special ocasion

So, the past weekend or so has been super busy, but amazing fun as well.

On Friday night I met Okaasan and Manami at Tokyo station (which the outside of is really gorgeous and old fahsioned and stuff), and we walked around a bit to look at all the lights. During Christmas Tokyo has lights in all it's different districts (Shinjuku, tokyo station, odaiba, etc) and they call it Christmas Illumination. It's a lot of fun but we missed the big light show.

Then we met Otoosan at this "Lipton Ice Tea" Restaurant where it's all you can eat of delicous pastas, rices, and cakes! It was sooooo good!

On Saturday Andrew and I went to the Emperor's garden! It's only open once a year on his birthday, most Japanese people have never even been (Okaasan didn't even know you could do that-she's going to go nexst year). It was so cool. First, you get herded to this one section where the emperor makes an appearance (behind what I rpesume is a bullet glass window of his house or something) and he made a speach and everyone waves the little Japan flags they give you at the entrance. IT was amazing! There were a few groups who had organized BONZAI's they would shout and then raise their flags. Very neat. After that you walk by this place where you can give your Meishi (business card, or is it Meiji?). I'm not sure why, maybe the emperor sends you a letter or something. In any case, I tried to make a quick one for me to give but one of the gaurds shooed us on. and someone random took Andrew and my picture, maybe that will be in a newspaper somewhere?

After that you are allowed to wander around the gardens as you like. They are HUGE! And gorgeous and amazing and I can't believe the place is closed to the public becasue it's such a waste of beauty.

Don't worry, Andrew and I took tons of pictures on his new camera!

After that I met okaasan for shopping for groceries for my big thanksgiving feast. she di pay but it took about two hours and a ton of work to find everything we needed. Let me share how stressed I was with you: I hadn't slept well in two nights becasuse I'd been having nightmares about this feast and cooking it and I wasn't even sure if we could find things like sour cream and marshmellows. We did though, there are a few things we had to leave out (sunflower seeds, gravy!, and chicken broth) btu we got most everything.

THEN Andrew and I went out so we could do my christmas shopping. I got Andrew a DS game he wanted, Otoosan a razor he wanted and a scuba diving magazine (he only likes scuba-it's his only hobby according to okaasan), for Okaasan I got some beads and a book about making neckalaces, which okaasan likes...I got Naoto MI3 and I got Manami a really soft scarf.

Then there was Sunday. Probably the funnest day!
I started at 8:00 in the morning witht he cooking. I made Turkey, stuffing (from scratch), Macoroni and cheese (from scratch), broccoli salad, ambrosia, okaasan made pumpkin pie and mashed potatoes. I was so surprised but everything turned out great! It actually tasted like mom's, I couldn't believe it!!!!
Now, I understand why people love cooking, it's an amazing feeling to get it all done and it actually taste good and be edible. Okaasan's parents came and Naoto's friend, and andrew. It was a real christmas party. It was so much fun!

In any case, andrew took tons of pictures so you'll get to see all of it shortly (check out his blog)!
t was a lot of fun.

Merry Christmas everyone!!!
Much love.