Elementary school children from the Tohoku region and Tokyo gathered Wednesday at a Tokyo hotel to decorate Christmas trees with sweets to cheer up young survivors of the March 11, 2011, disasters.
Sixteen kids from Tokyo and five from Tohoku completed four small Christmas trees in the lobby of the Grand Hyatt Tokyo in Minato Ward, with the help of Masaki Okazaki, the hotel's deputy head patissier. Okazaki is this year's world champion of the International Confectionary Art Competition "Le Mondial des Arts Sucres" in Paris.
Under the theme "Kizuna and Hope," the Christmas trees crafted from cedar driftwood from July's heavy rain in north Kyushu were colorfully decorated with cream, candy canes, gingerbread man cookies, marshmallows, chocolates and gummy bears.