Christmas Lights

People keep asking us what our plans for Christmas are and I suppose I haven't really said. We have a tree and we have baked goods, but we have no flight home. Steve's team has matches on December 26th and 27th, which means they travel on the 25th. Booooo... But I'll go along, and we have Christmas-y things planned for the days before: dinner and candlelight service on the 24th, dinner with friends on the 23rd - and I guess that's about it. Even though Christmas isn't really celebrated here, the city is all dressed up in lights - there are holiday illuminations and displays all over town. Last night we made our way up to Roppongi, checked out the massive shopping and entertainment complex that is Roppongi Hills, and made our way down to Azabu Juban for some Mexican food. There was a cute little German Christmas market set up in the middle of the complex, with sausages and beer and mulled wine and people eating and drinking amidst Christmas greenery and music - very 'tis-the-season. There were bright lights all around, and, I must say that this is the most Christmas-y Christmas we've had in a foreign land in years... and I'm loving it! Unfortunately, Frijoles was closed, and despite some initial frustration ("but I'm hungry and I even checked their website to see if they were open rrrrggggh" - me), we were happy and full after warm and spicy hotpots at a neighboring restaurant - noodle pots and boiled dumplings will do that to you I suppose.


Just outside Roppongi Hills - check the giant Louis Vuitton store in the background... posh.

AND as if you need to hear about any more of my baking escapades, but... well, you do. A few weeks ago I responded to an ad in Metropolis (a goooood weekly English language magazine about Tokyo) for a baking assistant for an English baking class... uhm, yup. That's a job I could do. Anyways, so I went to my first class on Saturday afternoon, and made stollen - since it was my first time, I baked with the other ladies to get the feel of how things worked. There were nine women, and for some of them it was their first time baking - EVER. And they made stollen! Can you believe either of those things? I'm pretty sure I've been baking since I was 10 or something - but stollen, that was a first for me too. It was pretty labour intensive, but very worth my while... talk about deliciousness! I don't have the recipe, so can't pass it on - but if you don't have 3 hours to make it... then never yeeeee mind. Anyways, yum.


The weekend wasn't so successful for the volleyballers - they went down in both matches, again. However, they have a big tourney coming up this weekend, and hopefully things will start looking up for them. It's not that they're a bad team - the other teams are good and strong, and F. C. Tokyo is definitely putting up a fight; I think it's just a matter of time. This is the first year in the top division for the team, and I think that the group will gain a lot of confidence when they win their first V-league game. I'm looking forward to the games this weekend - the team is playing in The Emporer's Cup, held at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium. I'm hoping that a good crowd turns out to cheer them on - they are, after all, the home team. If anything, I'll be there along with a small army of mama-san volleyball mamas, and if they can cheer as half as well as they can play, there will be support a'plenty coming from the sea of spectators.