Friday, November 25, 2005
Thanksgiving 1 of 3
Woah. I just looked at my watch and saw “24” and I thought, “Christmas is TOMORROW!”
Just a little early there.
Thanksgiving dinner last night was a blast!!! All day yesterday was great. I did four loads of laundry, aired my futon and kotatsubuton, cleaned my apartment, met----
----I just found my cell phone charger!!! I’ve been missing it since last Saturday. I had to keep my phone turned off all the time except a couple times a day when I turned it on to check my mail. Sorry to those of you who tried calling/mailing me and never got a response. I’m back up again!
The charger was in my iPod case with my earbuds. I took them on my trip to Fukuoka last weekend, but never actually used my the earphones to listen to my iPod—just show people pictures on it!! (I wasn’t kidding when I said I like my iPod more for the photos than for the music! Hee hee!) Well, I’m so happy I found the charger. I was going to go buy a new one today after school. This saves me 50 bucks!
Anyway, after cleaning my place I met some Kamiko students. We had lunch together at my okonomiyaki place. I convinced the girls to cook their own on the table grill and they really enjoyed it. They thought it’d be difficult, but were proud when they flipped their first okonomiyaki!
Mana and Kyoko (I called her Keiko several times before she corrected me).
Then we did purikura together. All the purikura machines on the island are being exterminated. I don’t understand why, but even the one at Aqua Blue is gone. “Be Shock2” is gone! I heard another rumor that the gym and pool will be closing in March next year. It may just be another rumor, but this time it’s from a more creditable source. I’m obviously very unhappy that my sole source of exercise in the winter will be closing, but at least by April it will be starting to be warm again and I can ride my bike and go running. But this will make triathlon training very difficult. If the pool closes I may not even try.
What’s wrong with this island? The only gym and pool open year round is being threatened, the purikura machines are being taken from us, even my school isn’t rumored to stay open for very many more years and yet they keep on widening the roads!
I go through spurts where I don’t write any emails. And then one day, usually when I’ve reached 100 emails in my inbox I decide to clean it out, and I write everyone in one day and then I stop again for a couple of weeks…sometimes months. So, if you haven’t gotten a reply, my inbox is nearing 100 and I’ll probably get back to you soon.
Anyway, pictures from Thanksgiving Dinner. We prepared the food at Mizorogi’s house in Aokata, then ate in her husband’s company’s dining room. In the blue shirt is Sanae, a recent college grad living and working on the island.
Sanae and I were introduced this spring by Peter, but we’ve gotten to be good friends at eikaiwa. She studied in New Zealand and is fluent in English and incredibly cool. She really hates her job and is tired of living on this small island without any friends. She is planning to go abroad to work next April, but until then she’s really bored. We got lots of opportunities to talk together (she’s interested in the philosophy of health and nutrition and studying different religions). We were planning on having a slumber party this Friday, but I had to cancel because I’m still sick.
I’m glad Melissa loves cooking because I wanted to stay away from food prep as much as possible.
Mizorogi gave me a present! A black leather “lady’s business bag.” Very stylish!
The table—we got to sit on tables and chairs this year!! Although I really wanted to have everyone to my place in Narao, this was a nice set up. We had plenty of kitchen and table space and enough dishware.
The turkey is a funny story. With the basting bag, the turkey was too big for anyone’s microwave oven and at the last minute we had to call around to find a restaurant that could “lend” us their oven. Luckily Sanae’s friend’s parents own a nearby restaurant and the head chef cooked it for us. He even made us sweet potato chips, put it on a beautiful a tray and gave us the drippings to make gravy. He had to cut the turkey in half because the leg was done, but the thermostat in the middle hadn’t popped up yet. He was so great we were pretty lucky to have a cooked turkey this year!!
My traditional Thanksgiving dinner! Nothing’s missing, huh?!?
Enjoying dinner!! They liked everything except we got some funny faces while eating the pumpkin pie!!
That’s Thanksgiving #1 this year! I’m going to Ojika this weekend to have Thanksgiving #2 with Dawn and friends. Thanksgiving #3 is in early December with my school’s principal and wife, my scuba diving instructor and wife and a few teachers. My principal is really looking forward to it—he’s asked me about it twice since I invited him!!
Love,
Sierra
