This is what Christmas is like in Japan 🍰🎄

Merry Christmas from Tokyo Japan today I'm going to show you what it's like to celebrate Christmas here in Japan because it is very different back home in the [Music] west my first mission for today is to secure a Christmas cake which is a very common tradition here to do you have to eat a Christmas cake on Christmas day it's not any Christmas cake it's basically like a strawberry shortbread cake and they are so popular that you have to usually reserve them quite far in advance I haven't got a reservation and I'm going to head to like a chica Department which is like a downstairs food court area inside of one of shiner's big buildings so hopefully they've still got some in stock by the way the backup plan is if I can't get a cake at the fancy department store I'm going to go to the convenience store because they also sell cakes here you can actually pick them up at a lot of places and I kind of actually want to compare so maybe I'll pick one up from both heading inside of is time which is a huge department store here and it's a very up Market one and they've got some really pretty illuminations which are quite common here in Japan as well which I love because in Australia illuminations aren't such a big thing if you ever want to get food at these department stores it's always on the bottom floor for some reason it's like the basement food floor and I think actually in Australia we have the same concept at David Jones was always the basement I successfully secured a slice of Christmas cake but at the expense of my wallet because one tiny piece was about 1,000 yen oh my goodness that's so expensive in my local neighborhood there's a Patisserie where I can buy one slice for about 300 Yen and a whole cake for about 2,000 whereas a whole cake in there was about 5,000 it is not cheap here I underestimated how much this would cost some of the lines to get Christmas cakes were up to 80 minutes that's over an hour I'm at the cake section of 7-Eleven but they don't have the Christmas cake I thought they did they do have a really cute snowman that's something apparently it's a milk whipped cream rice cake Mochi that looks really good but not what I'm looking for they also have like this kind of cake they are desserts but not quite the Christmas one I was hoping for I've come to family out to try and find that cake but I couldn't find it but I did see their really nice festive decorations which are all FY chicken which is like this famous chicken from Family Mart it's really cute cuz uh chicken eating chicken is another big tradition here in Japan on [Music] Christmas I don't think I looked hot enough because I just found the Ichigo Shortcake and it's really nicely packaged this is surprisingly 450 Yen that's half the price of the one I just paid also it says it's new so this must be a limited edition thing around Christmas time I found a really great place to enjoy my cake I'm in the middle of Shinjuku outside the station and there's a Christmas tree just feeling The christmy Vibes but I can smell my cakes and my strawberries woo okay so here is the family m one the 500 yen budget one and then we have the fancier one ooh looks so amazing they've even put like a little ice pack in there da da da da they always put this like clear plastic around it to make sure it stays really nice and beautiful and I can't find where I need to peel it it smells incredible the moment I took off that plastic wrap I was like woo strawberry let's open up the other one before I dig in I want to wear something a bit festive I bought this at Daiso Japan look at this it's so cool hold on if I squeeze the ears there's like some air that comes through and the the ears flop up this is only 300 Yen I was like of course I'm buying this anyway back to the Christmas cake I was wondering why this was such a big tradition here because it's so normalized but it turns out like after the war the economy was really flourishing and this was kind of a luxurious good to enjoy back in the day and now it's just become so normal that everyone can have it even at the convenience store which I'm grateful for oh and if you don't know Japanese strawberries are outrageously expensive like usually you'll find them for like 1,000 yen for just a small pun it I'm going to start with the fancy one first Merry [Music] Christmas I need to get another bite that cream is so nice it's like the perfect level of like sweetness I love the little hidden pieces of strawberry in the middle in between the fluffy kind of sponge cake yum this is this is really good on the very top of this one it's like a glazed strawberry actually prefer it when they don't add anything on just like a plain strawberry but still not bad let me move on to the cheaper one okay I don't like that there's Jam in the middle I'm not a big Jam person but I'll give it a go right off the bat I can tell this one is as high quality which is what you'd expect but it's still pretty tasty totally fine for a convenient store like Christmas [Music] cake now that I've had my Christmas cake it's time to have some fried chicken and I've got a place in mind there's one thing you should eat when you're in Japan during Christmas time is Kentucky Fried Chicken which is something I don't usually go for but here it's literally everyone's choice and I've ordered a really small dish because if you want to actually have the bucket you have to order it in advance and people start ordering this from November which is crazy and there are people lining up on Christmas day but I was like I'm just going to get the normal chicken with chips like this and this was5 100 yen but if you get the bucket it can be at like 5,000 yen and I've got a set so I've got a drink as well originally it was just KFC that was doing chicken but now you can get it all sorts of places like I'll see it at other fast food chains I'll see it at the convenience store I'll see it at you know local grocery stores and apparently became a famous tradition here in Japan once there was