Christmas Eve 2010

Christmas eve has come and gone. It was a pretty good day. I finally got into the Christmas spirit and it was just in time! Thanks mom! So, I woke up and decided that it was finally time to go Christmas shopping for my friends. I went up to Sakae and went nuts! I'm not going to even divulge how much I spent, but let's just say, my wallet was begging me for a break by the end of the day. In fact, I think I might have to buy a new one :p But that will just have to wait until next time.
While shopping, I say that there is a small ice-skating rink in Oasis 21. It was uber cute and when I say small, I mean small. But it looked as if the kids were having a good time. All of Oasis was decorated nicely. I spent a lot of time there going back and forth between shops and deciding what to buy. I ❤ Oasis 21!

After a day of shopping, I got together with my good friend Simone. That night, I bought us tickets to see The Nutcracker. I can't believe how many people who have NEVER seen this ballet!! Simone was one of them! SHOCKING! Thanks mom for getting us out and properly educated in the arts :-) Anyways, we were SO excited about seeing the show. When we got there we discovered how small the venue was. I mean the building is HUGE, but I guess they were using one of the smaller stages. That worked out for us because we ended up being even closer to the front. To be honest, that had to be THE WORST version of the Nutcracker I have EVER seen! And I used to see the show every year as a child. I have deemed it the "Japanese "International" ghetto ballet performed to the music of the nutcracker". For starters, the audience was actually clapping throughout the performance. Simone said it was like watching figure skating; whenever a dancer did a spin (didn't even have to be a special move), the audience would clap and 1 random guy in the back would shout "BRAVO!". Seriously! CLAPPING DURING THE PERFORMANCE! Moreover, there were kids running up and down the isles or going to the bathroom DURING the performance. I even saw a woman drinking! Plus they took WAY too many liberties with the story. The child in the beginning, Clair, was ON POINT and wasn't A CHILD. She isn't supposed to perform on point, NOT YET! And, they switched dancers at the wrong moment. The story was just WRONG! The best performance that was actually correct was the Pas de Deux at the end...kinda. Ok, I'm going on and on, I'm going to stop now. I just love The Nutcracker; that's all :-( At least Simone enjoyed it and that was all that mattered since it was her Christmas present from me. But when we get home, I'm going to have to treat her to a proper performance.
Now to update my culture list in Japan; I have seen 1 symphony performance (Beethoven I believe), 1 musical (Jesus Christ Superstar), 1 opera (オペラ座の怪人ーPhantom of the Opera), and 1 ballet (くるみ割り人形-The Nutcracker).

After the show, we decided that we needed something to drink, so we went to a pub. We ordered the cutest classes of champagne called Rudolph. It has a little red sugar cube at the bottom to give it the red nose appearance.

Finally as we journeyed home, we were stopped by one of Simmy's co-workers and bought more drinks. This time we kept it J-style and went with the ume-shu (Japanese plum flavored saki on the rocks) and ume-chuhai (kinda the same as before but fizzy). As I said earlier, it was a pretty good day :-)