Tis' The Season

Wow. Finals. Those are over.
I thought I would write about what Christmas is like in Japan. Even though it's not really Christmas yet. Because Japan does not celebrate Thanksgiving, the countdown until the big day started right after Halloween. The decorations for winter started as well, as did the preorders for Christmas cakes. As of December 10th, they ended and preorders for Valentine's cake opened. Just from the pictures they looked pretty amazing, and from the prices you can tell they're super special cakes (you can spend about six dollars on a small piece of cake, and about fifty on fancier ones). Around Thanksgiving the stores started to play Christmas music. English Christmas music. And sometimes, Japanese versions of Christmas songs.
Christmas trees and Santa are the two biggest icons of Christmas here, and the Colonel Sanders that stand outside KFC's donned Santa suits sometime in October, reminding you to order your chicken for Christmas. KFC is the traditional Christmas dinner here (it's really expensive, and most Japanese think it's a Japanese company, someone getting the answer wrong on a quiz show once).
In the smaller towns like the one I'm staying in don't have too many lights up, but Kyoto and Osaka stations both have pretty big Christmas trees on display, and special light-up events are happening all across Japan in places like Kobe. Tokyo is where I saw Christmas the most though. Special events like "Sky Tree Christmas!" and Christmas parties were being advertised in English and Japanese everywhere. The strangest part was how much English there was in Tokyo, actually, but I'll talk about that in another post. Going out to Roppongi Hills (it's the Beverly Hills of Tokyo, and has a large concentration of foreigners), there were special Christmas shops set up with ornaments imported from Germany and Santa figures were in a lot of places.
The craziest Christmas display we got to see was in Odaiba next to the Gundam, where snow lights were shown and a special video with Gundam in Santa suits was displayed instead of the one traditionally on display (even a major space station in the series was shown as an upside down Christmas tree).
Essentially, in the bigger cities where there's a larger concentration of foreigners, Christmas seems to be pretty publicly celebrated. The consumerism is still there (oh boy, during a visit to Nipponbashi did we see that), but not so much the spirit. If Halloween was the biggest Halloween Japan has seen (it was publicly announced that way), then it'll be interesting to see how much Christmas expands. To be fair, though, it's in the middle of two weeks worth of holidays (birthdays, Christmas, New Years...), so it's not too surprising it gets a little mixed up in the commotion. To sum it all up, below is an advertisement for a convenience store chain's fried chicken (other chains are trying to compete with KFC these days it seems...).

This is very much Japanese Christmas in a nutshell.
Happy Holidays!
~Zenko~

Day by Day

Although I take if for granted usually, there are many things that are simply part of day to day life that are quite different than what I am used to in America. For instance...

Folding my bed everyday
Because I live in a traditional style room, the floor is tatami (bamboo) mat, and I sleep on a futon. In order to prevent mold and other icky things from growing, I have to fold up the main futon mat, the futon, the light futon, and (in the colder weather) a blanket. Although normally you would move these into your closet to make room for the day, my roommate and I mostly just move them off to the sides of room.

Speaking of preventing things from growing...
Although we have dryers for laundry, no one really uses them. Partially because they are the epitome of inefficient dryers, and partly (in the case of the Japanese) because of a strange superstition that they do not kill certain harmful bacteria. So instead you can tell when everyone does their laundry by whether or not it is hanging out to dry. Our balcony has a special double layered railing that extends so that we have more drying room. Somehow, though, I always manage to time doing my laundry to days it rains...

Cold Weather Blankets?
The reason why we need blankets is because Japanese homes are mostly designed to allow all the cool breezes of summer to get through. So there is no insulation and no central heating. Air conditioners for single rooms also act as heaters, so there's no problem there, but if you are out at a restaurant locally or smaller train stations, you can find heaters with teapots on top. Kotatsu are also popular, but those are for priavate homes so I have not seen any.

Convenient Convenience Stores
Convenience stores, even 7-11 are totally different compared to their American equivalents. With local food (like okonomiyaki) or sandwiches, and even grab and go warm drinks, they offer all sorts of crazy things if you need to grab lunch or dinner. Apart from this, stores like Lawson and Family Mart are partnered with Amazon so you can usually have your packages shipped there and even if you cannot you have the option to pay at them. Amazon receives the information through an order code you place into something similar to a credit card machine, and through an invoice the cashier processes when you pay. You can also pay your bills in general there.

Okonomiyaki?
Probably my favorite food and go to choice for dinner when I do not want to cook, okonomiyaki is egg, cabbage, and  some sort of meat that has been fried like a pancake. A sauce is put on top of it, as well as mayonaise and dried, aged fish flakes called bonito.

Trafffiiiiccc
Although there is as much traffic as any other road, there is another special kind of traffic: pedestrian and bicycle traffic. One of the most interesting sights to see is during bike rush hour, where you can see hoards of bikes cross the street or heading to the grocery store. The main bike model here, rather than the male-female designs in America are referred to as "old lady" bicycles because even old ladies can ride them with ease (and they do, since some have assist motors that work the more you pedal).

And really, cars?
Okay, so unless you are going someplace far out in the country that has no local train station, there is no where you can't get without a car. In fact, if I wanted to I could bike to Kyoto or Osaka along the river trail (I have not, because I have not had time and no one else owns a bike). Even if you cannot bike there, you can take the train and if that is not an option, you can take a bus. Trains are not really expensive, and are surprisingly nice and on time. The double decker trains are set a the same price, as tickets are based on location and only subways special express trains have a fare adjustment fee.