Well the snow came one day too late for a White Christmas with the first snow fall we got for the winter occurring over day of the 26th of December. Around our house it melted as soon as it hit the ground, however early the next morning I took a walk and noticed it was still sitting upon the distant Mt Hiei (Kyoto's highest mountain).
I'd like to fill you in a bit about our Christmas time in Japan. Firstly Ritsuko and I had wished to go out to a nice restaurant for a Christmas diner, but instead on Christmas Eve we were invited a long to a performance of Handle's Messiah in Kyoto city by our landlady. On the way to the performance she brought us to a nice Italian restaurant (so we got both a nice restaurant and a concert). On Christmas day I was pretty much bedridden with the flu, but I managed to watch Star Wars Episode I on DVD before returning to bed. On the 26th we were invited over for a Christmas dinner with a family from another church in Nagaokakyo, after dinner, I saw the Kyoto tower in the distance from their house. It was pointed out to me by our host that it was designed to look like a candle and thus Kyoto (in the traditional way) is the spiritual light of Japan. This gave me inspiration for the name “Shining Lights Church”, but more about that in a few entries later...