German Christmas, Mexican Dinner

We heard from someone who works at a German school on Rokko Island that there was an annual German Christmas market in Osaka. With haunting memories of delicious gluehwein (hot spiced wine) in my head from past Christmas experiences in Germany, it didn’t take much convincing for me to want to go.

The event was outside the German consulate under the Umeda Sky Building, which I had never been to. The market was great, and included a giant tree, a manger scene, crafts for sale, and lots of yummy foods to eat. Ironically we skipped the hot wine, because it was so expensive, and we had hot wine at home that we bought at IKEA.

Baby Jesus coin fountain?

Leave it to the Germans to make Christmas creepy

After enjoying the Christmas market, we went up to the top of the tower, which has a fantastic observation deck. There was a place to right down our wishes for the new year and hang them up with those of many others, a common tradition in Japan. I wrote down a simple prayer for a prosperous new year and for more people in Japan to experience the love of Christ. Becky wished for Japan to have biscuits and gravy and ranch dressing, the two things she misses most!

Quirky fashion in Osaka

Mailing a postcard from the top floor!

We ended the day in Shinsaibashi, where we did a bit of shopping. Then we were able to snag a table for dinner at El Pancho, one of only a handful of Mexican restaurants in Kansai. Becky got enchiladas in a green sauce, which tasted 100% legit! I got a beef burrito, and while it tasted great, the meat and sauce had a little bit of a Japanese flavor to it. The guacamole was also good, but we have made good guacamole at home here. The margaritas were a bit disappointing. Overall though, Mexican was a fantastic treat in Japan. I’m sure we would go regularly if we lived an hour closer.

Christmas in Japan

Christmas in Japan is a little confusing. This is largely to blame by the fact that a Christian holiday is being celebrated in a country which is more than 99% non-Christian. They have adopted some secular traditions, like Santa and Rudolph, but if you look around it quickly becomes clear that Christmas revolves almost entirely around consumerism. It is said to be a night for couples to go out for an expensive meal, for children to get an expensive gift on Christmas morning, for specialty Christmas foods at restaurants, and special sales at stores. I am not saying that it isn’t as bad or worse in America, but there is a Jesus sized hole in Japan’s festivities. There are no songs being sung about Jesus, no special church services, no family gatherings, no Christian organizations gathering food and toys for the poor, no baby Jesus, no Christmas story, nothing.

Real Christmas trees at IKEA

Growing up I always enjoyed the secular celebration of Christmas. Every year we read the story of St. Nicholas, watched Charlie Brown, Frosty, and Rudolph, left cookies for Santa, and eagerly awaited his arrival on Christmas Eve night. I have always enjoyed making Christmas cookies and treats with my aunt and buying gifts for needy children with my mom. I will never forget the year that my family chose the poorest tree on the lot because it needed a little love. Christmas isn’t Christmas without Dirty Santa (white elephant gift exchange), eggnog, and “White Christmas.” This year I was very nostalgic for the Christmas that I have always known.

So, how does Japan celebrate? Could it really be so different? For starters, they dress up Kentucky Grandpa like Santa and eat fried chicken and Christmas cake. Oh? You thought his name was Colonel Sanders. Not in Japan!

Every store has something special for Christmas which is really fun. It is hard to resist all of the Christmas treats.

We shopped for a Christmas card for the groundskeeper at my school who fixed my bicycle when I got a flat tire. One series of cards featured multiple tiny Santas touring Japan. It was sad to me that baby Jesus wasn’t the star of the Christmas card show. This card almost got it right.

There are plenty of traditional Christmas decorations. I saw poinsettias and holly branches at the grocery store. There are many places in Japan that you can see what they call illuminations and we call Christmas lights. Snowmen, Rudolph, and Mickey Mouse light up figures are available at the hardware store. They sell trees, both real and fake, at IKEA, hot wine, and gingerbread houses.  Ben and I bought our tree at IKEA and sprayed fake snow on our windows.

This Christmas wasn’t the same without our family. Christmas in Japan can be a sad time for foreigners, but we enjoyed a Christmas party with friends. And the amazing part about Christmas without reminders of what Christmas is all about, is that you think about it all the more. We hope everyone had a merry Christmas wherever in the world you were!

Two Meals in One Day

With the end of the year comes invites to parties. At many companies and schools it is common to regularly have dinner parties, called enkai, when nearly all of your co-workers go out officially for a meal. The regularity at which a company has enkais can vary widely, but most companies will at least have a bonenaki, the end of the year dinner party.

We were invited to a bonenkai at my company on December 10, and by a happy twist of fate, one of Becky’s co-workers invited us to lunch the same day as a Christmas present to us. So we had yummy Tibetan curry for lunch in Miki, and we went to Kobe in the evening to meet a few of my co-workers for dinner.

The enkai in Kobe wasn’t really a typical enkai. It was mostly to welcome me to the company but also to meet Becky. And it wasn’t a big company wide party at all but really just the core people I work with, plus the boss’s daughter, who attends an international school and is bilingual.

We went to one of the most popular Chinese restaurants in town, an old-school family owned place. We were served dish after dish, many of which were new to us, but all of which were delicious.

What evening to the downtown is complete without something weird? On this night it was a parade of trikes parked outside Sannomiya Station. The riders of the most outrageous trike, with Louis Vuitton design, were wearing Santa suits to top it all off.

Thanksgiving Dinner

As Thanksgiving is not a holiday in Japan, we both had to work. Turkey isn’t really obtainable here, so having a big Thanksgiving dinner takes a lot of coordination with a lot of fellow party goers. I’ve been to a couple of good Japanese Thanksgiving parties in the past, but this year we didn’t hear of any or plan one ourselves.

After getting off of work, I suddenly decided that it felt wrong to not do anything special for Thanksgiving. I had just been told the day before about a really good yakiniku (Japanese BBQ) restaurant near our house, so I decided bite-sized pieces of grilled meat would be an appropriate alternative to turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, et al.

So we threw on some casual clothes, and went to the restaurant, and it turned out to be a fantastic place. It seemed a little bit more expensive than the other chain yakiniku restaurant near our house, but everything was way higher quality. We filled ourselves with delicious wagyu beef. And for dessert? A tiny cup of fruit. It was kind of a pleasant alternative to the pie comma we experienced every Thanksgiving prior.

Let Them Eat Pie

A Thanksgiving season without a pumpkin pie was not something that Becky wanted to experience. So a special stop at a foreign food store in Kobe for some canned pumpkin (our only option), and a little help from some friends, and pumpkin pie in Japan became a reality.

Our friend Philip was in charge of making the crust, and Becky was in charge of the filling and whipped cream. I was documenting the event, and Kelly joined us in the end for a little moral support. We had to improvise a little and use two little udon noodle tins as pie tins, and we baked the pie in our tiny Japanese oven/toaster/microwave oven.

All in all it turned out pretty good, and the end result was pumpkin pie!