Winter in Japan: Illuminations, Bounenkai, and Nabe

Spring in Japan brings cherry blossom viewing, summer brings firework festivals and yukata, and fall brings the glorious changing leaves. What does winter bring in Japan? It brings hot food, end of the year parties, and most of all, illuminations. If there is one thing that Japan does better than the U.S. in terms of holiday spirit, it’s definitely illuminations.

Since there is no Thanksgiving in Japan, you can expect to see the Christmas decorations come out in early November. Stores put up Christmas trees, streets become lined with lights, and German Christmas markets start popping up as soon as Halloween ends. Some Christmas illuminations are famous like the Luminarie in Kobe or the Hikari Renaissance in Osaka, but you can stumble upon all sorts of illuminations in unexpected places.

Big Christmas tree in Kyoto Station.

This year, I made it a point to actually go see a big illumination, the Hikari Renaissance in Nakanoshima, Osaka. I wanted to go see the Luminarie in Kobe, but it was only going on for a short time, so I wasn’t able to make it. I’ll try again next year. Another one I want to try going to is the one at Osaka Castle, but that one costs money, so I’m putting it off for now.

Anyway, about the one in Nakanoshima, I went to go see it with my boyfriend. Going to see an illumination is a very popular couple thing to do in Japan. Although it was pretty and made me feel the holiday spirit, it was actually a very quick event, taking only like 15 minutes. The Hikari Renaissance has not only a tunnel of lights, but 3D mapping on the city hall and a small German food market. I got to enjoy the lights over a hot cup of sangria.

Tunnel of lights.

The lights changed and flashed in tune to music.

Hikari Renaissance.

Hikari Renaissance.

3D Mapping.

Hot Sangria.

As a bonus, the traveling Rubber Duck sculpture designed by Dutch artist, Florentijn Hofman is in Nakanoshima this winter, so we went to check that out after the illumination. I think I might have been more excited about that haha! It was really big and cute!!

The Rubber Duck!!

In the Namba and Shinsaibashi area of Osaka, you can find all sorts of illuminations, most impressive being the one at Namba Parks shopping center where you can see a huge waterfall of lights.

Also, the Twilight Fantasy illumination in Osaka Station may be small, but it’s worth going up the few flights of escalators to check out if you are at the station.

Midosuji Street Illumination.

Dontonbori.

Namba Parks.

Namba Parks,

Giant waterfall at Namba Parks.

With friends. :)

Twilight Fantasy.

Twilight Fantasy.

Besides Illuminations, winter in Japan brings hot food, particularly nabe (hot pots). I made it a point this winter to eat a lot of nabe because it’s something that I hadn’t done much the previous winters. I even made a Korean kimchi nabe at home!

This year I went to my first actual nabe party. It was crab nabe, and omg it was so delicious! It was my first time to eat zosui which is when they add egg and rice to the broth and make a sort of porridge. That was super tasty!

Kani (crab) nabe.

Ughhhhh so gooooood!

Zosui.

Last, with the ending of the year comes end of the year parties called bounenkai. They are an essential part of Japanese working culture. They can also be held among friends or members of social clubs. Coworkers gather together to feast and drink in order to forget the troubles of the working year. Since I’ve always gone home for Christmas break, I never got to participate in my work’s bounenkai until this year. We rented out a whole Italian restaurant. The food was sooo good! Brick oven pizza, pastas, etc. And most importantly…all you can drink wine! We also played a quiz game inch which one of the questions everyone had to make guesses about me haha! It was fun! Of course the bounenkai was followed by a nijikai  (after party) where I bought a round of tequila for my coworkers haha! God I love Japanese drinking culture. It’s so different from America.

So ya, those are some things you should know about winter in Japan! If you are ever here in winter, definitely check out an illumination and treat yourself to a big nabe!

