Christmas in Fukuoka

Christmas season has arrived in Fukuoka. Ena and I decided to do some shopping last week in the evening so that we could take in the illuminated bits and pieces.
First stop: Daimaru department store
The big illuminated teddy bear and Christmas trees are made of plastic soda bottles. The lettering is done with the bottle caps:
We had dinner at a little cafe on the right of the picture up there. It was kind of nice:
After that we headed over to Keigo park, which is just behind the Mitsukoshi Department store. They have a skating rink (made of plastic, its way too warm here for ice):
Ena has never skated before and my last memory of doing so ended in me falling down and whacking my head on the ice when I was a kid, so we didn`t skate ourselves. It was kind of nice to see though.

We walked around the park a bit, which had a lot of trees and other Christmassy lights:
Got the last of my Christmas shopping done today, all we have to do now is countdown to the big day:
The dog really likes the advent calender.

The Zen of Japanese Karaoke Christmas Videos

'Sup?

Sean here. With seasons greetings. And a gift in the form of a list of the top five most awesome Japanese Karaoke Christmas Videos ever made. Merry Christmas.

In no particular order:


Christmas Song: Deck the Halls

Theme: Everyone having a fun, happy time at Christmas.

Japanese Karaoke Video Version: Avante Garde group of high school students put on weird make up and viciously bully each other:

Christmas Song: Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

Theme: Underdog story of reindeer with red nose finding redemption at head of Santa's sleigh.

Japanese Karaoke Video Version: Hobo with really expensive looking haircut and Army Surplus store stuff wanders aimlessly around grassy area:

Christmas Song: Frosty The Snowman.

Theme: Kids put Magic hat on Snowman, causing him to come to life and play with kids. Much merriment had until he melts.

Japanese Karaoke Video Version: Man getting yelled at by superiors at business meeting for not working hard enough (or something):

Christmas Song: Joy to the World.

Theme: Everyone being happy about the baby Jesus being born and all.

Japanese Karaoke Christmas Video Version: Two co-workers give successful business presentation. Then have sultry affair with each other:

Christmas Song: Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.

Theme: Savor the holiday moment because you might die in World War 2.

Japanese Karaoke Video Version: Some dude cycles over to a municipal office of some sort. Chills:

Merry Christmas: Canal City and Ohori Koen Illuminated

Merry Christmas from Fukuoka.

Fukuoka has a lot of nice Christmas lights up these days. We had lunch at a great restaurant on the top floor of Canal City a couple weeks back which overlooked the ampitheatre, they've got a big white tree hanging there. Best seats in the house:
Kind of a nice tree, assuming its meant to be a tree:
They had some nice lights set up throughout. Candles:
Trees with loads of lights:
They've got them cascading over the vines like a waterfall:
And of course over the "canal" in Canal City:
Reindeer and snowballs floating by:
Yesterday we headed over to Ohori Koen to check out the lights on the lake there:
They had tens of thousands of lights set up on the islands in the lake. We went for a nice walk through them:The biggest tree was the most impressive:
The little ones were also nice and cute:
But the best in all Fukuoka is of course our little tree:
Ena got a Canadian advent calender at the mall. We've been opening it every day:
We've got loads of presents waiting to be opened:
Anyway, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Christmas

Ena and I had a great Christmas together this year. We had the tree nice and decorated and put lots of presents underneath it:
Christmas is never the same without the whole family around, but we had a good time. We woke up early in the morning, opened our presents and then spent the afternoon at karaoke singing christmas songs. Then we went to dinner at a yakitori restaurant next to the karaoke place. Hardly a traditional Christmas (we actually celebrated on Christmas eve because Ena worked on Christmas day) but a lot of fun nonetheless!

Christmas Party

Ena and I hosted the social event of the Kyudai Kaikan yesterday with our Christmas party (on Christmas eve). We were able to successfully cram 16 people into an apartment that measures approximately 3 metres by 6 metres. This is most of us (this picture may also be useful for historians trying to visualize what the Black Hole of Calcutta looked like):

Ena made some really good sukiyaki (a Japanese dish with radishes, beef and noodles) and all of our guests brought food and drinks as well so it was sort of pot-luck style. There was some really good food so we all got stuffed! This is Ena with my classmates Tai Ching and WangJin in the kitchen (Ena, I should point out, is the only one actually cooking!):

These are some more pictures of everyone crammed into our apartment and having a good time:

Christmas decorations!

We've got our christmas tree up. Actually we put it up a couple of weeks ago but I just got around to putting the pictures up! As you can see, its not overwhelmingly large. It was the 200 yen 60cm tree at the Hyaku en shop. I think it'll do for our purposes, size doesn't matter.

We also got a couple of candle holders and some X-mas stockings that are tacked to the wall just above the tree!