Traditional Japanese Christmas

Kitano Tenmangu market was on the menu for Mom’s second day in town, since it was the only market day that was going to fall during any of my family’s stay in Kyoto. It was pretty lively, though not as crowded as the last time that I was there, even though it was the last market day before the New Year. We walked around there for awhile, taking a look at what was for sale as well as the shrine itself, and then headed back towards the hotel through Kamishichiken geisha district. I was hoping that Mom would get to see a maiko before going home, and figured that that was the place to do it. I was not disappointed, as within a couple of minutes of being in the quarter I saw three different off-duty maiko. I can only guess that they are busy getting errands done around noon-ish. I was, unfortunately, not able to locate the oyakodon restaurant that I had eaten at with my host sister, so we wound up at a noodle shop along the way home. It actually proved to be a good choice, since the menu had pictures, the service was quick, the prices reasonable, and the food quite tasty. After a long day we went back to the hotel and rested (at least in my case) very tired feet. Since it was Christmas day, I decided that dinner should be the traditional Japanese Christmas fare: fried chicken and Christmas cake. The fried chicken came from Mos Burger and was quite good (not too greasy and not all breading), and the two slices of roll cake from my favourite bakery here was delicious. We ended up getting one slice of green tea-flavoured roll cake with whipped cream and sweet black beans inside, topped in sweet soybean powder, and another with white cake rolled up with whipped cream and fruit and topped in bran flakes. We brought all this back to the hotel room and ate it while watching ‘Miss Congeniality 2’ on the hotel pay-per-view. Merry Christmas.
-Christmas really is a bit of a non-event here, though the carols and decorations leading up to it might make one think otherwise. On the day itself everything is still open as usual.
-I wish that I could tell you how it came to be that they eat fried chicken on Christmas here, but I honestly don’t know when it started. I’m thinking it must have been one hell of a marketing campaign.
-As far as I can tell, any kind of cake can be Christmas cake, as long as it is eaten in the Christmas time period, though it should probably have ‘Merry Christmas’ written on it. Roll cakes, sponge cakes, chocolate cakes and castella all qualify.
-I don’t know what castella is, but I had ‘mini castella’ at a festival once and it tasted like pancakes, and then we had a castella Christmas cake at my host family’s house, which seemed to be dense and orange-flavoured