I hope you people all had great Christmas. Well, as you already noticed I’ve taken a few days off and didn’t update the site. Now I am back on my routine.

After Christmas is over, the whole nation switches to the traditional Japanese mode, and local stores are not exceptions to the rule:

People buy these things and hang them on their front door.

Now, tomorrow in Japan (January 1st) will look more like Christmas Day in the US: Everything will shut down, people stay home and enjoy quality family time at home.

Blue Christmas lighting in downtown Hamamatsu…

Japanese grocery store in general tends to be noisy because they have tape players in every corner shouting stuff like “Come’on people, come’on people, we have 40% discount on every freakin’ item in this mega-freezer! You are never going to find a better deal anywhere else in the future, now come buy it! BUY!! BUY!! BUY!!”

BTW, don’t forget to read the special Christmas article below…..