頑張れ私！Good Luck Me!: Christmas Eve!~

Yesterday was Christmas Eve! And today is Christmas! Yay!~ But to be honest, I haven't really felt the "Christmas spirit" much here. Even with all the Christmas lights and incredibly weird English Christmas songs (I have never heard such weird Christmas songs in my life...so random), I definitely don't feel the same way I usually do around Christmas back home. I do miss the snow, making Christmas cookies, and decorating the tree. That being said, I did have a really nice Christmas Eve, and I look forward to opening presents with my host family tonight.

So anyway, yesterday I was craving pancakes; nothing else would satisfy me. Luckily, I knew of a pancake restaurant not too far from my apartment. I've never been to it before, but I've seen a super long line outside of the place so I knew it would be good. And since it was a Monday afternoon, I thought it would be pretty easy to get into. Boy was I wrong. At around 3:30 I went to go pick up my friend from Harajuku station so we could get pancakes for a late lunch. I immediately noticed an influx in couples the second I stepped outside. Which made sense since it was Christmas Eve. I was not anticipating, however, the mass amount of people that would be walking around Harajuku and Omotesando. Now Harajuku is a pretty popular place, and I've seen it get pretty crowded before. But I've never seen it this crowded. It was ridiculous. Usually it takes me five minutes or less to walk through Takeshita dori to get to the station. But since there were so many people, it took forever. Eventually I found my friend and we started off to the pancake place.

I was assuming that since it was like 4 in the afternoon, and since the restaurant was on a side street, that the pancake place would have space. Boy was I wrong again. There was a line but it wasn't that long so we decided to wait. We soon found out, however, that reservations had taken up most of the day, so the next available time to eat would be 7 at night. I was somewhat shocked that the place had that many reservations. Thankfully I knew of another pancake place which also had a line, but was not that crowded! We waited about 15 minutes or so, but it was well worth the wait (also I think they let us in a bit early since everyone got a ticket number and most people went to shop while they waited but we just stayed in the restaurant). I got a coconut latte and maple and nuts pancakes which came with delicious whipped cream and the best bacon I've ever had in my life. So. Good. But it was a bit too much sweetness overload, so I wasn't able to eat all of it.

So pretty!~

Seriously this was worth the overpriced price we payed.

After eating we decided to walk around the area we were in for a bit. I had never been to that part of Omotesando/Harajuku, so I was really glad we ended up there. There were so many awesome shops! I literally live in the best neighborhood. I'm so lucky/grateful. We found an amazing sticker shop which were all original designs from a guy there. I'm definitely going to go back and buy more stickers! After a bit of shopping, we decided to head to Tokyo Station where I had planned an event to see illuminations. I'm glad we left when we did. The main Omotesando street was ridiculously crowded. It reminded me of New Years instead of Christmas. I mean, I knew Christmas was a couple holiday, but no one warned us how crowded places would get! It made me realize I really do live in a huge metropolis...

So many people!!!

There were so many good stickers it was hard to pick one!

After getting out of the crazy crowd, we got to Tokyo Station and waited for everyone else (some fellow study abroad students and Japanese friends, 9 people in all) to show up. Sadly, the main illumination (a light show on the actually station building outside) was cancelled since the staff there was worried the crowd would get too big. But there was still some illuminations outside which we went to see. We all had a lot of fun! The illuminations were beautiful. There were a lot of couples there and people doing poses by the illuminations, so me and my one Japanese friend started to imitate their poses in our pictures. It was pretty hilarious. I'm glad people actually came to the event I planned (like two days before Christmas Eve haha). It's nice to have great friends here!~ After illuminations we went to get dinner and a couple of us went to karaoke afterwards (were we of course sang Christmas songs). Overall I had a wonderful Christmas Eve and made some great memories. I'm going to be so sad when I leave here...but for now I'll just enjoy my time here as much as possible (which I am)!~
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!~