Last Wednesday (Christmas Eve) I went for a ride around the neighbourhood and a little of the surrounding areas. I would describe the geography of this place as a cross between city/Hahndorf/Loxton. There’s the business, buildings, roads and traffic in the “CBD” areas, the hilliness, greenery and winding roads (yet thinner) comparable to those in Hahndorf (off it’s main street), and also the spaciousness and plains (rice fields) similar to that around Loxton in the Riverland.
The neighbourhood areas are filled with two-storey houses crammed on top of the tree inhabited hills, which in turn are surrounded by rice fields, roads, and power lines galore.
Christmas was quite a weird experience here - presents from Aki’s Dad etc were presented in the middle of dinner (a BBQ Japanese style) on Christmas eve and were opened then and there (shocking, yes? - I think I was!). After Christmas day I was very glad that all the Christmas decorations and repetitive Jingle Bells tunes had gone away from all the shopping malls and public spaces. I feel that most Japanese shops see Christmas as a celebration that lasts a month - and most things are sold with “christmas” as an adjective (no matter the type of shop, there will always be shopping assistants trying to sell you something [and they don't believe that you are 'just looking']), especially in the cake sections of shopping malls (and train stations). There are no christmas fruit cakes here as there is in Australia, just lots of cakes of every other kind (especially creamy ones) that they all call “christmas cakes”.