be advised that the following post is mostly going to be about food.  You might want to grab a snack before continuing.

So rather than being a lonely hermit for Christmas (we`ll get to that later), I decided to play tagalong with Ros, helping her to invade our friends Lina and Roland up in Hokkaido.  Classes for me ended on the 22nd, and the 23rd is a national holiday (Emperor`s birthday), so we flew out on the 23rd and met up at the airport in Sapporo.  After lunch at one of the airport restaurants (PIZZA! 100% legit wood fire pizza!) we made our way out to Lina and Roland`s place on the outskirts of Sapporo.  We had some time to veg and catch up (Ros was there for Halloween, but I haven`t seen them since 2013), and then we went to their part-time job location for a Christmas potluck. 

Things you need to know (or remember, if I`ve already told you) about Japanese Christmas before we continue:
1. In Japan, Christmas and New Years importance/traditions are basically the opposite of Western culture.  Christmas is the day you go out and party or just hang with family/friends, and New Years is the important time for family and fancy foods and gifts (monetary).  Businesses are all open and do a good turn on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  Wikipedia says that 84-96% of  the population are Buddhist or Shinto, so being closed on those days would help pretty much no one.

2. Turkey is rare in Japan in general, and turkey for Christmas is relatively unheard of unless you know a Western person, or really like Western films.  Chicken is the name of the game in Japan, particularly of the fried variety.  KFC takes pre-orders for Christmas, and if you`re not wise enough to do this, you might be waiting around for two to three hours for a bucket of original recipe.  Good luck with that.

Lina and Roland work part-time at a farm/stable-type place that runs English camps as well (guys, feel free to correct me if I`m wrong about this), owned and operated by a dude named Steven and his Japanese wife, Aya.  There were about 20 of us in this big, wooden farmhouse dining room around a couple tables pushed together that were pretty much covered with food.  Most of the people in attendance were Japanese, but almost all of them spoke great English, and they were all extremely welcoming and friendly.  It felt really home-y.  Roland and Lina brought (and Ros and I helped carry) some traditional Western food to throw into the mix (Japanese contributions included rice balls, sushi, and chicken wings), including a full turkey.  The Japanese people went nuts.  I`m reasonably sure that most of them had never seen a full cooked turkey in real life before.  They all whipped their phones out and were clamoring around, taking pictures.  It was great, if a bit bizarre from the viewpoint of someone who has turkey dinner upwards of three times per year.  After dinner we played bingo, and I won a candle!  (More importantly: a candle wrapped in bubble wrap.)  Definitely a great way to start off the holidays.

 Adorable Christmas rice ball brought by one of the potluck guests.

On Christmas Eve Lina had to work, so when we finished watching Gremlins, Ros, Roland and I went to do some shopping in downtown Sapporo before meeting up with Lina at the station.  We also had ramen, because Hokkaido is famous for it or something.  I don`t know.  Whatever. 

Photo of Ros's ramen, lovingly stolen from Ros.
 


Once Lina had joined the party, I was subjected to two hours of karaoke (not my favourite thing to participate in, but watching them is entertaining).  Dessert was involved in this karaoke adventure, so my caramel nut parfait (Ros and I are still trying to figure out where exactly the "nut" part came in, because we couldn`t find any) made up for any trauma my off-key singing may have caused to my ego.  We left karaoke as the sun was setting (aka, just after 4PM) and made our way towards the TV tower, where the big light display and German Christmas market was set up.  This was so much fun!  We walked around and enjoyed the lights, window-shopped at all the little booths selling Christmas decorations, and drank hot chocolate (or hot spiced wine, but I`m not really a fan of hot wine, so chocolate for me). 

 We also met Santa, because these things are necessary.  Once we were finished there we headed to Nuts, a popular cafe, for some nachos, fries, and wraps, and to work some feeling back into our fingers. 