a slogan for Christmas which was Kentucky is Christmas going to enjoy my large piece of chicken here it's very greasy I'm not this isn't usually my favorite thing but I'm going to celebrate the Japanese way for Christmas you can also get like the KFC whole variety pack where they'll bring you like shrimp Graton as well as like nuggets so it's not just fried chicken but I think this is where it all began this is cheaper than my Christmas cake Japan doesn't really celebrate um Christmas in the traditional where you'll gather with family it's very like a Coupes thing or nowadays there's like a lot of people who gather together if they single and meet their friends and so they'll all order fried chicken or make it at home and this particular case I'm at is in Shinjuku and I was looking at the reviews for this particular place and it seems like it's the location where some juit kaisen characters had a little incident because all the reviews were like oh this whired guy and this other person broke up in front of the store and I was like what is this happening like did someone break up but no it was from the anime which is a fun coincidence I haven't seen the series yet so feel like I spoiled [Music] myself I'm now in guyan Maya which is really beautiful during the Autumn time because there's a street lined with these beautiful yellow trees and right nearby is actually the Tokyo Christmas Market it usually is held in hiia which is close by but because they're renovating the space it's now held here and I actually love this area because it's absolutely stunning and although it's not the peak time of year there's still quite a lot of color remaining and it looks really great so I'm going to head to the market and enjoy some more of my German side of festivities but with a Japanese twist if you do want to check out this spot during Peak Autumn time I do recommend coming really early in the morning like around 7:00 or 8:00 a.m. if not earlier because it gets so packed now it's very popular and for a good reason it's AB one of my favorite places in Tokyo to enjoy the fall leaves plus there's like quite a few cafes where you can enjoy the ambience there's Shake Shack as well as some you know more local places but be prepared to line up they're often quite packed as well I reserved a ticket to go inside the market and I'm a little early so I'm just enjoying a little view here on the bench it's really beautiful weather if you do want to go to the market definitely reserve a ticket online in advance it's only 1,000 yen if you come on a weekday so it's pretty reasonable I know overseas it's free and apparently it used to be free in Tokyo but it's not so bad and you get a souvenir mug like the classic German Christmas [Music] mug I made it inside the Tokyo Christmas Market and they gave me my mug yay and it's actually really nice cuz it's like Twilight and it's slowly going to get dark it's not too busy either because if you come at night time it's so packed you can't even get a seat and every like good stall has like a crazy long line but I'm the German and me is excited I love how like the Japanese are embracing the German tradition of Christmas markets it's so awesome it feels like I'm home but away from home my first impressions of this Market is that it's way better than the one last year I love the new location I feel like it's way bigger more spread out I don't feel like drinking today so maybe I'll just get like a hot chocolate or maybe some snacks if I can find a pretzel German pretzel last time I had one was like butter inside a lot of the shop names here are really funny especially if you speak any German this one's called Danka I feel like they wouldn't call one in Germany dunk but it's really [Music] cute I caved and I ended up getting a glue Vine it just looks so good and this is my mug so every year they change the design similar to how they do it in Germany and this year it is like this it's really cute ah yum H it's not that cold actually cuz it's still daytime but it still really helps me warm up cuz it was a little chilly and this one has honey and apple inside so it's a little sweeter than usual but being the bread girl I got myself a pretzel and I don't know I've never seen this in Germany but they put like butter inside so I am a big fan of that and than oh my God there's so much butter in there I wish the butter melted a bit more cuz it feels like I just ate a whole piece of butter but I'm still I'm still enjoying it the bread itself is nice and I'm so relieved I could get a seat because like last time I came it was so packed like it was impossible to order impossible to sit down but I did this all within 5 minutes for you are so these are all the stores you can check out there's places selling crafts as well as snacks food it's not limited German stuff there's things from all over the world um and I even saw glue Vine tea which I've never heard of that before very interesting once it started getting dark all the lines started getting longer so you got to wait I really love like almonds at German markets where they've got like a sugar coating and it's so amazing or like mushrooms like is it called Su mandon maybe I can't remember it's been so long I haven't been back to a real German Christmas Market in over like 8 years I think I found some roasted almonds and they had samples so I'm going to try this flavor which is called milkshake it's not supposed to be Milkshake but we'll see oh yeah that's really different than usual it finally got dark and the atmosphere changed again I wrapped up my night by getting a unique drink it was ginger ale with hot chocolate as well as an onion soup thanks for joining me on my Christmas day here in Tokyo I hope you guys all have a really merry Christmas and I'll see you in 2024 bye is noing

Channel: seerasan

Views: 58,397

Keywords: japan, japanese christmas, tokyo, japan life, kfc japan, living in japan, seerasan, jvlog

Id: cZl5gB_gPfI

Length: 12min 44sec (764 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 25 2023