Eating (Raw) Oysters

Ever since I made that list of goals I mentioned a few posts back, I’ve been knocking off some of the simpler ones rather quickly. I haven’t watched anime this much since I was a junior high school student! I’m excited to say that I checked off another goal last weekend: Eating Japanese oysters, particularly raw ones.

Hello Mr. Oyster!

Japanese oysters, kaki, are a big thing here. When kaki are in season (like now), people go nuts for them. I know we have oysters in America, and we even eat them raw, but it’s simply something I never got around doing. When living in America, perhaps I ate a cooked oyster in a pasta or something before without realizing what it was, and that most likely has happened since I’ve lived in Japan. However, this is the first time I knowingly went to eat oysters in a large quantity, and it was definitely my first time to eat raw ones.

It just so happens that one of my best friends, Ken, is the manager at a kaki restaurant called “Kaki Koya Fever” in Nakazakicho, north Osaka. Apparently there are a few branches. He always told me I should come, so I invited Shinya and finally made a reservation. Good thing I did because it was packed! According to Ken, it was the busiest night of the season so far. Koya means “shack” or “shed,” and that’s basically how it was.  Kind of run down, cramped, and cluttered with plastic drapes to keep out the cold rather than a real wall and door. However, it was extremely warm inside because the place is small and there is a grill burning on every table. Some of the tables were actually metal drums out on the pavement of the street. They were still contained within the plastic drapes though and had personal space heaters. Anyway, I’m not trying to give this place a bad image, in fact, it’s quite the opposite! It was very authentic and a very fun atmosphere! Club music was playing loudly, and people were chatting rowdily over their drinks. You always know that the food is gona be good at places like this.

かき小屋フィーバー中崎町

So about the setup, basically, there were two courses, both all-you-can-eat for ninety minutes. One had raw oysters, and one didn’t. The one with the all-you-can-eat raw oysters was about 1000 yen more. Aside from the raw oysters, both courses had all the same things. Basically just oysters prepared several ways: steamed, grilled, deep-fried with potato wedges, and over rice. There was also an assortment of sauces like lemon juice, soy sauce, ponzu (which I thought was the best), yuzu ponzu, and sweet chili sauce. The fried ones came with tartar sauce. They bring out some of everything at first, and then you can ask for more of whatever you want. You could also pay for all-you-can-drink booze, too…which we did of course!

First they brought out our drinks and a huge bucket of oysters to be dumped in a pile on the grill. While those are cooking, they bring you out some steamed ones followed by the raw. After several minutes, the staff comes over and takes the lid off your personal grill. They give you a glove for handling the hot oysters and scissors to cut open the ones that didn’t open on their own. Later, the deep-fried ones come out, and at last, a bowl of seasoned rice in which you can add oysters to the top of by using the ones on the grill.

Steamed ones.

Grilled ones!

Since I had never eaten raw oysters, I was nervous about whether or not I’d like them. I wasn’t at all concerned about whether or not I’d like the cooked ones though because I’ve had cooked clams, scallops, mussels, etc. which I thought were good. Also, people often get sick from eating raw oysters, although Ken claims that they do something at the restaurant to the oysters that prevent them from making people sick. Like they somehow remove the sickness or something…I don’t know haha. Anyway, Shinya absolutely loves raw oysters, so I was excited to try them. In the end, I didn’t think that much of them really. They weren’t bad, but they mostly just tasted like sea water to me with lemon. I had heard stories like they are slimy, make you gag, or you shouldn’t chew them, just swallow them, but they were totally fine in that respect. I asked Shinya if I should chew them, and he was like, “Um yeah, you should,” like why are you asking that haha?! I think raw oysters are probably an acquired taste like how I was with uni (sea urchin) and natto (fermented soy beans). At first, you aren’t used to the flavor because you’ve never experienced them, but the second or third time, you know what to expect and can appreciate the flavor more.

Raw ones.

