Christmas mania and more!

Hello friends in Christ!

We have been spending our time going around enjoying the sights and sound of northern Japan.  Our Japanese friends have been so wonderful to us, taking us around and being great hosts! We are very lucky!!

So, in a few weeks we will celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ!  As for me and Christina we will be spending Christmas in Japan, I am so excited to spend a white Christmas here!  In Australia we always have hot summer Christmas days so this year we are lucky to have a winter Christmas again in Japan! 

Although Japan is a non Christian country, we have found that Christmas is becoming increasingly popular amongst the Japanese people more than ever before.  Streets all over the country have been set up with illuminations and everywhere you go you see beautifully decorated Christmas trees and Christmas music is played in all the stores, coffee shops and restaurants - even more than in Australia! 

In addition, a very big trend here in Japan for Christmas is the Japanese Christmas strawberry short cake.  There is a heavy focus on these cakes in the media and people all over Japan are already ordering these cakes for Christmas.  Some cakes are even priced as much as $150 dollars!

These cute cakes that sell for 300 yen each [US$3 or so...] and are small versions of the Japanese strawberry shortcake for Christmas time!

Also popular with the Japanese all times of the year is pudding which is pronounced "purin" in Japanese.  You can buy these at most department stores and supermarkets.  I particulary love the pink bottle tops, very pretty so I had to add take a picture of this!

This is another photo that I had to snap.  Whilst strolling through a mall I saw a group of junior high schools students in interesting uniforms.  These andriod looking life size dolls are part of a national campaign for school uniforms.  An interesting sight to see yet a little eerie as well...

Only in Japan!

Finally after so much walking around and sightseeing today we stepped into a Mr Doughnut store.  Mr Doughnuts is as famous as Krispy Kremes in the U.S and offers complimentary refills of coffee for customers and is a great place to have a break, drink a beverage and muse...

Today I chose an ice coffee and a chocolate doughnut sprinkled with honey crisps!  Christina chose a hot blend American coffee and a classic iced choc doughnut. Yummy!

So until next update.  God bless!