White Christmas in Japan

When I woke up this morning, outside was like this.

WHITE CHRISTMAS ☆☆☆☆☆

Hiro enjoyed his first Christmas in snow

Merry Christmas to everyone!!!

An Early Christmas Date

Yesterday, D, Hiro and I went to Hikone city area.  Hikone is one of famous old city in Shiga, and it’s just 10 minutes from my house by car.  There is famous Hikone castle near Biwako lake, and many restaurants and shops around the castle.

It was suposed to be snowing yesterday, but it was actually a sunny day (still cold though).  There’re many tourists around the castle.

First,we came to this cafe with D which I went with my friend the other day.  This cafe is a bakery/cake shop with nice dining area.  Because the shop opens at 11am and we arrived there 15 minutes early, we went driving inside the castle first.  You can drive around the castle and moat.  We could easily kill 15 minutes by enjoying the view

I love the interior of the cafe.  No, I love the building itself.  Looks like someone’s house with lots of tabels and chairs.

They serve lunch menu and nice drinks too.

We ordered sandwich lunch plate to share.  It’s Campagne bread with prosciutto, cream cheese and salad. The plate came with soup (it was carrot soup yesterday), cold chicken salad, salad & hot chips, and a choice of drink.  (¥1050)  I LOVE the Campagne bread.  Inside is moist, soft and chewy, but the crust was very hard and crusty.  All the food on the plate was delicious.

Then we ordered strawberry tart, and Monburan (Mont Blanc).  It took me 10 minute to chose the cake because all the cakes and bread looks so cute and delicious.  I had cheese cake last time, so I chose different one to try.  They’re both DELICIOUS. (>v<)

(cheese cake I had last time)

Hiro was happy too.

Then, we walked around “castle road”.  It started snowing and so freezing cold…

All the buildings around “Castle Road” were refurbished to look old few years ago in order to attract tourists.  Even a bank looks like this.

We strolled around the street, and bought few souvenirs.  It was windy and the air was spiking our faces, so we decided to head home.  It was a lovely day – we had early Christmas cake together, and had wonderful time

Hikone Friends

We visited one of my friend’s house the other day to meet her baby.  She and I used to go to the same high school in Hikone, Shiga.  She gave birth to this beautiful boy on May (just 2 month later Hiro was born).

They live by themselves in apartment, and the house was filled with toys and baby’s photos  It’s been awhile since I met her last time, and we have many things in common (including having a baby), so we chatted for quite long time.  D came along, and there was her husband at home as well, so it was fun.

I brought some souvenir to them – just some English baby books and Tim Tam.  I didn’t expect anything from them, but they had bought souvenir to us too.  Hikone city is actually pretty famous tourist destination because of its old history, and also Hikone castle and beautiful castle road.  Castle road has many old & new shops on its side selling souvenirs and foods.  Hiko-Nyan, a name of character of Hikone city, is very popular for its cute & relaxing figure.

They gave us Hiko–Nyan goods…

The dorayaki was from famous wagashi (Japanese sweets) shop in Hikone.  I’m surprised that they have Hiko-Nyan dorayaki.  It was fluffy, and very delicious.

It’s got Hiko-Nyan sticker at the back too.  Sugoi…

Teriyaki at McDonald’s

We went to McDonald’s the other day to have lunch.  Right now they are doing this campaign “buy value meal LL size and get a coke glass”.  Coke glass looks just like can of coke.

We were both hungry, and bought 2 teriyaki burger sets LL size.

Coke glass…

Ummm, yap, LL size is very big….  I couldn’t finish the potato and drink.

There’s power point for Nintendo DS.  (McD de DS)

Hmmmm  I haven’t had teriyaki burger for awhile!!  The combination of sweet teriyaki sauce and Japanese mayonaise is the vest match.

The new “Chicken Tazta Burger” starts selling from tomorrow! (related post)  I must try it…

First Snow ♥

We had first snow today!!!  :)

I was inside a building until 2PM, and when I went outside it was snowing.

I haven’t seen snow for 1.5 years.  I’m excited!!!

The snow stopped after awhile, and the sun was out.  The air was chilly, but I didn’t think it’d snow again, so I went out to a store nearby.  After shopping at the store, the sky looked like this ↑  The sky was dark, and it was very windy.  I got home straight away.

At 6Pm, my dad asked me to drive him to Nagahama train station which is about 15 minutes by car from my house.  He was having bounen-kai (end of the year drinking party) at a restaurant near the train station.  We left home, then it started to snow again…. pretty hard!

You can’t really see it, but some cars were carrying thick snow on their roofs.

Ummmmm  I couldn’t take nice snow photos.  It looks like raining, but it was snowing.  I hadn’t driven in snow for 8 years, and it was very scary :p

This snow isn’t gonna stack up.  Fine powder snow will, but the snow today was big, fluffy one.  It will be next year to see white world, probably.