The Tokyo Cosmos Festival is held every September to November in Showa Kinen Park in Tachikawa. Like sakura season, the flowers don't necessarily follow the blooming schedule so you can be lucky or unlucky no matter when you go. Depending on what part of Tokyo you travel from, it can be a 30+ minute train ride to Tachikawa so it's better to check the latest photos on Twitter or Facebook before you you go. I'm speaking from experience because when we went in late October, most of the famous pink cosmos were already gone!

The park has a 410 yen entrance fee but it covers a huge area and has beautiful gardens all year round. It also has barbecue facilities and rental bicycles, rowboats and croquet equipment so there's more than enough entertainment to last a whole day. I recommend you buy one of these cute doughnuts outside, just to keep your energy up. Looking at flowers can be very taxing indeed...! 

Here comes the sad part. We saw a lot of lovely yellow cosmos but the fields of pink cosmos are the big draw. The little sign above shows what it's supposed to look like. However all we got was...

This.

Oh well, maybe next year. We didn't regret going because it's one of the better parks in the Tokyo area and it's nice to discover places to take long walks. There were a lot of families with young children enjoying the playgrounds and there are snack stands scattered around the park if you need refreshment.

The Showa Kinen park website has a flower blooming schedule on it but, as we learned, it isn't that reliable. The nice point about going near the end of the season is that people were allowed to pick flowers and take them home. I don't know if that's allowed all through the festival period but it doesn't seem likely. Anyway I would feel guilty about ruining the view for others! Fresh flowers are very expensive in Tokyo so this is a good way to brighten up your home, as long as you don't mind only getting yellow cosmos!

Discovering Chinatown

Christmas in Japan is a hodgepodge of cultures and traditions. Mainly romantic, a little bit religious and - for me - last year it was a little bit German and a little bit Chinese. Yokohama is home to the largest Chinatown in Asia and it's the perfect location for a day trip from Tokyo. 

Of course, I discovered all this by accident. Last December I got slightly lost on the way to a German Christmas market in Yokohama and found myself stumbling through Chinatown. It was all very Alice in Wonderland. Unfortunately I couldn't stop to take a look around because of my German market date, but I made a mental note to come back later. As impressive as Chinatown is, hot wine and pretzels were calling me. 

Gateway to Christmas

The German Christmas market was held at Akarenga, old redbrick warehouses that have been re-purposed into shops, restaurants and more. If you think that redbrick doesn't sound very Japanese, then you're right - but Yokohama has always had an international flavour. It's now home to a number of foreign curriculum-based schools, such as German and French. 

So it's a good choice for the location of a European-style Christmas market. Full disclosure: I've never been to a real German one, though I have been to Czech and Belgian ones. There's nothing like a good market anyway, and my belly was ready to be filled. As it was a Japanese event, the light displays were naturally spectacular. I think that walking down a tunnel of fairy lights is possibly my favourite Winter activity.

O Tannenbaum

Snack time: pretzel and hot spiced wine

There was a decent selection of food, mostly of the German sausage and related dishes variety. I wasn't very hungry so just had a delicious pretzel and a cup of hot spiced wine. We all sat together on public benches and feasted. Living abroad can be tough, but moments like these forge a bond between all kinds of people with all kinds of backgrounds. The magic of Christmas?

It wouldn't be a festival without incredibly over-priced souvenirs

The one area in which the market was lacking was souvenirs. I was hoping to buy some ornaments for my Christmas tree and maybe a wreath for my front door. Those are typically found at Christmas markets, right? Unfortunately, there were no tree decorations, just some mugs and figurines. Personally I thought they weren't worth the asking price and it was disappointing to come away with nothing.

The creepiest Santa you ever did spy

After all that we made our way back to Chinatown for some food. The market was great, though not as great as it could have been. On the one hand, it's always nice to have events that are free to enjoy if you don't want to spend any money. On the other hand, it can make you homesick when it's almost what you want...but not quite. I'm not German and I'm not Chinese, but spending time in those cultural zones made me feel a little closer to home. Given the choice, I'd rather not spend Christmas in Japan, but I suppose that good food and good cheer can be found everywhere!

Back to Chinatown for supper

It's Halloween Week on Milk Tea Blog!

I'll be visiting the in-laws over Halloween weekend, so I had to get my frights last week instead. Well I say frights, but the only horrors at Tokyo Disney are the prices (ba-dum tisssh). Tourists in Tokyo often wonder whether to visit Disneyland or Disney Sea. They both have their charms, but for me Sea wins on two points: better rides (my opinion) and a cocktail bar (no alcohol in Disneyland). 

My boyfriend and I went on the After 6 Passport, so we had 4 hours in the park at the reduced price of 3900 yen. The atmosphere was spooktacular (sorry) and the decorations were fangtastic (sorry again). This year's theme was skeletons - from the Mexican Day of the Dead variety, to the almost-Nightmare Before Christmas kind. Unfortunately we arrived too late to get any Fast Passes and we didn't feel like queuing for 120 minutes. So we ended up spending most of the evening eating, drinking and watching the water shows.

 Check back later this week for posts on the Halloween-themed Disney food and fireworks display!