110 sleeps

(Chrisstmasss!)
The snow's coming down
(Chrisstmasss!)
I'm watching it fall
(Chrisstmasss!)
Watching the people around
(Chrisstmasss!)
Baby please come home
They’re singing deck the halls
But it's not like Christmas at all
I remember when you were here
And all the fun we had last year!!!!!!!!!!!

(10 bucks if you can guess who sings it)

It’s that time of year again.

One nice thing about Cape Town is that you are not inundated with the commercialization of Christmas at every turn. Sure, the shopping malls are all jazzed up with fake-trees and twinkling-lights, and some of the streets have been done up, but it’s nothing like North America or Tokyo when it comes to ramming Christmas down everyone’s throat.

In North America, the commercials start in, like, July. [Cut to commercial: Some poor model-type in a mini Santa suit/dress will pose next to a 3-piece beige and brown sofa suite and say something ridiculous like “It’s only 137 days until Christmas; get your in-laws this sofa set at a special Christmas rate! Ho! Ho! Ho! Get more “Ho!” for your dough!” It is well and truly painful and embarrassing for all involved.]

I think Tokyo takes the cake though. Christmas is not a religious or traditional event in Japan – in fact, I worked on Christmas day when I was there simply because it is not a recognized holiday. Tokyo has, however, fully embraced the concept of Christmas as a reason to shop. You see trees blitzed with fairy lights, you ride in taxis with a Santa cab driver, you hear Christmas carols being piped in from street lamps, you eat sushi shaped like a Christmas tree, you walk by a shop window that has Santa nailed to a crucifix. It is absolutely, unashamedly in-your-face commando marketing.

Sometimes I miss Tokyo. It was the first place I lived after I left Canada. Kiki and I went with the Seven Day Plan (day 1: find place to live; day 2: figure out subway system etc) and we sorted ourselves fully in five days. Not bad. [high fives] *misses*

I was lucky enough to see the ‘best’ of Tokyo in terms of restaurants and shopping due largely to the fact that I landed a swish job with an international broker house as an assistant on the equities sales trading desk. All those boys do is trade stocks, sell stocks and go to restaurants to eat and talk stocks. I have never lived in a city before or since that can do restaurants like Tokyo can. There was this one – I think it was in Ebisu – called Monsoon. Thai. Didn’t serve alcohol- only fresh fruit drinks and tea. No smoking. Reason? They had recreated a tropical rainforest – birds and all – and wanted to keep the atmosphere and energy as genuine as possible. My favourite was the New York Bar and Grill on the 57^th floor of the Park Hyatt in Shinjuku (where Lost in Translation was filmed). The jazz band was awesome, the seats were so comfortable you can almost feel yourself melting into them, the food was incredible. Factoid of the day: when I was there, the NY Bar was the only five star restaurant in Tokyo that employed a woman as head chef. How about that, eh?