Christmas 1989
The day before Christmas 2019 - Tuesday, December 24th - was a beautiful day in Tokyo. Chilly but very sunny. Some autumn leaves are still clinging to the trees. It's not a holiday here, of course, so people were rushing about their normal lives.
I was remembering my first Christmas in Tokyo exactly thirty years ago - my first Christmas in Japan, and my first Christmas away from home. It was cold and rainy. Alone in my cold little apartment, with absolutely no decorations, my Christmas dinner was a Big Mac. The Internet didn't exist then, nor e-mail, nor Skype, nor cell phones, nor digital cameras or DVDs. My only entertainment was reading or watching Japanese TV on a small set that only got two channels, left over from the previous foreign occupant of the flat. I finally decided, “Hey, I’m in the biggest city in the world. Something has to be going on somewhere.” So, at 8:00 p.m. I went out in the cold rain to go to the Ginza, one of the most famous shopping districts on planet Earth. But by the time I got there it was dark and quiet, as dead as a doornail.
In hindsight, I ought to have returned to Canada for that Christmas holiday. I could afford it, and I certainly had the time. But I didn't, first, because I was a novice traveler, and second, because I thought as it was my first time away from home, on my own for an extended period of time, it would be good for me to stick it out here. Meh.