Alex Quinn's Japan Journal

12/11/2004, Christmas shopping, pictures of food

On Saturday, Akemi and I set out to do some Christmas shopping around Osaka.  We rode around on Akemi's bike which accomodates two people.  Christmas cards were a big of a challenge.  I wanted around 25 Christmas cards written in Japanese.  Well, there is no such things as boxed Christmas cards in Japan.  And, most Christmas cards are written in English, I guess since it's more of a western holiday and everybody understands "Merry Christmas".  And, most of the Christmas cards I found were around ¥500 (≈$5) a piece.  That would prohibit sending 25.  The best I could do was some Christmas post cards written in Japanese for ¥105 (≈$1.05) a piece.

In the process of all this, we went through an area called America-mura or America Village.  I expected to see a lot of foreigners.  Actually, it was full of some really funky looking Japanese people, all pretty young.  Very few Americans or other foreigners.

In the process, we stopped at a really neat cafe in America-mura.  Lots of space.  High ceilings.  Simple new-looking wood furniture.  Lots of plants and cute little decorations.

They had a great selection of desserts on the menu.

I got an omelette filled with grain (maybe cous cous?) and other good stuff.  It was like a fairly contemporary American cafe might have.

Afterward, we met Akemi's friend Yukiko for dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant in Osaka.

Here's the three of us, Yukiko, Akemi, and me from left to right.

Finally, we went to my favorite Haagen Dazs shop in the Namba area of Osaka.  I mentioned this before.

I had the Christmas parfait with strawberries, pudding, ice cream, blueberries, and some other stuff.

Yukiko got something with a pastry, chocolate ice cream, vanilla ice cream, baked custard, whipped cream, and some other stuff.

It was picture perfect.

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