My favorite oysters were the grilled ones and the deep fried ones. The deep friend ones were delicious but heavy, so they made you feel really full if you are too many. I could only manage four which is what they gave per person anyway. The grilled ones were fun because you got to open them yourself and dump whatever sauce you wanted on them. They were also really good plain though! The only thing we got refills on were the raw ones and the grilled ones. I think Shinya ate 12 raw ones! We were stuffed by the end.

Shinya cutting open an oyster.

Damage done.

It was so nice knowing the manager because first, he purposely put on my favorite EDM music, Skrillex, for my enjoyment. I was literally dancing in my chair for a good part of the time. Next, he gave us no time limit on drinks. Shinya and I drank so much haha! I had a plum wine, a lime chu-hi, a white wine, and two bottles of hot sake hahaha! We both got pretty buzzed. Ken always told me that since he’s the manager, he can do whatever and often drinks on the job, so I kept feeding him shots of hot sake. By the end, he said he felt a little drunk haha! When we paid our bill, Ken didn’t charge us for our drinks at all, just the food. It was so awesome and nice of him! The whole experience was a ton of fun! I definitely want to take people who visit me there in the future.

Having a little too much fun. Lol!

Thank you so much Ken!

“Arasaa” My 25th Birthday!

Wanna know something weird about me? I hate odd numbers. I think they are unlucky, and they make me feel icky. When I turned twenty-one, I was ok with it though because it’s an exciting year for Americans as we can legally drink from twenty-one years old. Twenty-two and twenty-four were great years for me. Twenty-three was not. I’m not looking forward to twenty-seven or twenty-nine either. However, twenty-five is special. It’s special because it’s right in the center of twenty and thirty making it a nice, clean number. Yes, I know I have some obsessive compulsive issues. So in any case, I have a good feeling about turning twenty-five, and I feel like I can make this year a good one.

My birthday was December 5^th. According to Shinya, I am now “arasaa” which means “around thirty” and I think is only used for women. Arasaa is short for “araundo saatii.” If you look at it or try to sound it out, maybe you will notice that it’s just a Romanization for the Japanese English pronunciation of “around thirty.” I don’t really consider myself to be around thirty because I think ages twenty-eight through thirty-two are around thirty, but apparently in Japan twenty-five though twenty-nine is considered around thirty, and Shinya likes to tease me about it…but then I remind him how next month he actually is turning thirty, and that makes him quiet real quick haha!

This year was fantastic as far as celebrating birthdays goes. I felt like I really started off the year right. As one of my friends pointed out, I was basically celebrity status! My Facebook exploded with birthday wishes. My family and friends sent me gifts in the mail. I was surprised in two classes with a birthday chalkboard in one and a gift in the other. I was treated with a round of shots at Captain Kangaroo. I was also surprised by a gift from my local bar master and with a delicious homemade green tea birthday cake by my student’s parents when I attended their restaurant’s sushi party. The main two events, however, were my birthday date with Shinya on my actual birthday and my friend party the following day.

The cute board my elementary kids drew for me!

Maccha cake!

My birthday date with Shinya was so nice. After he got off of work, he met me in Kyobashi. Since it’s the winter season now, he originally wanted to take me to a nabe (hot pot) place where we could have our own private room, but when he called, it was completely booked, so he instead to me took one of my favorite izakaya that we had been to once before together a while ago. It specializes in fish and other seafood. We shared delicious sashimi, clams in a hot broth, and vegetable and seafood tempura over a couple drinks. Shinya also got thick cuts of bacon, and I got chawanmushi. I seriously can’t get enough of chawanmushi lately. Chawanmushi is a steamed egg custard thing that has surprises hidden inside like pieces or crab, chicken, eel, mushrooms, and more. It’s piping hot and especially nice in winter. Dinner was absolutely delicious!

Sashimi!

Next he took me to a really nice bar called Wisteria that we went to together for the first time a couple weeks ago and fell in love with. Actually, he had been there once on his own before, but our first time together was recently. I don’t normally drink Moscow mules, but the ones at this place are to die for. The master infuses the vodka with real ginger slices and lets it sit for a long time. When he makes the drink, he actually puts the pieces of ginger in it! The ginger-ale he uses comes in tiny one-serving size glass bottles. Damn is it good!

