Hello!
So as usual, just a post filled of pictures and stories of what I have been up to recently.
I already made a post about my birthday, but the day after it my host family had a little party for me at home and they got me a cake and even got me presents and we ate lots of stuff.
Because I'm in the fanclub of one of my favourite bands, AAA, they sent me this birthday card as well. I will treasure this generic heartfelt card forever.
A few days later I went to Roppongi.
My main purpose for being there were the special Christmas illuminations, but that's a lie, my main purpose was actually just to see this giant spider statue in Roppongi Hills.
A view of Tokyo Tower from Roppongi
While wandering around Roppongi Hills I found this German style Christmas Market, it was super busy so I didn't even look at any of the stalls I just stared at it and took pictures of Santa
Then I went to what I was supposed to come to Roppongi for - the illuminations. This one is extremely popular, so much so that there is actually a queue to go and see it. You enter the queue from the entrance to a mall, get led through the basement of the mall, exit the mall, then get led through this pathway of trees. We're still not there yet.
Then finally after queueing for about 30 minutes or so in the pouring rain, you arrive at the main attraction: this giant field of lights
SO PRETTY.
So yeah, what it is is just a giant field with lights in the ground and they move around and music plays and it's all festive and pretty and everyone stands around it and takes photos. Ah Christmas time.
I took way too many photos. Then after you walk around the whole field, making sure to get pictures at every angle, you exit through the overhead walkway and get to the mall
And that was my journey to Roppongi.
Now on to Christmas. You've all now seen all my photos of Tokyo's extreme Christmas decorations so you're probably thinking Christmas is a big deal over here. But nope. Not at all. I think many Japanese people have gotten on board with giving gifts and that kind of thing, but for the most part Christmas is just a time for pretty decorations and going on dates in Japan. Something foreigners from North America and Europe find surprising is that Japanese people do not get any time off for Christmas. People still work as usual, students still go to school (the exception being most university students - in general university students in Japan get a lot more time off than primary and secondary school students and people with jobs) and it's pretty much just like any other day of the year. So for Christmas I did not do very much.
I did what I do all the time and went to Harajuku (surprise, didn't go to NTV this time). I got a mochi green tea ice cream soy bean flour dark syrup waffle (translating stuff into English doesn't always turn out well)
Then walked down Omotesando seeing the last of the pretty lights.
Ahhhhh, pretty lights.
And that was Meghan's Christmas 2014. I feel like Christmas never really happened.
The most recent thing I did was go to....Harajuku again. My sole purpose was to go to Meiji shrine and write a wish on an ema, but because of all the New Years (Christmas may not be a big deal, but New Years in Japan is huge) preparations I wasn't able to.
Here is Meiji Shrine, decked out with Year of the Sheep decorations.
My other reason for going to Harajuku was to see my favourite band, NEWS, on some billboards promoting their upcoming single. I'm that much of a loser.
And later I walked from Harajuku to Shibuya station and was walking around and looked up and saw the billboard again and had a mental breakdown ("NEWS, NEWS IS THERE, IT'S MY BABIES!!!! MY BABIES ARE IN A BILLBOARD!!!!!!! IN THE MIDDLE OF SHIBUYA!!!!!! NEWS!!!!!!!!")
And that is pretty much what I've been up to! December was a very "LET'S GO SEE THE ILLUMINATIONS!" kind of month.
Now tomorrow is the last day of 2014 and to ring in the new year I am going to see AAA in concert with my host sister Mai!
Starting off 2015 good.
I shall now leave you with this photo of me and Yoshio the cat
see you in 2015, x
