Southeast Botanical Garden Christmas lights

Christmas lights are one of my favorite things about this time of year. Because Japan isn't historically a Christian country (so we are not inundated by the fact that its Christmas everywhere), the fact that it's generally warm here, I haven't really done any Christmas shopping, etc. it hasn't really felt like Christmas is only days away. Luckily, we were able to find some places that put up beautiful light displays (lights are something they are really good at here :) and we decided to check out the Southeast Botanical Gardens last night. I've been wanting to walk around these gardens since we arrived, but we were waiting until the weather got a little cooler-which it definitely was last night! After a fun little Christmas get together with all the dentists on the island yesterday afternoon, we headed to the gardens for the evening light display.

All bundled up! There was a really cold wind in the parking lot, but once we got into the gardens it actually wasn't really that cold...but I was still glad we jackets. It was kind of fun to be just a little bit cold for a change (but glad we aren't battling freezing temps :)

Family photo at the entrance. This was Rowan's first time in this stroller without the carseat clicked in. He did really well!

We arrived just before dark so got to enjoy a little bit of the beauty before the sun was gone and the lights came on...

Love this plant...and this man...

Rowan was pretty tired for a good bit of our adventure...but hilariously enough he was actually awake during this photo and didn't seem to mind that he probably couldn't see anything but the ground!

Rowan and I just hanging out with the surfing cow (me posing in traditional Japanese style ;)

Just a little horse drawn carriage ride :)

Gorgeous walkway

The Love Buttons. You are supposed to hold hands and push the buttons on each stand simultaneously and the huge Christmas tree below changed from white lights to pink :) So cute.

View from above. Kudos to Grant for making this picture look like daytime! It was taken around the same time as the picture above.

Less than traditional Christmas lights...but still cute ;)

This waterfall of lights was pretty impressive. It was hard to capture the beauty of it but we had some fun hanging out by it.

The painted cow. They had blacklights out around this group of white cows...
 (again, not all the lights were very traditional Christmasy, but they were all pretty fun to look at!)

Cute boys

Probably my favorite tree of the evening...looked so cool sitting out on the water all lit up!

We headed into the gift shop at the end where they had a little cafe...check out the curry options, do you want #1 or #2? ;)

After the gardens, we headed out to dinner with the Finlaysons (who also came to the gardens with us!) We had heard about a woman who lived fairly near us who each year goes all out decorating her house for Christmas inside and out, and then serves dinner every night of December. Because this is an idea that would NEVER happen in the states, we thought we had to check it out. There were about 8 menu items (although I knew we were going more for the experience than the food :) 

 I think the pictures speak for themselves :) It was a really fun experience though and the woman who owned the house was so kind and fun! She invited us back next year and told us to call ahead of time so we could come on a night when she "rented" a Santa!

And because seemingly everywhere we go, cute Japanese women want to hold Rowan, I decided I was going to start documenting it! So here he is last night at a table full of women...he wasn't so sure about it :)

It was such a fun evening to get us ready for Christmas! This coupled with having a Christmas program at church today should get us in both the fun holiday spirit and also thinking about the true meaning of Christmas and the amazing gift of our Savior.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!