Over our drinks, we enjoyed quiet conversation together. I’m not going to specifically tell you what was said because it was for me alone to hear, but I will say that after saying one of the most romantic things I’ve ever heard to me, Shinya pulled a small gift out of his bag and set it in front of me followed by the line, “I don’t really know when the right moment to give you this is…” In fact, it was the perfect moment. It was a little round box with a ribbon. I nervously opened it knowing that it was going to be some form of jewelry. I was nervous because I didn’t know how expensive it was going to be and if I’d like it or not. Fortunately, when I opened it, my eyes met the most beautiful and tasteful pair of white gold earrings with my birthstone and other gems. I was honestly impressed by his choice. He told me he imagined all the different earrings on me and took a long time choosing the pair he thought would suit me the best. I was touched, not only by the gift, but the things he said after giving it to me. Again, things meant for me to hear. He ended his speech by saying. “All of my feelings are in these earrings, so please remember that when you look at them, and if you wear them in front of me, it’ll make me happy.” I get little butterflies in my belly just thinking about his words. Such a wonderful man! We ended the night at our favorite local bar. It was a lovely spent birthday.

So beautiful.

So on to the crazy part, because it wouldn’t be my birthday without having a wild party with my friends haha! I thought about it, and actually, every birthday I’ve had in Japan has involved going to a dance club. This year, my best friend here in Japan, Joe, planned my party for me because he is the best! He made the izakaya reservation, took care of the cake, made the guest list, and invited everyone for me. I think there were 14 of us total. I was so happy to be surrounded by my closest friends. It meant so much to me that they all came. Dinner was delicious, and the drinks were flowing. I have no idea what was up with me this night, but no matter how much I drank, I could not get buzzed! It didn’t really matter though because I was having a blast. Joe’s explanation as to why I didn’t get drunk was that I was too excited and psyched up my liver for the party so much that it was in super work mode haha! I think he was right. Shinya came to my friend party which made me happy because I want him to be cool with my friends.

My friends. <3

Getting chummy.

During dinner my friends brought out the cake, and everyone gave me really nice presents! I was touched! Rachel’s birthday is a few days after mine, so we also celebrated her birthday too. So there were actually two cakes and presents for her as well.

Delicious cake!

Happy Birthday to you too, Rachel!

My friends spoiled me!! Thank you guys!

After everyone was feeling good, some more than others haha (*ahem* Ken), we headed to Balabushka. I was treated to drinks the whole time by my friends! I had three regular tequila shots, one double, and two cocktails, and I didn’t get drunk!! Wtf?! I swear there was something funky going on because I also have like 5 plum wines at the izakaya. So maybe I felt a little something after the double tequila shot, but it was short lived.

Heading over to Balabushka with our awesome birthday glasses!

Thank you for the tequila!

At Balabushka, we played Jenga and were rowdy. Shinya stayed for a bit, but he was tired from working so much, and noisy, rowdy, drinking parties aren’t really his thing. Plus, he wasn’t keen on going to a dance club, so he apologetically took his leave. He didn’t want to bring down my good time. At first, I was kind of bummed that he wanted to leave, but then I thought about it like a mature adult and realized that I didn’t want to force him to do something he didn’t want to do, and I probably really would have a better time if I didn’t have to worry about whether or not he was enjoying himself. In the end, I think it was a good thing that he left because I could spend more time with my friends, too. Any sort of sadness I had about him leaving was completely cured when he ended up meeting up with me to ride the first train home and surprising me by coming over to my house. He squeezed my hand tight and apologized for ditching the rest of the party, but honesty, I didn’t even mind.

Jenga time.

