Christmas Day in Ohhhhhhhhhhsaka

Jame and I woke up at 8am and started to get ready for work. Like I mentioned in the previous entry....it felt odd going to work on Christmas Day---but on the up-side at least we were off early!

I was the only teacher working at my school, but it was o.k. as the day managed to fly by. Jame was so sweet -- he swung by my branch on his break to deliver a nice Japanese festive winter bouquet. We hung out for a bit then it was back to work for a couple of more hours.

We both got home at 6:30pm, made some hot chocolate and peppermint schnapps, lit the tree, pumped the Christmas tunes and got ready to open up the package my mom sent from home a few weeks back. It killed me to have this bin remain closed until the 25th...I am such a little kid that way...but I am glad I waited because it really made Christmas feel like Christmas :)

Below are some photos of the goodies we got:

**Christmas package from Canada**

**For about 10 + years I would give my mom a Christmas ornament on the 25th. Her tree started to get a bit overwhelmed, so she started to do the same for me every year. Jame and I love poker and this ornament is a tree made out of cards on a poker table. We love it! **

**Fun puzzle ornaments. Jame already finished his, but he cheated and looked at the piece by number sheet....tee hee....sorry Jame ;)! **

**Incense is quite common here, so decent smelling/burning candles are hard to come by. As most of you know...I love candles, so my mom hooked me up!**

**Sweet Nike dri-fit shirt**

**Ahhhhhh....I LOVE Febreeze!!!!!**

**Jame's all time favourite non-alcoholic drink is Good Host iced-tea. Now we just have to find a jug that will fit in our tiny fridge! **

**Magazines cost an arm and a leg here! It is insane!! I'm a huge mag nut, so once again we got hooked up :)**

**Christmas is nothing without Toblerone!!**

**OMG....good chocolate...Purdy's chocolate!! Uh-oh..it is going to be hard to ration these!**

**To my family back home --thank you sooooooo much for everything! We love it all and appreciate it soooo much. Like I said...you definitely made Christmas feel like Christmas for us! Thanks and much love!!**

After Jame and I opened our gifts from home we got ready to meet some friends for Christmas dinner. My friend Tamara had heard of a place called "Cafe Absinthe" that was serving turkey dinner, so she alerted us all right away and of course none of us could turn down turkey dinner on Christmas Day!

L - R : Joy (Florida), Ben (Australia), Matt & Kira (Tdot), me & jame, Tamara (Tdot), Luke (Winnipeg), Jake (Australia)

**A little champagne with dinner...very nice!**

**Luke and Jake toast to a Merry Christmas**

**Our dinner started out with a delicious appetizer --salmon, asparagus with cheese sauce and a scallop with coconut in some sauce that was amazing!**

**The turkey was marinated in maple syrup and apple sauce and was placed on a bed of cous-cous. It was soooooooo good!! Unfortunately the place was so busy they ran out of mashed potatoes, so we got fries instead. They were pretty tasty too!**

**Dessert -- a ganache brownie with ice-cream and raspberry coulis. HEAVEN**

**I never thought I would ever eat Christmas dinner with chopsticks (hashi)**

**This is called a Hookah and it originates from India. It is a glass based water pipe designed for smoking flavoured tobacco. It operates by water filtration and indirect heat. It is a pretty beautiful looking piece of art. The tobacco was apple flavoured and it was very sweet and smooth.**

**Takin' a drag from the Hookah**

**This is Shawn from NYC. He came later in the night. He is a super nice guy who told me some names of some new bands to check out! **

**Tam, Luke & Jake**

**Kira and Matt. This place makes the BEST mojitos I have ever had.**

**Us gals**

**Jame and Toshiki. Just a random guy that Jame started chatting it up with. He works with cameras...like the engineering part of desgning them. Ummmm....how about a % on a new lens for our DSLR? Ha ha ha!**

**Luke & I**

**For those of you who have never seen this before...I had never until this night...it is called Absinthe. It's a distilled, highly alcoholic anise-flavoured spirit derived from wormwood. Due to its high proof and concentration of oils, absintheurs (absinthe drinkers) typically add three to five parts ice-cold water to a dose of absinthe, which causes the drink to turn cloudy (called 'louching'); often the water is used to dissolve added sugar to decrease bitterness. This preparation is considered an important part of the experience of drinking absinthe.**

**This is one of the BT's at Cafe Absinthe. Not gonna lie -- us gals had a hard time keeping our eyes off of him :)**

**Prepping a shot of Absinthe for Tamara. He lit the spirit on fire first then suctioned the glass to his hand and swirled it around before she could drink it**

**Jame watching the BT prep his glass of absinthe**

**This stuff is pretty tasty and STRONG**

We left the restaurant at about midnight and headed to a bar called "Bamboo" that Shawn works P/T at. We hung out there for a bit, then decided to call it a night at about 2am . We shared a cab with Kira and Matt and headed home. We have ridden in a cab quite a few times since we have been here because the trains stop running at 11:30pm. Ususally the cabbies are pretty lame. However, what a nice treat we got on this night. Our cabbie RULED!! His english was minimal, but he was such a good sport when it came to us drunk fools spewing out random Japanese words/sentences from our phrase book. He always laughed and was sure to correct our pronuniciation. He even broke out in "Silent Night" for us! It was great!!!

**Our best Japanese cabbie by far!!**

When we got home we decided to call our nephews via web-cam. It was 2:30am our time and about 8am Christmas morning in Canada. Perfect timing! They had just opened their stockings and since we were on-line they opened up the cool Japanese shirts we bought them. Three of them are pretty cool and one of them is just a horrible translation saying "I love hot dog!!" Jame and I thought it was hilarious when we saw it, so of course we had to buy it.

I was a bit nervous that the shirts wouldn't fit because I don't understand the kiddie sizes here, but as it turns out there is even a bit of room for growth. Our oldest nephew loves planes so we got him this shirt with some planes flying over Mt. Fuji. As soon as he saw it he said "Ahhhh...bombers...look at the planes!" Awwwwww....I shed a tear! I miss those lil' guys sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much!! However, thank god for technology and web-cams!!!! :) We stocked up on some fun toys for them too...some stuff they'll love and other are just funny Japanese toys. We are going to send them home with Jame's folks because it would be too $$ to mail.

On the 26th we woke up...without a hang-over....just a little tired. We chatted with my family on the computer and it was great to hear their voices. To all of those we chatted with ...it was great to talk to you and we are glad you all had an awesome Christmas.

Well...that's it. I think this is longest entry by far on the blog! We pick up Jame's parents tonight as they are here for 8 days. The weather forecast calls for rain the whole time they are here, so FINGERS CROSSED! We hope you all enjoy your New Year and we hope to chat with you more that day/night. Have a good one!