In 2018 Dan and I spent our first Christmas in Japan after over two and a half years of living here.

We spent it on Toyama in our unique Airbnb. Our actual day started off slowly with a late wake up, a bit of book reading (I indulged in a festive bit of Bridget Jones’ Diary), and a very leisurely breakfast.

We then set off to our planned Christmas restaurant. A nice little organic cafe on the coast. From here it was rumoured we could look at the gorgeous mountains across the ocean; a view much talked about in all of Toyama prefecture. Whether that is true or not, we will never know. As it was closed. Classic Japan! Advertised as open but actually closed.

We then moved on to our second choice. A nice little beer cafe with the promise of fish and chips. Closed. Obviously…by this time we were getting pretty darn hangry as it was 2.15pm on Christmas Day and we still hadn’t eaten our festive feast!

On driving home thinking we would just swing by a supermarket, we saw an udon restaurant which promised to be open, but closing in 15 minutes…we were lucky as the staff were very friendly and as it turned out, pretty happy to have us chill out in their warm restaurant with views across the ocean to the mountains.  It was wonderful! Admittedly noodles for Christmas lunch was unconventional…

We closed the day off with a nice walk along the beach and our evening meal was a very well chosen Indian curry. YUM.  We spent the evening sipping mulled wine and beer, eating cake that our kind host had given us, whilst socialising with other guests at the AirBnb (playing UNO for the first and perhaps last time!)

It was a unique but wonderful Christmas Day 2018. Certainly one I will never forget!