The Holiday Weekend in Yokohama


Aren't these the cutest Christmas reindeers (aka poodles) you've ever seen?

While many other countries may have a day off to celebrate Christmas on the 25th, here in Japan it is not an official holiday. So a lot of people get together over the weekend or on the 23rd, which actually is an official holiday here (it's our Emperor's birthday!).

I ended up in Yokohama this weekend with my Japanese friends, who currently live in South Korea, and their Chinese-Malay friends, currently visiting Japan from Malaysia. We went by Chinatown and had lunch at Bawarou, a Taiwanese restaurant that actually had vegetarian options. It was really good and the owner was quite the character.

After learning how to count from one to ten in Chinese, Korean, and Malay (this is what happens when everyone speaks a different language), we took a walk down the pier. Yokohama has so much history, it's really interesting learning about how the port opened and evolved. Also, the view is pretty amazing, too.

Our Malaysian friends wanted to try ice skating so we stopped by the Red Brick Warehouse, which we call Aka-renga. Every winter they have a popular outdoor skating rink in their event space. It's very crowded so it's not the place to practice your triple axels, but skating with friends is always fun. Especially when it's someone's first time on ice. The girls had previous experience so they were very good but their dad had never ice skated before. He was like bambi on the ice! Teehee!

We had tons of fun and I'm glad we got to spend our holiday weekend together. And even though I'll be working on Christmas day, I'll still be in a festive mood for sure! (Especially since everyone on the other side of my emails will be on holiday and I won't have that much to do anyways ;D)

Wishing you all a very merry Christmas from Japan! x


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