12/25
MERRY CHRISTMAS!! Today I slept in late (again) and then Kim and I decided to go to Sakae and view the Christmas lights and maybe do some shopping. We decided to bike to Hongo station to save ourselves the bus fare. We were already late leaving and we were trying to meet one of our gaijin friends Erica. So we rushed there and found a place to park our bikes (for a great deal of only 100 yen per day!) Then we quickly paid and caught the train. So we were suppose to get off at Sakae station but for some reason we got off at Imaike. I think I just wasn’t paying attention or something. So there we were wandering around trying to find Erica. It was so ridiculous. Kim actually asked me at one point if we were at the right station, AND I was looking at the map with the kanji for the station (which I knew was wrong), I still I was like “no this is Sakae.” I don’t know what was going on in my head. Eventually I admitted that we weren’t in the right place and we got back on the train and got off at Sakae. We found Erica and we immediately decided to go eat parfaits for Christmas. So we walked a few blocks over to Parco (an expensive but massive department store) and on the 8th floor was the eating areas. I ordered a delicious ice cream parfait but skipped ordering food because it was a bit pricey. Once we were done Erica went back to Proxy and Kim and I headed out for burgers at a different restaurant. I ordered the always good teriyaki burger; I’ll miss them once I’m back state side. So we walked for a while taking pictures and window shopping before taking the train back to our bikes. On the way back it started to snow. I’m sure we’ll have a lovely white Christmas.
4am. It snowed and everything is completely COVERED! I’m going to go out later and make a snowman
2pm. Just woke up. Almost all the snow melted. sob.
12/27
Today was Kim’s 24th Birthday!!! Yatta! We had originally planned to go bowling but we decided to stay in Nisshin and go eat karake at Kizuna and afterwards have pudding in Kim’s room. So we got all dolled up and biked out to Kizuna. It was COLD! Kim brought American chocolate mints, candy canes and Pixie Stixs for Mo-chan,Miki-chan, and Tsutsu-san. It was so amusing to watch them get so excited over Pixie Stixs, since they don’t have them in Japan. After we bid them good night we biked back towards Nisshin. But we decided to try a side street to see if it was a short cut, and it was! But then we got greedy. We should have been content to have just one short cut. It was really cold but we were in a feel good mood so we decided to bike around. I finally figured out how we always get lost; we’re lazy. We’ll be at a crossroad and we’ll say “well let’s go this way cause we can always just turn around and back track.” But we never actually back-track we always just try and find our way because we’re too lazy and stubborn to go back. We ended up in Toyoake which is about an hour and a half away by train. Needless to say we didn’t find our way back until 4 am. So tired.
12/28
I think my internal clock has completely reversed itself. I keep staying up until 5 and 6 in the morning and then sleeping till 4 and 5 in the afternoon. It’s weird. .. and bad because school starts back soon. Well, since I’ve been sleeping my days away I didn’t go anywhere today but my friend Nana had a Nabe party that I did go to. Nabe parties are very popular here and very easy to do. You just need the sauce and a gas burner. Most people add some kind of meat, tofu, noodles, mushrooms, leeks, etc. It was delicious! Afterwards Bronson, Kim and I all headed back to Kim’s room to sit under her Kotatsu table ( a table with a heater under it) It’s really nice to have a break from school even if it’s only for a bit.
