Merry Christmas

Hoping everyone had a fantastic Christmas. We sure did. Here are 2 photos. The kids on Christmas morning and Gil in his new sweater!

A Kobe Christmas

In case some of you were wondering what its like in Japan at Christmas, I took my camera to Sannomiya for some last minute shopping and snapped a few photos. As you can see they have completely embraced the commercialism of Christmas (Charlie Brown would hate it!) Although I did see a Nativity scene once in Osaka its mostly about Santa. Following are photos of a candy display, a dept. store window, mannequin as Santa (note the loafers), display at a train station and finally some Christmas cakes (note the prices) .

Fall in Kyoto

The KWC took a trip to Kyoto in November to see the fall colors. Here are a few photos. It was very nice.

Cooking class

Took a Lebanese cooking class at CHIC and it was great! Here is a photo of the dishes. Some chicken & rice dish, bread salad, baba ganoush, humous and a cake made from semolina. It tasted fabulous and I have even made several dishes at home. The best thing about it was the humous! I love humous and am unable to buy it in Japan. Now I can make it better than any store bought humous, even if I could buy it in a store!

KWC took a trip to Kyoto to view the beautiful fall colors. First Tofukuji Temple. It was quite crowded with loads of other visitors but the scenery was beautiful. Afterwards, we went to a smaller and very quiet temple where we enjoyed tea and a japanese sweet. I cheated a little by only having hot water. The Japanese tea gives me such a headache. Too much caffeine!