Christmas Time, No Mistletoe, No Twine.
Here is my Christmas display, as you can see a tree is sadly lacking but my wonderful friend Claire has furnished me with my very own Christmas Stocking so I decided to make something of a feature. 
This will be my first Christmas not spent in a predominantly Christian country and I am finding the fact glaringly obvious. It's not so much because of what there is going on but more for what there is a lack of. For example Christmas Carols: Having worked in retail over several Christmas periods I have to say that I got a little carolled-out so it actually makes a nice change not to be bombarded with them at every turn. I really only hear the occasional one on the radio at work and when I visit the department store over the road. And they seemed to have to dignity not to start in on them until pretty recently. Also Christmas lights, I have only seen two houses in Kak that have displays and they are very small. There are some decorations in the shops but I have only seen one boogying Santa... thank goodness...
Yesterday was the AEON Christmas Party. It was in a cafe/diner near the school and about 30 students attended. It was a really nice occasion, although perhaps not very Christmassy. We played bingo and ate far too much food, some Western and some Japanese. It was nice to spend some more time with the students outside of the class environment.
One thing that does happen in Kobe around Christmastime is this amazing light display. I went last night with my friend Yuka (that's her in the first picture) who, although she lives in Kobe, hadn't seen it yet as she has been working too late each evening. We were very lucky as although rain had been forecast it held off and the crowds were not too bad. One of my students visited on Saturday night and he told me that he had to wait one and a half hours just to get anywhere near the lights.
After we'd seen the lights we went to have dinner overlooking the harbour so that was a nice way to end the day. When I got back to Kak the temperature was down to 4.8c! OUCH!
Today I went to the bike shop to get my spare bike's tyres looked at. I had tried to pump them up myself but couldn't get the air into one and the other just went down again. Although that was the reason I took the bike into the shop the man working there did a real overhaul, checking the brakes, oiling the chain and making sure the light worked etc and all at no extra charge, they certainly know the meaning of customer service in this country!
This will be my first Christmas not spent in a predominantly Christian country and I am finding the fact glaringly obvious. It's not so much because of what there is going on but more for what there is a lack of. For example Christmas Carols: Having worked in retail over several Christmas periods I have to say that I got a little carolled-out so it actually makes a nice change not to be bombarded with them at every turn. I really only hear the occasional one on the radio at work and when I visit the department store over the road. And they seemed to have to dignity not to start in on them until pretty recently. Also Christmas lights, I have only seen two houses in Kak that have displays and they are very small. There are some decorations in the shops but I have only seen one boogying Santa... thank goodness...
Yesterday was the AEON Christmas Party. It was in a cafe/diner near the school and about 30 students attended. It was a really nice occasion, although perhaps not very Christmassy. We played bingo and ate far too much food, some Western and some Japanese. It was nice to spend some more time with the students outside of the class environment.
One thing that does happen in Kobe around Christmastime is this amazing light display. I went last night with my friend Yuka (that's her in the first picture) who, although she lives in Kobe, hadn't seen it yet as she has been working too late each evening. We were very lucky as although rain had been forecast it held off and the crowds were not too bad. One of my students visited on Saturday night and he told me that he had to wait one and a half hours just to get anywhere near the lights.
After we'd seen the lights we went to have dinner overlooking the harbour so that was a nice way to end the day. When I got back to Kak the temperature was down to 4.8c! OUCH!
Today I went to the bike shop to get my spare bike's tyres looked at. I had tried to pump them up myself but couldn't get the air into one and the other just went down again. Although that was the reason I took the bike into the shop the man working there did a real overhaul, checking the brakes, oiling the chain and making sure the light worked etc and all at no extra charge, they certainly know the meaning of customer service in this country!
posted by nokillingkenny at 9:22 pm
1 Comments:
Ho-ho-ho
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