Bittersweet

I am hungover like there's no tomorrow and need sleep/medicating/food so this won't be too long.

I went out to Karuizawa to meet the boyfriend yesterday. The plan was to go Christmas shopping for the day and then return home. Karuizawa, for those who don't know, is a huge outlet mall in Nagano. It's only about an hour from Tokyo, and therefore very convenient for shopping. Now is the winter sale, so I urge anyone who loves shopping to head on out there.

Nagano now has snow on the mountains, so it was pretty bitter out there. We wandered around for a while, bought a few things, and then went for lunch at this German restaurant that puts sauerkraut on EVERYTHING. We were going to write the whole restaurant off as a failure until we had the hot, spiced wine (or gluhwein for those in the know). MAN it was good. It is now The boyfriend's favorite winter drink and I was forced to agree to making it constantly whenever he comes over to my house.

On our return to the mall, I wanted to stop in this jewellery store I visited in the summer. 

They have really good sale prices. I was looking for other people, but stopped by a case with necklaces in it. There was one by courreges (a favorite of mine) that caught my eye. I vaguely commented, "oh, I've always wanted a diamond pendant." and walked away. When I turned around the boyfriend was at the cash register. Turns out he bought it for me for Christmas. When he gave me the present, he laughed at my stunned face. Apparently the whole reason he wanted to come with me shopping was so that he could buy me a present. He didn't know what to buy me, so he wanted to see what I liked. Needless to say, the necklace is beautiful. And it was NOT cheap. So I did get a diamond from him this year, but in necklace form instead of ring. Of course, I HAD to buy him something too (you know that guilty feeling where someone gives you a gift and you aren't prepared? There is nothing worse than having to say, "Um, I haven't done my Christmas shopping yet" to their expectant faces). When we went clothes shopping for him, I got him this gorgeous cable knit sweater, new jeans, a tie and a scarf. Not romantic like a necklace, but I was caught unprepared. In Canada at Christmas I want to buy him a few more things that I know he'd like. He is now very spiffily dressed (um, not that his usual fashion sense is BAD or anything......).

Anywhos, the mall pretty much closes around 5:30, so it was time to go home. I was making noise that I didn't want to leave him (even though he'll be here on Friday), so we went to an izakaya to kill a few hours before the last shinkansen.  Then I got spectacularly drunk.  I can't remember everything we drank, but I do know I must have mixed about 8 kinds of alcohol.  We had the most amazing chat about his parents' marriage (maybe one of only 3 Japanese marriages I know where the couple REALLY loved each other), how we want our marriage to be, our lives, etc. Thanks to the alcohol, we were both really honest and upfront about things. It is quite possibly the best talk we have ever had. Unfortunately, due to the large quantity of alcohol, I was very touchy feely with him (more than is appropriate in a public place in Japan) so I think maybe the other patrons thought I was some kind of hostess on a date. I was feeling very misty-eyed (although that could have been the booze) and said I wanted to stay with him that night.

We stumbled out of the izakaya, caught the last train back to the biggest station near his place and realized that we were stranded about 1.5 hours from his apartment. See, the train from Karuizawa stops at only the big stations, and the boyfriend's house is on the really small train line that stops at 9:30. The boyfriend hadn't driven his car because parking is expensive and he planned to be home early. There wasn't a taxi in sight (this is rural Nagano after all) so we were spinning around wondering what to do when we spotted a hotel. For 8000 yen we got a lovely room and promptly began to drink again (thank you Japanese convenience stores!). We had another emotional (the good kind) chat and....passed out I think.

I woke up this morning with an acidic hangover hating all humanity (except the boyfriend) and wishing my head would just hurry up and explode like it was threatening to. Even my gingerbread latte at starbucks tasted like soap thanks to my damaged taste buds.  I caught the early shinkansen home to Tokyo and am now nursing the hangover from hell in my apartment. Screw doing the laundry. This was the best weekend of my life.