So back to the party after Shinya left...It’s probably good that he did leave because that’s right about the time when things started getting crazy. As I mentioned before, Ken was really wasted when leaving the izakaya. When we got to Balabushka, he kept up his pace with stronger drinks. He got really weird and was poking our butts and stuff. I’ve never really saw him like that lol. Anyway, he decided to pass out in a chair, incoherent and slouched over for like 1 ½ hours. When it started getting close to the time we wanted to go clubbing, we had to figure out what to do with him. He couldn’t stand or talk. I would’ve felt bad leaving him there because first, I didn’t know if he was ok, and second, he probably would’ve been sad and confused if he woke up wondering where everyone went. So, we spent like 20 minutes talking to him, poking him, and trying to get him to drink water until he was vaguely coherent. We got him to stand, kind of. Yuki and I helped him walk, and Haru was kind enough to volunteer to take him back to his place by car. Ken is so funny because as we were walking him to Haru’s car, he was all smiley and laughing about nothing. When I texted him the next day, he remembered nothing.

That time when Ken died at my birthday party.

So the craziness wasn’t over yet. The other Ken (Ken-chan) showed up after his end-of-the-year work party, and holy mother of Jesus was he on a different level. I had never seen him so crazy in my life. He walked in basically like crying and drooling with snot dripping out of his nose screaming because he was so happy that he “somehow made it to Balabushka.” He was just like hugging us and saying how happy he was and how important friends are. After that he passed out on a table… and then shortly after woke up to projectile vomit right in the middle of the bar, which my poor bartender friend, Masaya, had to clean up with just some paper towels and his bare hands. I felt so bad for him! He mopped after, too. God, it was gross. I think Ken-chan felt a bit better after that but still skipped going to the club which I think was for the better.

Look who showed up!

So perhaps around 2:30 or so, we headed to Wax, not before the guys decided to make a “friend pile” on the street. Usually I am drunk when I go clubbing, so my energy is high, but since I wasn’t drunk, I was feeling a little tired, but I still danced. I danced in my circle of friends until the club shut down at 5 am. I really did enjoy dancing, but I feel like I couldn’t give it my all because I was sleepy and sober. I even refused when invited to dance on stage...something I never refuse to do haha! There was one really funny thing that happened though. I was dancing with Yuki a lot, and when we dance together, it’s always just silly and messing around like making dumb faces and stuff. Well later, I started dancing with him again, and then he tried to ask me something. I couldn’t hear him, so I look up at his face, and realized that it wasn’t actually Yuki but some guy that looked like him because they had the same sweater, were the same height, and both had glasses haha! I just looked at him for a second, and was like, “Um, sorry, I can’t hear you,” and walked away. He was probably so confused because some weird foreign chick just started randomly dancing with him in a strange manner. This guy actually looked Korean though, and might have been trying to speak to me in Korean because I had no idea what he was saying. So ya, that was funny.

"Friend pile."

F*ckin' up the club.

Rarrrrr!!! PARTAY!

That was basically how my birthday went! I had a great time Also, it was so nice to meet Shinya in the morning and go home together. It was a perfect and peaceful end to a crazy fun night! I won’t forget walking home together hand in hand and being surprised by the huge, low-hanging moon. Shinya tried to take a picture of it with his phone because it was so amazing looking, but the phone made it look small and bad, so we agreed to save the image of the moon to our memory forever. <3

An Autumn Date in Kyoto

I remember when I was a college student learning Japanese. In class, my Japanese teacher said that Japanese fall is prettier than American fall. I was almost offended becausefall is my favorite season, and even though all I knew was America’s fall, to me it was one of the most beautiful things. It’s amazing how traveling to different countries can change your perspective and ways of thinking. After going abroad, you learn things about your own culture and find out that what you thought made your home country unique actually isn’t unique to your country at all. Alternatively, you can learn what actually makes your home different from other places in the world. Before moving to Japan and exploring other countries, I was truly naive. It makes me think about how many other places and cultures in the world I want to visit and experience and what I can learn from them. I am still ignorant about many things, I’m sure.