As per Lina and Roland`s tradition, we stayed up until midnight on Christmas Eve, and then opened gifts before heading to bed.  In theory, this is so that you can relax and sleep in on Christmas morning and then have all day with your new stuff, but Lina had to work again, so that really didn`t work out for her.  But we did wake up to snow on Christmas!  There was already some on the ground, but it snowed pretty much all day on Christmas Day.  Mid-morning, we headed to the car to pick up Lina, along with another friend, Miki.  It started snowing harder while we were waiting for Lina to get out of work.  Once our raiding party was complete, we moved on to conquer Costco!  Yes, you read that right.  Costco.  Japan has Costco.  It is glorious.  First of all: PIZZA.  Available at the Costco cafeteria thing is honest-to-god, greasy, cheesy, fast food pepperoni pizza.  (Do I have a pizza problem?  Yes.  Deal with it.)  Also available at Costco: basically everything you can get at Costco in North America.  It was fantastic.  And apparently you can have things shipped as well, so I`m debating the merits of getting a membership.  I`m pretty sure the closest location is at least a two hour trip away.  Anyway, not the point.  So we grabbed some lunch, and then shopped for Christmas dinner, as well as some other necessities, and then grabbed a takeout pizza from the cafeteria on our way out.  It was really snowing by the time we got out, to the point where it was sometimes hard to see the road.  But we made it (obviously).  Another of their friends joined us at the apartment for dinner, and we had an evening of Die Hard, Wii games, pizza, BLT pinwheels, chicken wings, and canasta (with me playing over Miki`s shoulder while knitting, because while I don`t enjoy the game, I understand it).  Not even remotely a normal Christmas by my standards, but still a lot of fun.

Roland had work and Lina had a party to go to the next day, so after chatting with my family, Ros put the two of us on a train to Otaru.  It`s a town that re-invented itself as a tourist location, apparently, famous for music boxes and glassware.  It was super weird, because I`ve never been in a place before that was such a juxtaposition.  Standing in Otaru, you feel that you are simultaneously in a traditional Japanese town and a quaint European craft village. 

It`s insane.  The music box shop is absolutely glorious, and I could probably spend at least half a day in there alone (not to mention, a lot of money).  We stopped in a sushi place Ros recommended for lunch, and then continued on to the vast number of glass shops in downtown Otaru. 

Photo lovingly stolen from Ros.

 

We also got samples at the chocolate shop(s) along the way - the same chocolate shop has, like, four locations in a three-block radius, I swear.  In one of the glass shops, I found a product that was screaming my name so loud it`s a wonder I didn`t hear it from outside.  ...Not literally, obviously; that would be weird.  But it was perfect.  It`s a steel bookmark, and dangling from the top is a metal-and-glass charm in the shape of a streetlamp.  I`m reasonably certain the only way you could ever make a product more perfect for me is if there was a hidden Mickey somewhere on it.  When we could no longer feel our fingers (a running theme for our time in Hokkaido), we stopped into a dark, barn-like cafe for a hot chocolate. 

After that, more shopping, and then a warm-up in the cafe above the chocolate shop for tea and cheesecake. 

Some final bits of shopping, a trip to the canal to see it lit up with Christmas lights, and then back on the train to Sapporo to meet with Miki for another Hokkaido specialty, soup curry.  Apparently the place we went to is the best place ever and has already ruined me for having soup curry anywhere else, ever, according to Ros and Miki.  I can believe it, because it was delicious.

Also lovingly stolen from Ros.

We were lazy on the 27th, just kicking around and watching anime and strange Japanese game shows with Lina and Roland until the early afternoon.  It was their anniversary, so they were going to the movies in the evening.  We all headed out for burgers and fries, and then to the Sapporo Factory (mall) so that they could get their movie tickets and we could kill some time at the arcade before Ros and I headed to the airport.  I`m pretty much useless at an arcade, outside of basic-level DDR and the occasional shooting game, but Roland has some scary skills with a claw machine.  On his first try, he managed to hook the ewok that Ros and I had tried for earlier (Ros actually doing things, and me backseat-clawing).  I am now the proud owner of a fluffy, fluffy ewok to cuddle during times when I miss my fluffy, fluffy dog named after an ewok (or the other fluffy, fluffy dog named after a Gremlin, but he doesn`t usually stay still long enough to be cuddled).

