January 11, 2000

Dear Mom-
It was good to hear your voice on the phone this morning. I hope that by the time you receive this letter that you are over that cold. Everybody I know here is getting over something similar, or at least it seems that way. I got to work this morning feeling very reflective about spending the holidays in Japan. Here is the Readers` Digest Condensed version of the festivities.
First, I worked on Christmas Eve, scrubbing the hallways with my students. I wore my Santa hat. The students get really excited over tiny things here. The sight of the hat sent many of the girls into peals of giggles as they clapped their hands together and covered their mouths and jumped up and down like toddlers. This is a fairly normal reaction from the majority of the female students here. Anyway, the students and staff worked to clean the school before the closing ceremony. This ceremony, as far as I was able to determine, consists of much shivering en masse in the gymnasium while several people talk about nothing anyone will remember in twenty minutes or so.
After the ceremonies were over, Kyoto-sensei came to my desk and made a big deal of wishing me a Merry Christmas. I was almost touched, especially with the way he said �gGo to your home NOW and do not come back to school. NEXT week come to school again.�h And I bowed and thanked this man profusely, and I went to my home and had a little time to prepare for the evening`s festivities. Ken called from Yoka about our dinner plans. I picked Jessica up from her friends` house and we set out for the annual pizza dinner. It wasn�ft Pizza Hut, but it had to do. Actually it was pretty good! Afterward, we went home and opened all the presents. I couldn�ft believe all the stuff under our little tree! I think I told you about the tree, didn�ft I? Well, Ken and I pick up a keychain or something from everywhere we visit and hang it on the tree. Decorating the tree every year is a lot of fun because we get to remember all the things we did that year! Our tiny little 13"�htree was completely covered with bookmarks and keychains from all over Japan. I think it might be the best tree we`ve ever had. After we cleaned it all up, we watched the Muppet Christmas Carol together. Jessica carefully prepared a plate of cookies and a mug of milk for Santa and then hurried to bed so he could visit. She was certain that she had been good enough to warrant a visit from him. She was right, naturally. He brought a lot of good stuff, for all three of us! Christmas Day we had a small breakfast and then called you and the rest of the family. Then we set out for Kobe around lunchtime. Christmas lunch consisted of greasy fries and some kind of mystery meat in a pocket from the roadside travel stop. We drove to Chan`s (she is in Georgia about now, but it`s still the best place to park the car) and then took the train to Kobe. Motomachi station was really busy, as this is the last day for the famous luminaria display nearby. We got to the place where the display was to be lit and entered one of the gates. One of my Japanese teachers explained that there is a light to represent every person who lived in Kobe on January 17, 1995 when the great Hanshin earthquake leveled the city. At that time, Kobe was known as the city of lights and many people would go to the mountains to see the lights of the city spread out before them. After the quake, the city was in darkness. And now, nearly five years later, the city still remembers the victims of the quake by setting this wonderful light display up to honor them. We stood there in the square, waiting with about a hundred thousand or so people. The sun set and we began to shiver. Suddenly music begins playing and bells begin ringing and then the lights come up. For a moment, I could not breathe. It was so beautiful, and we stood to the side to let the sea of people walk by us. We listened to the music and watched the people and looked at millions of tiny lights, and felt like the waiting and the walking and the hassle to be there for it was completely worth all the effort. We walked back toward the station and stopped to rent a space in a coffee house to warm up with some seven dollar cocoa before we caught our overnight bus for Tokyo. We knew what to expect after hearing about Chan`s trip to Disneyland so we were prepared with the masks from Delta airlines. I also picked up three pillowcases from the \100 plaza and we stuffed our down jackets in there to make pillows for ourselves. We were pretty comfy, and Jessica slept the entire way to Tokyo. Disneyland was wonderful, all decorated for Christmas and feeling a lot like America. We got to do most of what we wanted to do despite the number of people in the park. I must say that you have not lived until you have heard the Tiki Tiki Tiki song sung in Japanese by a bird named �gBuddy-san.