Sunny, and warm. Not a White Christmas.
Yesterday
We had a good day yesterday. We got up early-ish and Fumihiko ran a few errands. I made my infamous tandori chicken salad and then ate some of it. When Fumihiko came back I fed him some of my salad and plied him with coffee too. He was putty in my hands! We worked on making more nengajo. He had written most of his, but discovered that he didn't have enough. He stamped them for himself. I'm glad that he did. They weren't as perfect as mine (!), but looked okay. I worked on my nengajo for children. I decided for the brother and sister that I have to send to, to use the same main stamp, but change a few of the details. I also used some stuff on them to give them a texture. Not quite embossing, but similar to that. They looked cool. Finally, we were done. Yeah.
We each packed an overnight bag and then headed out to the car. We first drove to the post office to mail our nengajo, then on to the ryokan. It took us about 25 minutes to get there.
We stayed in Miyajima, which is right on the beach in Yunohama. It was still daylight when we arrived, so we could see the ocean. The view was wonderful. We had a room on the 7th floor, so we could see for miles. The room was very nice. Not too big, not shabby, just nice, with gorgeous views. We ordered dinner for 6 and decided to take baths before dinner. They had a rotenburo on the roof that I was dying to try. We went upstairs and went into our respective baths. Well, let me tell you...it was cold and windy on the roof. I did the showering part dilligently as I was supposed to, then went into the bath. After the wind on the roof, the water was warm and nice, but, my ears were freezing. There was no way I could stay in the bath. If I did, I really felt that my ears would fall off. I scrambled out of the bath and did a quick shower and got dressed again. I met Fumihiko coming out of the men's bath. He'd liked his, and thought I was crazy for getting out so soon. He kept telling me that if I'd stuck it out longer my ears would have warmed up. Sure, sure, just as soon as they'd fallen off and landed in the bath they would have!
We decided to try their other bath, the one downstairs. That was nice! I had the ladies side all to myself so there was none of that embarrassing,"where do I look?" nonsense and I didn't have to spend an hour scrubbing my left leg. The water was great. Not smelly, not too hot....just right for me. I got out, did a quick rinse and then met Fumihiko. We went back to our room just in time for dinner.
The dinner was great. There were a lot of different dishes. We had cod stew, sashimi, steak, steamed crab & veggies, cooked fish...lots of things. There was even miso soup cooked by hot stones. They put heated stones in a bowl with the ingredients and the stones cooked everything. Very cool. We even got some wine to start. And, the nice thing was the wine was served in beautiful Otaru Glass flutes. They looked like champagne flutes...don't know if they were. I was so full after I ate that I didn't think I'd be able to eat again. I was wrong!
We had another bath while they cleared our dinner dishes and set out our futons. It was a little more crowded this time, but not by much. There were 2 other women in the bath. Not bad. I had my bath and then got dressed again and went back to the room with Fumihiko.
We had a nice quiet evening in the room. We watched the end of Lord of the Rings on TV, while I read my magazine and we snacked on popcorn and diet chocolate! We went to bed fairly early too. Earlier in the evening I had turned off the heating as I was too hot, but Fumihiko turned it back on before bed. Sigh.
During the night I got too hot. I'd gone to bed wearing only my pajama top...I'd ditched the hotel's yukata in favour of something more me, and woke up sweating. I threw off the quilt, even unbuttoned my top, but was roasting. Fumihiko slept right through the whole thing. He even thought it was cold in the morning.
Today--Merry Christmas!This morning I woke up in quite a lot of pain. My neck which had started to hurt a little last night, was now quite bad. The fact that I couldn't sleep well for the heat didn't help matters either. We got up. Hubby took a bath, while I did some reading in the room. We had breakfast in our room when he came back. It was nice. We had some miso soup, hot tofu, egg, squid sashimi, and yogurt. It wasn't too much!
We relaxed in our room for a while and then checked out. I bought a few ornaments at the gift shop. It's Christmas day after all, and they were Christmassy and they were from Otaru.
We drove back to Tsuruoka and went home. We spent some time checking up on email and such before we opened our presents. We did that, and it was nice. I got things that I really wanted. I got Pirates of the Caribbean-Dead Man's Chest, Lapita (a Japanese movie I haven't seen), and Sarah Brightman's Diva The video collection. I got a model of Kinkakuji to put together. I also got some jewellry and a wallet that becomes a shopping bag. That one is perfect for me! I love shopping. Fumihiko got some clothes and a model of the Earth and Moon
We went out to pick up our chicken in the afternoon and to get more groceries. We realized we were hungry so we went to Bronco for steak. After that, groceries. I took the easy way out and bought a premade caesar salad and some shrimp wraps. We came home and put away the groceries.
We watched the Sarah Brightman dvd. Fumihiko really liked it. I don't think he'd heard of her before. Maybe I surprised him. He knows I like pop and rock best, but I also like "good" singers. That's why I have such a large collection of Dean Martin cds. We munched on some cheese and crackers too. Yum.
We had our dinner a bit later. Fumihiko put the salad together and I set the table. We had roasted chicken, caesar salad, and shrimp rolls, plus Fumihiko had some seafood salad. We also had some fruit for dessert. It was quite a nice meal. We even had wine with our dinner.
In the evening we watched a ER and then a couple of episodes of Corner Gas. It's one of the funniest Canadian shows I have ever seen. My friend in Canada sent me the dvds for Christmas. Poor Fumihiko didn't get all of it, but he got a bit of it. He's been living with a Canadian for 5 years after all!
And that's about it. I called my sister to wish her a Merry Christmas, spoke to my niece too. That was fun.
I'm now, as I type, "chatting" with a friend in Edmonton and thinking about going to bed. My neck is still quite painful. I may even go to a doctor tomorrow. Sigh.
Well, that was my Christmas folks. It was really a nice one.
I hope that where ever you are, if you celebrate at this time of year, you have a wonderful and joyous time.
Night night.
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