I didn`t get back into Osaka airport until after 10PM, at which point it was too late to get trains all the way home, so I had booked myself into a capsule hotel at a spa/bath place in downtown Osaka.  Capsule hotels are...  I think the easiest way to describe them, generally, is a cross between bunk beds and a piece of honeycomb.  For me, it`s really no different than most of the dorm-style hostels I stay in, because I usually just sleep with my backpack at my feet in my bunk anyway.  The capsule areas are divided for men and women, just like the baths, and mine in particular had multiple rooms for the capsules (my room had only four capsules in it).  If you`re familiar enough with me and my physical capabilities, you`ll know that I`m utterly lacking in grace/co-ordination and a total klutz.  In my first experience with Japanese bunk beds, back in 2010, I slipped on the ladder and twisted my ankle.  I haven`t gotten much better since then.  Japanese bunk bed ladders are completely vertical, either part of the frame or flush against the frame rather than angled against the frame, and usually have a gargantuan gap between the last step and the floor.  Capsules are, like, the next level up in difficulty.  There were three steps sticking out, like that tree fungus stuff, with grip bars at the top, and then about a four-inch-wide ledge along the bottom of the capsule opening, with a grip bar over the top as well.  So it`s after midnight when I arrive at the hotel, the lights are off in the main room area because people are sleeping, I`m using my cell phone as a flashlight to figure out which capsule is mine, and then when I figure it out, I have to Lara Croft my way into it.  Somehow I managed to do this more than once without injury.  I had planned to check out the baths in the morning before I left, since it was included in my hotel fee, but I barely got any sleep that night, so I just packed up and headed home as soon as I got up and moving.

I did a grocery run the day after I got home, and then didn`t leave my house again for three days.  To all of my Japanese acquaintances (and likely some of my Western friends as well), this is extremely odd, since it means I spent New Years alone.  There are many traditions involved in Japanese New Year`s celebrations, too many to list, but one of the most popular is the first visit of the year to your local (or preferred) shrine for charm burning, charm aquisition, and a prayer for the coming year.  So not only was I not with other people on this important people-holiday, I didn`t go anywhere.  To the Japanese, that`s basically like saying you spent Christmas alone in your apartment, eating leftovers; odd, and kind of sad.  But I enjoyed the quiet.  I could sleep in, read, and knit to my heart`s content.  I could also drink copious amounts of tea, including the peanut butter cup tea from David`s Tea that I got for Christmas and is really, really nice.  No one expected me to show up to something, to put on socially acceptable clothing, or to even speak.  For a socially awkward introvert like myself, it`s exactly the kind of recharge I needed after enjoying a more social Christmas holiday.  In a nod to some of the Japanese traditional New Years foods, I made a Thai coconut curry soup that included shrimp.  I also had a glass of wine in deference to Western traditions.  Yay.  (I basically stopped caring about New Years as a holiday when staying up until midnight became a regular thing, and not something to be excited about.  For me, it`s often a time to be lazy, and to either lose marginally at Solitaire Frenzy to the majority of my family, or lose spectacularly to my sister and brother-in-law at Settlers of Catan.)

After that, I alternated between relaxing and getting all of my necessary adult errands I`d been putting off taken care of (stupid bills).  I also went out to lunch with the science teacher who speaks English.  We went to the Nepalese curry place up the street and around the corner from where I live, and he showed me pictures from the trip he and his wife took to Bali.  I now want to go to Bali (but not in the cave temple that looks like a very literal Hellmouth).  Nepalese curry place had soup curry.  Ros and Miki were right; I`ve been spoiled for any place other than that restaurant in Sapporo.  I also had a good laugh when he was so excited that they saw squirrels on their trip!  He had pictures and video and everything.  Squirrels are a rarity in Japan, rather than the plague that they are back home.

January is going to be a very busy work month for me, with a number of meetings booked and extra language classes beginning for our students going to Australia at the end of term.