It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like... Chrismukkah...

EVERYWHERE you go.... Damian and I took a trip up to Yokohama last night to check out the lights and to see a Christmas tree I found online that does a light show. We were very surprised to see how much they decorate here for the holidays considering only a small percentage of Japanese actually celebrate Christmas. Most Japanese are either Shinto or Buddhists however they have really taken to the way we celebrate Christmas in the western world... Lights, trees, and even signs that say "Merry Christmas." I was really impressed with how beautiful and intricate many of the decorations were at the malls we went to!
*unfortunately this is not our video because we couldn't get it to load but this is exactly what we saw...
The Christmas tree we went to see in Yokohama was at Queens Square, which is just a big mall! This year the tree was dedicated to the victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami from March of this year. The star at the top represents courage and hope, and all the other little lights represent the prayers of people. Each hour during the evening they do a light show with all the lights and music together. I thought it was pretty awesome... I even tried to convince Damian to stay for another hour so we could watch it again, but he said we could watch this video we took if I really wanted to see it again! hahaha

We walked around for awhile and had dinner at a restaurant at the mall which was really good! We took the train back, and it seemed to be full of drunk businessmen on their way home... kind of funny, but the train was packed and hot so the smell of booze was a little too much! Today we got up early and FINALLY mailed almost all of our holiday packages... the cost of shipping all of these was sort of ridiculous, but that's how it is when you live overseas! We went to the gym and have just been having a leisurely afternoon since then. I'm enjoying Damian being on leave and being home with me all day. This weekend we are going up to Nagano to see the snow monkeys which we are super excited about!

Japanese Word of the Day:
Koneko (co-nee-co): Kitten (*Cat is just 'neko')