So when I came to Japan and experienced my first fall here, I learned that my teacher was correct, and Japanese fall is indeed prettier. I gave it some thought, and I came up with three possible reasons why.

First, Japan has different types of trees that aren’t common in America, ones that are particularly vibrant in the fall. The kind that comes to mind at first is the Japanese maple. These trees turn brilliant hues of orange and red. The leaves themselves are small and cute with a nice shape. Actually, the shape closely resembles marijuana leaves which lead to some hilarious misunderstandings because Japanese will buy clothes with Jamaican colors and marijuana leaves on them because they think it’s a cute Japanese maple leaf. Haha!

A Japanese Maple.

A close-up of the leaves,

Next, although America (well most of America) has four seasons like Japan, the Japanese tend to take more pride in their four seasons and make a big deal out of them. I previously wrote a post on fall illuminations. It’s where they shine spotlights on the colorful changing trees in a temple at night. It’s like walking through a sea of fire. Check out that post for pictures. No matter what time of year, there is always something beautiful in bloom. This is taken into consideration and the foliage in cities, parks, gardens, etc. are arranged in such a way that it’s pleasing to the eye throughout the different times of the year. It’s amazing, really. I imagine some people are paid to put a lot of thought and consideration into what types of plants to use and how to arrange them. Also, it seems to me that Japanese people in general have a natural ability or knack for this sort of thing because even peoples’ homes have intricate arrangements outside their doors and such. Maybe it stems from their traditional culture of flower arranging (aka ikebana).

Last, Japan’s natural landscape caters to the display of fall colors. Almost every town has tree-covered mountains and hills. The sight of the green mountains speckled with bright reds, oranges, and yellows is something you never sick of.  The dazzling trees also serve as a nice backdrop to Japanese temples and Shrines. Imagine standing on the grounds of a peaceful Japanese temple surrounded by woods accented with spots of fall colors that bring warmth to the cool atmosphere. A light breeze blows, and you can hear the little multicolored leaves shudder and see them blow across the mossy stone ground. It really is something of a spiritual feeling. For all of these reasons, I believe Japan wins the prettier fall award.

Mountains speckled with color.

In my post, “Goals and Blowfish” I wrote about some of my goals while living in Japan. One of them is to not miss kouyou (fall leaf viewing). I have done well to keep that goal each year. This year I went to the Arashiyama area of Kyoto with Shinya for a fall date. It was very pretty. My only complaint was that it was extremely crowded. Arashiyama is famous for fall leaf viewing, so I guess it was to be expected.

When we got there, we got snacks and sat by the river soaking in the view. It was cool outside, but not uncomfortable. After that, we climbed the mountain to the monkey park. We could see many nice trees on the way up. I have been to the monkey park several times, but Shinya had never been to it, and since monkeys are his favorite animal, I thought he’d enjoy it. The view from the top of the mountain is breathtaking. You can see all of Kyoto city.

Sitting by the river, taking in the view.

View of Kyoto from the top of the mountain.

Shinya feeding a monkey.

After spending a little time feeding the monkeys, we made our way down the mountain and checked out Tenryuji, a temple nearby. I figured it would have some beautiful trees, which it did. We also made a brief visit to the bamboo forest since Shinya had never seen that either.

Tenryuji.

Aside from seeing the fall colors, we were also excited to eat a Kyoto meibutsu or local specialty. Kyoto has several of them such as yudofu, yuba, and soba. Shinya and I both like tofu a lot, so we decided to eat yudofu which is tofu boiled in a broth and then dipped into sauce with various garnishes. In the set meal we ordered, yuba (tofu skin) was also served, so we were lucky because we got to eat both. It ended up being a nice little day trip together.

Yudofu.

Our set meal. I should've taken all the little lids off for the
picture...oh well.

A nice little day.

In Japan, fall comes much later than in America which used to upset, but now I don’t mind waiting for it…