By Brandon
January 05, 2020 • 5 min read
Traveling for an extended period is an incredible privilege and an amazing experience but it can get lonely at times especially during holidays like Christmas. This was the first time either of us had spent Christmas away from family but overall I'd say we had a pretty great Christmas.
Christmas is a great time to visit Japan. It's a fun experience with some uniquely Japanese culture along with a lot of familiar festivities and traditions that remind us of back home.
All the big retail stores will be majorly decked out for the holidays and will have Christmas themed discounts/combos/deals/promotions. Everywhere you go you'll hear all the classic songs playing including lots of "Last Christmas" and Mariah Carey. You can find German-style Christmas markets with all kinds of chocolates and meats. There will light displays everywhere and some cities will have huge Illumination displays to walk through. There are bakeries everywhere outdoing each other with their Christmas cakes and pastries and luring you in with irresistible scents of buttery bread baked beyond perfection.
Our friends Hiromi and Marina had said they could come to visit us for Christmas so we made plans to stay at an Airbnb that was a cozy 2 bedroom Japanese style house.
Chris went into full party planning mode. If you thought being in an Airbnb in a foreign country would stop her from throwing one heck of a soiree... then you'd be mistaken.
There was a nice grocery store about an 8-minute walk from the house so we went there to pick up general groceries we'd need for the week as well as supplies for the party. Chris was determined to make sangria so picked up a bunch of fresh fruit, wine, and a decent brandy. We're basically pros at grocery shopping in Japan at this point but we may have underestimated the effort involved in hauling everything back to the house so this doubled as a nice morning workout.
Afterward, we grabbed lunch at this great little cafe nearby, Cafe Banimatar, that we frequented quite a bit while in Kyoto. On the way back we stopped by a neighborhood bakery to pick up a Christmas cake which is a must-have for Christmas in Japan.
Next, we needed decorations and for that we hit up Daiso, Japan's equivalent of a dollar store (a 100 yen store to be precise). We were out in the suburbs so we had to take the bus into town (Kyoto buses are more than a little confusing BTW). For Chris, Daiso is a magical place where you can find tons of cute things for super cheap but I managed to keep her somewhat reigned in and we found some good decorations including a small Christmas tree for around $15.
Then we stopped at Kumamoto Toys to get a present for Marina's 3-year-old son. Shopping for a gift in a quaint little toy store definitely felt like a Christmas tradition that's all too rare nowadays back home so we enjoyed it. We got him some train-themed toys including a Shinkalion (essentially a Shinkansen (bullet train) transformer robot) which are all the rage with kids in Japan.
The next step was the preparation. Chris made the sangria which turned out great despite having to use a pot as an improvised pitcher. I assembled the tree and put up decorations but mostly just looked pretty while Chris made tiny Christmas hats, stitched our friends' names on their stockings and made herself a Christmas outfit from spare fabric.
KFC chicken is a really popular Christmas tradition in Japan so we decided to make that our main dish along with Domino's pizza just because we were really craving pizza. I went to pick up the chicken on the day of which fortunately was a few days before Christmas because otherwise, the wait is absurd.
All in all the party was a success. We had a great time with our friends and they were super impressed with Chris' party planning skills, and rightly so... I mean she impresses me practically every day.
The following day we all went to see Kinkakuji temple which was only a five-minute walk away. This was our second time going to see it since we went back in October with our other friends and it made us feel the tiniest bit like locals taking our visiting friends to see the local attractions. Protip: the crowds are much lighter in the middle of December.
On Christmas day we called/video chatted with friends and family (and played some world of Warcraft with Chris' dad) and spent a cozy day at home enjoying each other's company and being grateful for everything we have and this amazing opportunity.
For dinner, we had some deliciously comforting ramen at Ichiran Ramen then strolled around Kyoto and grabbed some coffee from one of the more artistic Starbucks we've seen.
And then to top it off, on boxing day (can't forget our British friends) we found this great hole in the wall place where we had the best okonomiyaki we've had in Japan.
So I'd say it was a fun Christmas thanks to memorable experiences and great friends.
January 25th to February 20th After our brief stay in Singapore, we more or less spent the next month (from January 25th to February 20th) on various Thai islands. It was a blast and a really unique experience. Looking back on it I'm probably struck the most by how different the experience was on each of the islands. We also had some interesting experiences getting to and from the different…