�h The absolute highlight, however, was the parade. All the performers were decked out brilliantly to welcome in the New Year, and the parade route had us literally trapped in the center of the park, nearby the castle. It was better than anything I have ever seen in any park anywhere. They shone different colored lights on the castle and made it seem to sparkle with the beams of a few lasers. It was pretty cool. Then they did a countdown to 2000, and when they got to zero, balls of flame shot out of the buildings next to the castle and shot about 50 feet in the air. We felt the heat from them all the way over where we were standing. About that time, the fireworks started. I guess I don�ft have to tell you that the Japanese have the fireworks thing down to a fine science. It was the most brilliant display that I have ever seen in my life. I was about to become overstimulated because there were people dancing in the street and the music playing in the parade, with all the lights and bright costumes, plus the lights and lasers on the castle next to us, and the whole bazaar lit up for Christmas, which was breathtaking, plus the fireworks going off everywhere.  We were speechless, yes, even me?and I was really thankful that none of us went into seizures from all the flashing! Then, the loudspeaker came on and told us it was time for the grand finale. I thought that we had already SEEN the finale, but here it came anyway. The fireworks were in time to the music, and were in the shapes of Mickey heads, about thirty or so of them in all different colors. Then the sky was on fire with brilliant whites and golds and reds?more fireworks than I had ever seen at one time! I wished you were there to see it! On the way back to the bus, Jessica said that she had the best Christmas ever. I was so relieved to hear it since I was afraid that she wouldn�ft have fun since we couldn�ft be home for Christmas. I guess I did alright after all.
I took nenkyu on Monday the 27th to recuperate from the overnight bus trip, and then went back to work on the 28th. Pretty much everybody was on vacation, and the few teachers who WERE there were spending much of the day around the coffeepot chatting. It was nice, slow, easy conversation for the Japanetically illiterate like myself. Around lunchtime, Kyoto-sensei came to me and made a big deal of wishing me a Happy New Year. Then he said to me �gGo to your home NOW and do not come back to school. NEXT year come to school again.�h And so I went home to prepare for our next great adventure. Kyoto for New Year`s.
Kyoto was pretty much closed except for the temples and shrines staying open all night long. On the morning of New Year`s Eve, we found ourselves at the gates of Heian Shrine. Wow. They were making preparations for more than a million folks that they expected to show up in the very near future. We did not stay long just in case these people showed up. That afternoon, we went over to Higashi Honanji Temple and witnessed a full chanting Buddhist ceremony with all the priests, bells and smells you would expect in a New Year`s celebration. It was incredible. We bundled up and took the bus to Kiyomizudera to welcome in 2000. We got there at a good time, and secured a place overlooking both the temple AND the city of Kyoto. Then we waited as people poured in. We watched the sky, caught a glimpse of a falling star over the city, and huddled together around our world-band radio listening to accounts of the festivities in Fiji and Sydney, where the millenium had already arrived. Then, the temple bells began to ring and the people cheered as we entered the 21st century. It wasn�ft nearly as dramatic as I expected it to be. I guess with all the Y2K hoopla, I half expected to be able to trace missile emissions as they arched toward some other country`s oblivion. The lights never flickered, except for a nearby Sprite display, and I think that it was supposed to do that. When I talked to Daddy, I told him that Y2K wouldn�ft be a big deal here, since it really was only going to be the year 12. Maybe we really should express the year in Roman numerals. Here, it would be Y-XII. I have been getting the funniest looks when I talk about the year as �gwhy-eks-eye-eye�h instead of �gwhy-two-kay.�h
Now, it is back to business as usual. Today is my first day of work in the century. Jessica is still out of school. We are planning a trip to the Nara Fire Festival for her tenth birthday, and we hope that other JETs will join us. At the JET Christmas party, we asked the others to send a card to Jessica for her big day since we are trying to make a big deal of it. Several JETs have sent cards or letters for her. She will be so surprised!

Okay, I know that this letter is way too long, but I had a lot to say. I will talk to you soon. I send lots of good wishes from all here to all there, and the usual mushy crap. Take care of each other!?Lynley