メリークリスマス！

Merry Christmas from Kyoto everyone. 京都からメリークリスマスみんな！

For me, Christmas is a bigger deal than usual this year for two reasons: 1) I'm celebrating in another country, and 2) I'm not celebrating it with the family this year (because, you know, they're back in Australia). However, I am fortunate enough to be celebrating it with my girlfriend.
From what I've learned, and from what my girlfriend has told me, the general impressions towards Christmas in Japan are significantly different compared to how it is celebrated in Australia. The main point I've found is that Christmas here isn't a time for being with family. In fact, it's a time for couples to be together and go out. Also, Christmas Eve is apparently a bigger deal than Christmas Day, in that presents are exchanged on Christmas Eve instead.
Another interesting point, is that fried chicken is the food to be eating during Christmas. While convenience stores and whatnot sell fried chicken, KFC is usually the preferred choice of Japanese people. Also, since there's only one KFC that I know of in Kyoto (located in Sanjo), it got really busy there - hell they even take advance orders, so you can go there later and just pick up your order immediately. When we went there, there was already a line forming outside, and some staff were going to waiting customers, giving out a menu so they can decide while waiting, and then taking their order when they were ready. The staff would write the order down on a docket, and give it to you, which you give to the cashier when you're next to make your payment. Luckily for us, a number of people decided to leave the line and go elsewhere, which made things go quicker. The staff also mentioned that because it was so busy, our order would probably take about 20 mins, which was no problem to us. Surprisingly, it only took about 10 mins between paying and receiving our meal.
The final thing I've found is that Christmas is not a national holiday here, so there are still plenty of people that will be working on Christmas Day today. In Australia, people everywhere would be making use of their annual leave to get this week off, and maybe a little bit in to next week, in preparation for the new year.

I wasn't expecting much in the way of presents this year, but I was really happy and surprised with what I received from my girlfriend. I got a pair of thermal earmuffs for the winter, some popcorn which we'll probably eat tonight, a framed photo of us when we went to see the autumn leaves a few weeks back, a shoulder bag (which I had been thinking about getting for some time, but didn't mention anything to my girlfriend, so this was a really pleasant surprise), and lastly a sketchbook - but not just any regular sketchbook: knowing that I like Gundam (especially Gundam Unicorn), she personally decorated it with a lot of Gundam images, especially the RX-0 Gundam Unicorn, and on the back were images of all the Universal Century Gundams. I was really impressed that she went to such great lengths, and they are all really awesome gifts (by the way, I did buy her presents too, in case anyone was wondering)

That's all for me from now, next post will hopefully cover the New Year in Japan.