Tag Archives: Christmas

Christmas Dinner at Il Lupone

Posted on by
2

On Christmas Eve Chie and I went to Il Lupone for dinner. It is a small Italian restaurant about 400 meters from the apartment. It was an OK distance to walk on a Christmas Eve 😉

Il Lupone is always full and you have to book a table. We were quite surprised to be able to book a table for Christmas Eve as we were late with our booking. The only downside of having a dinner out on Christmas Eve in Tokyo is that many restaurants tend to have Christmas menus, which very much limits the choices you have. Chie and I prefer the normal menus with many different choices 🙂

Tonight Il Lupone was not an exception, they too had a Christmas menu. Though they also had an a’la carte menu, though it was more limited than usual. We picked salad, pasta, and pizza both from the a’la carte and from the Christmas menu – even though the latter was a set menu 🙂



As usual the food was delicious. And so was the desert that I had afterwards, frozen raspberry mousse… Yummy!

Celebrating the Emperor’s Birthday

Posted on by
1

Chie and I have a tradition… We usually open all our Christmas gifts on the Emperor’s birthday rather than on the Christmas evening. It’s celebration of the Emperor… Or so we try to convince ourselves 😉



Actually, the 24th is usually a work day here in Japan whereas the 23rd is a national holiday. So it is more convenient to open the gifts on the 23rd rather than the 24th… And we can shorten the agonizing waiting time 😉

Thank you all that have sent gifts to us both physically and otherwise!

Project “Christmas”

Posted on by
2

The last 2 weeks we have been busy supporting Project “Christmas”. This is Ishihara-san’s latest support to Kobuchihama and Fukukiura. The goal is that everyone in the network in Kobuchihama and Fukukiura should get at least 1 Christmas gift.



You can find details at the Tohoku Donation pages.

KotoKoto

Posted on by
2

Christmas Eve started around 7 am this morning. With me going to the office to work, while Chie stayed home to rest. Though she did not rest so much as she was cleaning the kitchen from top to floor. Actually, from medium height to floor. The top is a little bit out of reach for her so I’ll do that tomorrow.

I left the office at lunch time when I had finished all the work for the day. The rest depended on other people and they were all on vacation.

At 6 pm Chie and I went to KotoKoto for dinner. We had a delicious Christmas Eve dinner, though there were (fortunately) nothing traditional Swedish about it. Instead it was fresh and light and probably not so bad for our health as a traditional Swedish Christmas dinner.



First dish was “myogo to kyuri no umeae” or myoga and cucumber in umeboshi dressing. The second dish was “kureson to eringi no sarada” watercress and eringi salad.



We also had “gobo karage” or fried greater burdock, and “satoimo to maitake no guratan” or sweet potato and maitake gratin.



We continued with “renkon to hitashimame no aemono” or lotus and soy beans with dressing, and “aonori to tofu no misoshiru” seaweed and tofu miso soup. As delicious as the previous dishes.



Together with the miso soup we also got “umeboshi no onigiri” or umeboshi rice ball. Rice in some kind is usually how a Japanese dinner is ended. However, I had a pear tart for dessert. YUMMY!!!



It was a great Christmas dinner. And it could not be spoiled with Coke so I had Perrier and Chie had some white wine.



Cheating…

Posted on by
Reply

Yes, Chie and I usually cheat during Christmas time. The reason is that 23rd is a National holiday here in Japan (the emperor’s birthday) but 24th is a working day. So we cheat, and open all the Christmas gifts on the evening of the 23rd 🙂



This year I got gingerbread cookies from Sweden. I also got a brand new iPod Touch from Chie. I think it may come in handy as it has back and front camera, so I can take photos and do FaceTime (video chat).