10:05:23 Chie and her Mum opening presents at home. Here a couple of sake cups Chie had made for me, which are really lovely.
10:05:52 Yuka and Chie and a small but still comforting quantity of wrapping paper strewn over the floor.
10:08:55 Chie opening presents.
10:12:19 Me with the sake cups.
10:19:18 In Japan, rather than sending christmas cards, people send new years greeting cards, and usually make them by hand. Here's one Chie made for a friend, including a picture of sheep on Eigg. 2003 will be the year of the sheep.
13:46:55 I was determined to see snow on Christmas day, so we embarked upon a somewhat ill thought out quest to find some. Our plan was just to get on a train, and keep heading north until we found somewhere it was snowing. Here's Chie outside Miyoshi station, were disappointingly it wasn't snowing.
13:53:03 After Miyoshi, the train got really small.
13:53:22 ...it was also getting noticeably colder.
13:53:37 Just to prove it really was Miyoshi.
15:18:33 Finally, after over three hours on the train, at the point at which our second train terminated, in the little village of Bingo-Ochiai, it started snowing. Hoorah!
15:18:40 Again, just to prove it was Bingo-Ochiai.
15:18:45 Hopefully you can see the snow in these pictures...
15:20:41 We soon found out there wasn't a great deal to Ochiai.
15:23:31 A very Japanese style garden in Ochiai.
15:24:04 To reassure us it was cold.
15:32:03 Eight minutes later, it was even more colderer. Project this drop in temperature forward, and conditions in Bingo-Ochiai would be near Arctic by dinner time.
15:36:02 Thankfully, everywhere in Japan, no matter how remote, there are vending machines, and we got a couple of cans of hot coffee.
15:39:28 Here we are in the waiting room of Bingo Ochiai station.
15:45:56 Me signing the sort of visitor's book. I left the address of my website there, so who knows, somebody reading this may have found out about my site from there.
15:51:50 A bizarre notice pinned to the notice board of Bingo-Ochiai station. This reads "WATCH OUT! THE STATION STAFF!! I'm a fanatic railway maniac. I can't expect what I'll do." Bizarre indeed. One assumes all would become clear upon visiting yakumoko.com.
15:53:14 Time to leave Bingo-Ochiai, back on the same train we got there.
16:05:32 On the way back I tried to get some shots of snow out of the train window. This was probably the best of the lot...
16:09:49 Hmmm...
16:11:42 Well, at least you can see it's snowing!
16:12:05 Although the further South we went, the less snowy it got.
16:12:12 Last picture of snow then...
17:36:10 We changed at Miyoshi onto a bigger train for the journey the rest of the way back to Hiroshima.
17:37:22 Miyoshi is famous for sake, and luckily we'd had time to get a small jar for the journey...
17:38:03 I look really drunk here - and I hadn't even opened the sake yet! Personally, I blame it on snow blindness...
21:32:30 Back at Chie's family's flat now. Being Christmas day, it was time for some Champagne-esque wine.
21:33:07 ...which was quite difficult to open...
21:33:19 ...just about to pop now.
21:34:25 Chie's sister Yuka cutting the Christmas cake. Apparently the fruitcake traditional in England isn't particularly popular - this cake was more like a chocolate mousse.
21:37:55 Chie with cake.
21:38:34 A none too flattering close up of cake.
21:56:38 Difficult to see, but the enscription on this wine glass reads "Kentucky Fried Chicken". Quite odd.
22:37:42 Being that it was Christmas, I wanted to learn how to say "family is precious" in Japanese. Apparently, it goes something along the lines of "Kazoku wa kichoh na mono desu".
22:38:54 Chie probably scribbling more poignant Japanese phrases for me.
22:55:11 A Japanese TV program, full of people doing impressions of celebrities. This apparently was David and Victoria Beckham. I find it baffling enough trying to understand why English people are so obsessed with this couple. To discover that Japanese people also idolise them borders on the disturbing.
00:04:54 Chie, being very cute.
00:06:06 Me, a bit out of focus.