Afer the World vol. 6

During this trip it was first time for me to spend my Xmas somewhere else than in Finland. For it felt that Japan has way more cooler Xmas decorations than my country! I was staying then in one of my friends place and we decided to make some traditional Finnish foods for Xmas eve. We started our grocery hunting quite early in the morning, and managed to find all we needed! We made "Karelian stew" smashed potatoes and rice porridge. We even managed to find traditional Finnish dark rye bread from one bakery in Kôenji! It was even named in Finnish XD "Hapanruisvuoka". Oh, and I went to see the newest Star Wars movie in Shinjuku 23rd day too.

Hapanruisvuoka

This was interesting in Shibuya

What happened after Xmas? The time went so fast and I'm writing this post many months later so it's hard to remember everything. On 27th or28th December I wen to see MEJIBRAY's  instore event in Ikebukuro Brand-X store! I was so happy to meet the band and have members autographs to my copy of "Live in Hibiya" dvd.

 At least on 29th December I went to see BUCK-TICK live in Budôkan - it'sbeen a while since I was seeing any band in this big venue! The gig was OK, but I wish the band would have played more of their "older" songs. Budôkan was crowded, but it wasn't jammed badly any where. I'm grateful because of that, Japan.

On the New Years eve I was hanging around with one of my friend, window shopping and finally we made to one izakaya. After staying few hours in there I returned "home" and watched random new year's TV program, eating snacks.

On first day of year 2016 I headed to Harajuku, only seeing the massive amount of people moving everywhere hunting their "fukubukuro", lucky bags. I also randomly met few of my Finnish friends (I didn't even know that they were in Japan) lining to on shop for New Years sales. But the amount of people strolling along the streets and police shouting directions for the masses was ridiculous. I bought only one small fukubukuro from Matsumoto Kiyoshi and got fairly nice cosmetic products.

The rest of the days before my return to Finland I just tried to make my best of the time. I met frinds, went to karaoke, had picnics in the parks (yep, the weather was around +17 C during few days in January!) and worried about my heavy luggages :'D Once again I was feeling really sad, it is really hard to go back to Finland while knowing that almost nothing waits you there.But, I really hope that I'm able to return to Japan during this year. Just only for a short time would be nice.