Christmas and New Year in Tokyo

I know these are kind of belated, but better late than never right? :D :D

Pre X'mas

I had the blessings to try like, the best brownies of my life.

Freshly baked one unsuspecting morning. The smell was so sinful that I literally couldn't go back to sleep after it woke me up. I went out of my room and stared at my host Glenn till he offered me three pieces of awesomes. I'd never felt sadder about finishing my food when the last piece was gone. T_T


Met up with Kiem and had okonomiyaki and monjayaki, one of those things I must have each time I'm back in Japan. :D

Lights!! I love the illuminations in Japan during Christmas and New Year so much. This was at Shinjuku.

Paper-cut chandeliers in Tokyo Midtown

Went to Tokyo Midtown and saw these these incredible (and huge!) paper cut-out chandeliers. So brilliantly simple and beautiful, and fit perfectly with the aesthetics of the interiors.

We then chanced upon these US$160 strawberries. Like. Woah. *___*

Christmas

Glenn prepared a feast of a dinner for his X'mas home party:

Like, holy cow, can you believe one person prepared all these @_@ I'm out of alternatives for the word awesome, so yeah, awesome. :D

Shopped too at some point of time. Absolutely heartable new pieces:


From top: Helmut Lang soft leather & wool top, Alice Auaa cropped jacket and h.Naoto Dark Red Rum H.Jelly dress. :D

New Year

Got to experience a Japanese New Year!

Sawaka working on our New Year's eve dinner <3

Brandon, Chris, Sawaka and her friends.

Don't know why the boys look so unhappy. I swear I'm not a mean photographer ><

The dishes on the table all have their own meanings (except for the nachos, ha). I can't remember them all, but soba is supposed to signify the wishing for a happy long life or something, I think? (Eat more soba™)

We watched Dead Poets Society. It was my first time. I cried, absolutely loved it. It was a recommended film to watch for Lit class in Secondary one but I somehow never got around to it, because, you know, what school recommend can never really be that great right? How wrong I was :( So gad I finally managed to see it though. I loved this quote so much: "The human race is filled with passion." There was something amazingly powerful to the lines in the film that was motivating and touching. So inspirational.

We made our way to Meiji Shrine a short while after dinner for hatsumode, the first shrine visit of the new year.

In Chinese we call this "people mountain people sea". 

So naturally we couldn't all fit under the roof. So to make offerings (coin toss), instead of getting close to the inner shrine, a huge row of humongous wooden boxes was instead placed in the empty clearing in the courtyard before the shrine for people to make their offerings and praying. (Huge like, if you'd been to Meiji Jingu, it stretches across the width of the clearing between the two large trees. Yeah.)

After saying our prayers we stayed around and ate around the food stalls that were set up along the stretch on the way out of the temple, before heading to the Telecom Center Building in Odaiba to watch sunrise.

And here's 2010!

It was such a beautiful experience, and actually also the first time I've spent a New Year's celebration with friends. I was so happy, thank you everyone for the wonderful company, may 2010 be full of wonders~! <3