December Parties

December is party time in Japan. There are the traditional bonenkai, Christmas gatherings, and what not. Here are a few pics from two of the parties I attended last month. Let me apologize in advance for waiting several weeks to post this; I was in Malaysia til January 10.

English Club bonenkai/Christmas party:

This was held at sushihide restaurant in Ariake-cho on December 17. We were expecting nabe, which is basically a communal soup pot that people add food to from various platters. They did have this cuisine, but they also had two massive mackerel tuna heads. These things stood about a foot high from gills to mouth, as seen below. This other shot is of Kawa-chan, who felt compelled to eat the fish's eyeball, much to the delight of culture-shocked Peter.

Christmas Eve Feast

It had been two years since I'd had a semi-proper Christmas dinner. It was also the first time that I was in Japan over the Holidays (am usually in Thailand, dodging tsunamis or getting ecoli poisoning). So, myself and a few other ALTs decided to rent out the local community center's kitchen and cook ourselves up some grub. A diverse group of ten or so attended, hailing from Japan, the U.S. New Zealand, England, Ireland, and Canada. As turkeys are hard to come by here in Japan, we settled for three chickens which we stuffed with a spinach-herb concoction and then baked for several hours. Now, I've had some decent stuffing in my day, but this recipe was top shelf. Really delicious. We also feasted on pumpkin soup, garlic bread, garlic mashed potatoes, roasted potatoes, greek salad, Christmas pudding (like cake; it's an English thing...), and copious amounts of wine and beer. There was brandy too, supposedly an ingredient in the pudding (again, English), but that mysteriously disappeared before anything could be done with it. Despite this, the dinner was a smashing success. Thanks to everyone for helping out, especially Aine, who volunteered her house for the event.

Kate with one of the lucky birds.

Group shot