The Festive Season

I delayed my post on Christmas seeing as the sheer commercialisation of it drove me to the edge of the train platform.

So here's a pretty much copy&paste number from an email I sent to Taz:

I pretty much had two Christmases. I spent Xmas Eve with Melinda, Alan (really awesome, generous Kiwis), Bob (hilarious Brit) and Sophie (my new favourite Australian) at Melinda and Alan's friend's house. Melinda's a teacher at Kun-ei. When she lived in a particular part of Osaka, she made friends with this AWESOME old Japanese dude who runs this tiny "stand up & drink" bar (that's asking for trouble innit?) with his wife. I thought my Wellington house was filled with stuff but this guy.. the rooms adjoining the standup drink place where we had dinner were CLUTTERED WITH STUFF and apparently their actual house is worse! "Anything you want, I got it!"

Anyway, we hung out with him on Christmas Eve and ate sushi, some odd KFC processed meat sticks and drunk A LOT (I didn't though, beer makes me bloated). He kept plying us with drinks and he never touched a drop. He hates Western food and doesn't drink alcohol. SO we also had this cream and strawberry Christmas cake to ourselves. He turns 80 next year and we asked if he was going to celebrate big times. He said that it was better not to remind the gods how close he is to the end of his years so he wants a quiet birthday. He is sooo energetic! He was telling us about old Japan (the theme being that women in Japan these days are strong and how the youth of today will be the downfall of Japan) and singing songs randomly, acting out stuff. He was a soldier in the war so has some interesting stories. He was actually in Nanjing with his brother and has a book IN JAPANESE that talks about the events at Nanjing. I haven't yet told him any of my grandmother's war stories yet. Not really dinner table conversation yah..

Then on actual Christmas day, we had a party one floor down from where Melinda and Alan live. There was a brutal present swap game - which I WILL bring back to NZ, lots of food, merriness and not much sleep.

A few days before New Year we had dinner at Sophie's cozy flat and dined on DEEEEELICIOUS "niku jaga" (beef, potatoes.. a stewy sorta thing).

I spent the countdown and actual ringing-in of New Year's walking down a pitch black, freezing-cold street on the way to some shrine amidst fireworks being let off in the Expo Land amusement park. My host parents and I joined a large queue of people all moving from one, what I call, "prayer kiosk" to another. Many people weren't doing the prayer thing correctly according to some fulla-bollocks know-it-all Agony Aunt type figure on TV. The proper way, which naturally, we carried out as we had just seen on TV her piece on "New Year's Bowing Procedures", is to:

1. Deposit money into the box
2. Ring bell if there is one
3. Bow twice - men with hands to the side, women with hands clasped neatly in front
4. Clap twice
5. Pause to pray
6. Bow once more before moving off to the next prayer kiosk

I would also like to add: "Look for the free sa-ke stand after you're done!"

We went to FIVE prayer kiosks so I hope these gods understand English.