Thursday, December 17, 2009

The Christmas Cheer Continues


Merry X'mas! I enjoy that they went to the effort of getting a sign made, and still used the shortened version. They must have charged by letter! Last night Kelly, Kory and I headed up to Gotemba around the other side of Mt. Fuji. It's at a bit higher altitude than Fujinomiya, so it was pretty cold up there, but that to me just made it seem more like Christmas!! There still was no snow however, but since I really only want the snow for effect, I'll say we're better off without it! We went to the "Gotemba Illumination" and we continued to call the Christmas lights illumination all night long. Some things just creep into our vocabulary and never leave. Conbini instead of convenience store comes to mind. I'm sure there are more that I'm going to have trouble reverting back to English when I come home!



So at the illumination there was a big tunnel of lights you could walk through, and outside the tunnel were a lot of lit up deer and snowmen. Inside the tunnel at one spot were a bunch of reindeer and sleighs. Here, I'm taking over Santa's sleigh. Just don't expect too many presents this year ;) There was one bigger tunnel and then one smaller tunnel, and also another section that you had to pay for that I think ended with a big lit up manga character, but we didn't want to pay $5 to see it. Though we could actually see the character anyway, just from farther away I suppose. There was also a bit lit up dome with a fountain in the middle and illuminated swans all around it - pretty cool! We wandered up and down the tunnels for awhile, before going to dinner.


The resort where the illumination is at has quite a few restaurants, but one of the more popular ones is an all you can eat buffet. It includes all you can drink beer, but unfortunately I was driving so I couldn't take part in that!! They have a selection of 4-5 beers. The food was delicious. They have sort of an international cuisine. Below was my first plate of chips and chili, caesar salad, steak cubes, pizza, CHEESE, rice gratin bake, and potato salad. My second plate was mostly meat, which I only regretted a little bit after reading an article on CNN yesterday right before going to the illumination "Eating animals is making us sick". The steak cubes were fabulous and I would go back there again just for those!!

It was a fabulous evening! Can't wait to continue my efforts to make it actually feel like Christmas this year with some Christmas cookie decorating on Friday. I'm having some girls over to my house to bake and decorate cookies! Will post pictures this weekend after the fact!

Happy Holidays!! I wish a safe flight to my sis and good health to my bro! Wish I could be there for the festivities!!

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