The traditional FCCJ Christmas Luncheon was held for the eighth time at the Embassy of Finland on Tuesday 11 December.
The 31 members and guest that attended enjoyed a Finnish style Christmas lunch. Before the lunch, H.E. Ambassador Jorma Julin gave a presentation on Finland in Japan titled "Leaving 2007 behind and stepping into 2008" where he highlighted events in 2007 and gave a preview of what is happening in 2008, which includes several ministerial visits from Finland to Japan.
Ambassador Julin also introduced the new "Mr. Information and Culture" at the Embassy, Dr. Seppo Kimanen.
The social highlight of the year of the Nordic Chambers in Japan, the Scandinavian Christmas Party, was held on Friday, 7 December at the The Westin Tokyo.
436 members from SCCJ (Sweden), DCCJ (Denmark), FCCJ (Finland), ICCJ (Iceland) and NCCJ (Norway) and their guests enjoyed a fantastic evening together with delicious food and wine, and a lot of other drinks. The party started with a different kind of Lucia parade by Carina Henriksson and Martin Andersson, followed by a much appreciated performance by Keiko and Håkan Börjeson and ending off the night with a lot of dancing to the tunes of Brad and the Hitmen.
NOTE: if you participated in the party, please go to the Participants' Survey to voice your opinion, and to have a chance to win some prizes. Click here!
To find out more about the party, with many pictures, please click link at right.
Finnish Christmas comes with EUR 630 pricetag
According to the results of a poll made public by Nordic bank Nordea on Wednesday, the average Finn splashes out some 630 on Christmas.
About half of the total expenditure is spent on presents while the rest is taken up by food, decoration, clothes and the like.
Norwegians tend to spend in excess of 1,000 euros while Swedes make do with about 590 euros.
Nordea, having polled about 1,000 people in each of the Nordic countries, found, puzzlingly, that people in the northern parts of all the countries in the region spent more on Christmas than their countrymen in the south did.
Three Engineers
There are three engineers in a car; an electrical engineer, a chemical
engineer and a Microsoft engineer. Suddenly the car just stops by the side of
the road, and the three engineers look at each other wondering what could be
wrong.
The electrical engineer suggests stripping down the electronics of the
car and trying to trace where a fault might have occurred.
The chemical
engineer, not knowing much about cars, suggests that maybe the fuel is becoming
emulsified and getting blocked somewhere.
Then, the Microsoft engineer, not
knowing much about anything, comes up with a suggestion, "Why don't we close all
the windows, get out, get back in, open the windows again, and maybe it'll work
!?"
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