Susie Somewhere: Maruyama park

Tuesday, 3 January 2012

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a lovely New Year and a great start to 2012!

We spent New Year, like most 20-somethings do all over the world, by getting very drunk and dancing! There was lots of alcohol, lots of crazy drunk Japanese people wanting to dance with us, and it was a lot of fun! The hangover the next day wasn't as fun, and unfortunately unlike most New Years I didn't have the winning combination of pancakes, walk, chilli to cure it! Instead, I spent the 1st January being very lazy!

Our New Year got more traditional once we'd slept off the hangovers, and on the 2nd January (our last day in Sapporo :( ) We visited the Hokkaido-jingo Buddhist shrine in Maruyama park again. It's traditional in Japan to visit the shrine in the first few days of the New Year, for luck for the year, and to get a new fortune (as they all run out at the end of the year!). My fortune is good, and, while I think it's all rubbish really, it's nice to be told I'm going to have a very lucky year!

It was still really busy!

New Year's decorations

This was so pretty!

A lovely start to the year, and a lovely end to our holiday in Sapporo!

Monday, 26 December 2011

Christmas, Japan style!

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas! It's Boxing Day here (the 26th for those crazy non-Brits), and we were planning to go skiing but unfortunately the weather has decreed otherwise. So we've put that off until wednesday and we're going to have a lazy day instead!

Yesterday started off slowly...not surprising since John didn't get in until 7am! Oh well, I'll let him off since it;s his birthday as well as Christmas! Then we woke up and had presents, thanks to Mum, Terry, Stacey, Aunty Alison and John's Aunty June and Uncle John! :D

John in his new t-shirt!

We then headed out and got lunch.

This is Soup Curry, a Sapporo speciality. Most importantly, it had roast chicken, roast potatoes and roast vegetables in it. Almost a traditional Christmas Day lunch!

We then decided to make the most of all the snow and went to a park in central Sapporo. We visited a shrine, got our fortunes and prayed for good luck, and then played in the snow.

"I'm a big tree". It's a Peppy thing.

Pretty river

Walking to the shrine

Praying for good luck

Making snow angels

Ridiculous icicle

Winner of a kids Christmas tree decorating competition

After a short relax(and a skype chat with lovely lovely Stacey :D ), we headed out for tasty tasty sushi...what could be a better dinner for Christmas in Japan? Well KFC actually as that's what they eat here for Christmas (apparently due to a successful advertising campaign in the 1970's!). But we decided sushi was a better option!

The only thing better than sushi? Shinkansen sushi!

John ate crab innards. Gross.

Yes, that is burger sushi.

Yum yum yum! The whole idea of Christmas is to stuff yourself stupid, right???

We then headed to central Sapporo, and did some more highly traditional Christmas things....

Playing air hockey

Trip on a Ferris Wheel (according to Andrew on the phone "just what Baby Jesus did on the first Christmas"!). This is actually on top of a building. I'll take a photo another day!