Merry Christmas, everybody

Christmas Day is nearly over for me, whilst in Britain people should now be tucking into their turkey, and Americans are mostly sleeping off Christmas Eve.

Christmas isn't celebrated in Taiwan; it's as much of a work-day as any other Sunday, you have as-normal train services, the Internet cafes are still open 24 hours a day. However, as I was waiting to go into The Promise yesterday (which I recommend; a little less glory-of-great-China and a slightly saner plot than the last few Big Chinese Movies) a fire-engine turned up outside the cinema and twelve firemen dressed as Santa came out and sung carols accompanied by loud brass instruments, competing with the twenty-four normally-dressed people who had been indulging in synchronised disco-dancing to J-pop classics on the corner by the cinema for much of the evening.

Yesterday I viewed the many temples of Tainan, and have a camera full to bursting (I've been unable to download pictures here - not a service that internet cafes provide - so will have to buy another memory card, then re-sell it in England) of brightly-glazed ceramic dragons, bas-relief depictions of the torments of Hell, &c. There is a temple in Tainan to the God of Literature, built on the foundations of the Dutch Fort Provintia (when the Ming recaptured Taiwan, they renamed it the "fort of red-haired barbarians").

Today I've been in Kaohsiung (pronounced Gaoshung); think of it as Taiwan's Liverpool, with a major harbour, a famous river, and prestigious buildings by the waterside. I've been up to the 74th floor of the Tuntex Twin Towers and viewed the city outspread; I've walked round the as-garish-as-Tainan temples around the Lotus Lake; I've climbed up to the old British Consulate overlooking the harbour and watched sunset.

For Christmas lunch I had a cup of Starbuck's Special Christmas Toffee Nut Latte and an unexciting chocolate caramel roll; Christmas dinner was squid on a stick, barbecued with soy sauce and sesame seeds, followed by a cup of 'pearl tea' - cold milky tea with large and entertainingly gooey lumps of tapioca in it.

I hope you all have wonderful Christmases, receive delightful and useful gifts, and spend pleasant hours with your families. hsenag, have you received my package from Bali?

Almost certainly the wrong time to ask for information

I believe some of my readers may have been to Tokyo at some point.

I'm there for about 36 hours; the flight from Taiwan arrives mid-afternoon on the 27th, so I probably don't get to my hotel until the evening given how far out Narita is. I have all of the 28th; the flight to Canada leaves 1520 which means I probably have a couple of hours in the morning of the 29th - I'm not an early riser.

What should I see? The Web is saying 'admire the shops in Akihabara' - but I have a PC, laptop, PDA, digital camera already, and not really the money for another. And 'visit the Imperial Palace gardens and walk round the outside of the Imperial Palace', but I'm not sure that's a whole day. I'd like to find something appropriately Japanese to see one evening, rather than The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe or, even worse, Harry Potter 4; but I'm not sure where to start.

Help me, O my far-flung friends!