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 in my life.

Freshly baked one unsuspecting morning. The smell was so amazing I couldn't go back to sleep after it woke me up. So I went out of my room and stared at my host Glenn till he offered me three pieces. 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, just like... First Kitchen. 

Walked around a little afterwards and saw these beautiful illuminations at Shinjuku.

Tokyo Midtown.

I thought these huge hanging paper cut-out decorations were brilliant. Simple and beautiful, fit perfectly with the aesthetics of the interiors.

We then chanced upon these US$160 strawberries, I'm kinda curious how they taste like.


Christmas

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

I'm out of alternatives for the word awesome, so yeah, awesome, it was. :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.


New Year

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

Brandon, Chris, Sawaka and her friends.

Don't know why the boys are unhappy-ish. Guess I kinda fail at homely-photo attempts.

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

We watched Dead Poets Society. I cried, and absolutely loved it. It was actually a recommended film to watch in my Lit class in Secondary one, I somehow never got around to it, and I'm so so glad I got to finally.

"The human race is filled with passion." -- There was something amazingly powerful to the lines in the film that was motivating and touching. Extremely inspirational.


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

There were.... I don't know how many thousands of people. So instead of the usual money box inside the shrine, a humongous wooden container was instead built in the empty clearing just before reaching the inner shrine for people to throw their coins when praying. (Huge like, it stretches almost across the width of the clearing, between the two large trees, if you'd been to Meiji Jingu you'd get a rough idea...)

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 the sunrise.

It was an extremely beautiful experience, and the first time I can recall actually spending new year's with friends. I was happy, so thank you my dears for the wonderful company, may 2010 be full of wonders. <3