Christmas Shopping Spree and More!

Over the weekend Bryn and I hit the city for some hard-core Christmas shopping. We left straight after work on Friday and caught a train bound for Osaka (well, actually it was bound for Kyoto, so we had to change trains part way). Once we arrived, we checked into our hotel and headed off to find the German Christmas Market that Simon and Clodagh had told us about.

The Christmas Market was really cute and well done! There was a carousel, lots of little shops, and food stalls selling bratworst, pretzels, sauerkraut, potato salad and lots of other stuff, as well as a hot chocolate and gluhwein sold in little glass boot mugs. We got a couple sausages, pretzels and mugs of gluhwein, then wandered around and ended up buying a few wooden Christmas ornaments.

Saturday morning we woke up bright and early and caught the slowest train in the entire world to Kyoto. After getting some Starbucks, I went to the movie theatre to see Harry Potter (again for the first time) and Bryn set off to go shopping.

Harry Potter was excellent and I am so glad I got to finally see the end! (If you didn't already heard, Bryn, Mom and I tried to see it in Annapolis, but the movie cut off halfway through, so they ended up giving us our money back).

After the movie, we met up for lunch at the Asahi Beer House (where we ate German food again!) and Bryn had the biggest "normal" sized beer known to mankind! It was very good though (the food was - I take it the beer was good, too). After a bit of shopping we indulged in a Godiva hot chocolate "Chocalixir" they called it...it was VERY good!

We then split up again to finish shopping for each others presents. Dinner was at...you guessed it, TGIFridays! We had mojitos to drink - very yummy :) I had ribs and Bryn had grilled swordfish...both very yummy. After an hour and a half of VERY expensive karaoke, we turned in for the night.

"Don't mess with my mojito."

Sunday morning after some Starbucks (well, duh) we continued shopping for all of our foreign foods and other "stuff" (you know, speakers, camera, wine...). We ended up having to sit in a little bar/restaurant we discovered in the station for a snack while we waited for our train.

It was a good weekend and we came home with an armful of bags each. I would dare say it was a successful trip!

I am baking cookies this week in preparation for our Christmas dinner with Ippei and Yoko (Junko will be out of town and can't make it). The weather is calling for snow from Friday, but I am certainly not going to hold my breath! Tomorrow is the last real day of classes, Thursday is a holiday and then we have our closing ceremony for the term on Friday.

Well, in case we don't get another chance to post anything before Christmas, we hope you have a very merry one and a happy new year!

I'll leave you with a few random pictures from our new camera (which we are still learning how to use...!)