Saturday brought a gathering in celebration of the upcoming Christmas Holiday in which most of us here in Japan will be enjoying at work. Same location and and participants as the Halloween affair with a Hawaiian Santa sort of twist.
Well, It's the middle of December here and yes, we've been a little lazy on the posting the last few weeks, but in reality it has been pretty quiet here and we've been pretty lazy on the weekends in general. I Guess we are getting geared up for the holiday trip home. Its actually been quite cold here most nights, maybe the same as Ohio, but it does manage to get into the 50s most of the days (though our days are real short). We definitely haven't had the Snow and Ice of the Midwest, with only a bit of snow falling in the mountains to the North. While there is a bit of a Holiday season evident here and there in Utsunomiya, it is nothing near the insanity we put ourselves through between Thanksgiving and New Years in the States. Seems kind of peaceful and maybe the way the Holidays were intended to be actually.
We are however looking forward to our upcoming visits home and to seeing everyone between the Christmas and the New Years Holiday.
This evening we went out for a few cold beers and some appetizers at izakaya down the street. The owners were kind enough to surprise us with a plate of deep fried "Popcorn Shrimp" and man were they as tasty as they look. Heads, tails, pincher's, whiskers, legs, even there little peepers still attached and full of wholesome crunchy goodness. Good stuff.
We managed to find a 16 lb Frozen Tyson Turkey and had it shipped to our apartment where Heather put together a little Thanksgiving feast for ourselves and a couple of the guys from work. Very tasty indeed. Yes, those are my now world famous homemade noodles, bet ya missed those this year huh? Typical Thanksgiving day except we had to work before dinner. We still manged to throw back quite a few cold ones and play a few hands of Euchre before calling it a night. It wasn't so nice not having the day of recovery afterwards and having to roll out of bed and go into the office this morning.
The pictures of the tykes having some Thanksgiving fun are some of Heathers friends from the local library, Kawaii Ne!!!
After several years of coming to Japan I finally took the opportunity to play some golf. Seemed like a good idea until i woke up today to a heavy downpour. I went ahead and made my way to the course in hopes of a cancellation. Ummm,no. In Japan if you have a Tee-Time, you play golf, rain or shine. We briefly discussed not playing with the course manager and our host, and this was unheard of. Not wanting to disappoint any of hosts, we bucked up and played. It was a heavy downpour through the first 5 holes, then stopped until we hit 16-18 where it picked up again to give us a final soaking. Unbelievable was amount of people still playing in this nasty weather. Not drinking and playing, just playing as the drinking is reserved for after the golf is finished. I must say that despite the shitty weather, we had an enjoyable day, as the course and facility were fantastic. I can also report that the 11 month layoff in play had little to no effect on my game as it still sucked immensely. Anyhow maybe we will try again in the spring after some work at the driving range, which i must say is another great story in itself.
Pictures from Friday nights Halloween Party at Graphics.
The rest of the photos are linked here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8953511@N05/sets/72157602728180794
