Our Christmas in Japan

A winter abroad

We were excited to spend Christmas in Japan for no other reason other than to have a new experience. There weren’t a lot of festive events since Christmas isn’t a major holiday in Japan. It is, however, a day of eating KFC.

In the 1970s KFC was struggling in Japan until it began marketing fried chicken as a substitute for American turkey at Christmas dinner. The idea went viral and has now become KFC’s biggest day of the year. It’s interesting to note that Japanese KFC tastes slightly different than that in Canada or Europe. We had KFC in Portugal, where we found it slightly spicier and crunchier. KFC Japan was closer to Canada, with a blander batter.

We were in Shizuoka right before Christmas and in Nagoya for Christmas and New Year’s Day. We didn’t get out very much. Part of the reason was because we were heavily focused on submitting my grad school application for a Masters of Architecture at UBC and UofT in September. However, we did manage to go to a sushi museum and Nagoya Castle.

Our biggest event in Nagoya was after New Year’s Day, when we met with some local Swifties to watch the Taylor Swift Reputation Stadium Tour Movie on Netflix and then go to Karaoke. This made for an exciting holiday season in Japan and one to remember.