Christmas 2007

Considering Christmas is not a holiday in Japan, I was surprised at the amount of effort they put into "pretending" to celebrate it. Throughout December it was almost impossible to walk into a store without hearing Christmas carols or seeing some sort of decorations or lights. Even the plastic Colonel outside of the local KFC was dressed up like Santa Claus. The extent of the holiday celebration for the Japanese is eating a piece of cake on Christmas Eve, so I think the whole thing is really nothing more than a giant marketing ploy.

On Christmas Day, everything is open and people go about their business as usual. We decided to go out for sushi and then to an amusement center called "Round One Stadium" to celebrate Christmas and my birthday. It's a five-story building that includes: bowling, roller skating, mini-bike racing, putt-putt golf, karaoke, pool tables, darts, an arcade, batting cages, volleyball, basketball & tennis courts, archery, badminton... even a mechanical bull. It certainly wasn't a conventional Christmas for us this year, but it sure was fun!

It was REALLY cold that night...

Here's the chocolate-banana birthday cake Andrew made for me. He ran out of room so it just reads: "AMBA," which is how the Japanese say my name anyway.