Hi! Hello! 👋
When I moved here in Tokyo about 2 years ago, I seldom go out or meet up with friends. I was still processing all the good things that happened to me that year and I was scared it won't last long. That year I celebrated Christmas alone but I was happy and contented. I had a call with my family and greeted friends. I slept early like it was any normal day. You could say that year started my peace and quiet era 😆 I was in no way sad or regretful.
I still don't go all out when it comes to special occasions but this year however was different. Spent a night of chitchatting, laughing, enjoying food, and of course exchanging presents with friends for an advance Christmas party on December 9th, yes it was a little too early 😆.
I wanted to give something to everyone that will not drain my wallet. So that day I decided to bake a big batch of bread for everyone, cinnamon rolls and ube pandesal. It took me all day to bake everything but thankfully, I was able to wrap up everything before heading out.
We planned to meet up at Ebisu Station with everyone I coincidentally met one friend while transferring trains. Turned out we were on also on the same previous train. We were a bit late due to train delay.
When everyone was gathered, we went to a place with called Shabu Shabu Onyasai (しゃぶしゃぶ温野菜). It's a hotpot place, perfect for this cold winter season.
Since we wont fit in 1 table, our group was divided into 2 tables, but we were still seated right beside each other.
There was an a la carte menu but we opted for an all-you-can-eat course and of course unlimited drinks (only non-alcoholic). We are able to order 2 kinds of base soup so our table decided to get Sukiyaki and Spicy base soups.
Initially were given a set of meat and veggies as part of the course and until that set is delivered to our table we won't be able to request for more.
We had a lot of fun enjoying the food and talking nonsense while eating. I don't know how it happened but it suddenly became a competition with the other table of what meat and veggies to get next 😆 We were boasting of what we already had and what tasted really good 😆
We also ordered different desserts and decided to share it. Each on of us in the table picked one and will share it with everyone. We were so full we had a hard time eating all of it. I only had a few bites of each.
When it was time to pay, we decided to choose someone's card to use randomly and just pay that person with cash. The card was chosen without looking hahaha
A short walk from the restaurant was a small shrine and we decided to stop by that place. I think it was a shrine about fortune or something. We tossed some coins and unfortunately mine bounced off the box. That's how unlucky I am hahaha guess I won't be rich then 😆
We also went strolling Yebisu Garden place. This is me checking out if the tree was real. It felt like it was.
After that we climbed up to the Sky Lounge. Well we did not literally climb though, we just rode the elevator hahaha. We found some Christmas tree inside and there weren't really a lot of people so we decided to take a picture with our presents on that tree 😆😆😆
And then finally we looked for a place to settle first. We had a hard time looking for a place as it was a weekend and late at night. The places were full so we were only able to go to a karaoke place for an hour. There we exchange gifts, well not really, we stole gifts 😆. We played white elephant. Everyone is to put their gifts on the table and describe the gift they brought using only one word. Then each person has to pick a gift or steal a gift already picked by someone. The first person has no one to steal from so pick is the only option. When everyone was holding a gift each, we had a few rounds of stealing gifts. It was really fun. And that was the end of our night.
Thank you for reading and see you on my next blog.
Eating-Apple,
Apple
PS: All photos are mine unless stated otherwise.