Well, it has been a whole month since I last wrote anything, so I thought I should check in and wish you all a Happy New Year.
The last few weeks have been pretty busy, and I have been rushing around doing Christmassy things, interspersed with life-threatening sickness (otherwise known as a nasty cold). Sadly in that time I have failed totally to take any photos. This is mostly because due to the cold temperatures we are experiencing, whenever I take out my camera, the lens immediately gets covered in condensation, so all my photos get a misty effect to them. At first I thought this was quite cool and arty, but now I realise it just looks like my camera`s cold, hence I have given up trying to take anything.
So here is a quick run down of what I have been up to the last month. Chris arrived in Numakunai on a very early train in mid December, bringing with him a blizzard. So I went out in my PJs at 7am, scraped the snow off the car and picked him up for the station. Being 7am and snowing, the words "gosh, it's a bit chilly" and variations on that theme, were the main topic of conversation. We sat and munched our way through our his omiyage from Tokyo, then packed up the car with blankets, Christmas cake and stuffing and headed up north for Jo's, for her Christmas party. We arrived and started on the wine, but not long after, a monk arrived with two young girls, which threw us just a little bit. A few days before, Fumiko had asked if she could bring a friend who "is small and likes English". We assumed this meant petite, not still a child, but the monk did bring us cool bracelets that smelt like a temple and Fumiko brought a yummy chiffon cake, so we forgave them for stopping the flow of wine for a few hours. Although, I thought Hazel was going to strangle them when they didn't eat her carrot and coriander soup. And they left my roast potatoes! We resorted to eating the Sainsbury mince pies in the kitchen as we thought we might cry if they left those too.
The next day we went to Hachinohe for the best all-you-can-eat Italian restaurant I have ever been to! It is a buffet with pizza, pasta and all sorts of little dishes, no time limit, for only 7 quid! The only down fall was there was a blizzard halfway there so bad you couldn't see two foot in front of your nose, and it took us twice as long to get home as it should have done because the snow made everyone drive at 30mph all the way down route 4. It was agonizingly slow! But when you are full of the best pizza in Iwate, who cares!!
Later on in the week we went for a Christmas meal with my medical student friends from fencing. We were supposed to be going to the Irish pub, and when I booked it ages ago, we were, but then suddenly it turned into a Mexican restaurant and we were eating tacos and mascarpone ice cream. Very random. It still looks like an Irish pub though, and you can still drink Guinness, so that is all that matters. I went there again a few days later for a party with the English teachers at school. It was nice to socialise with the teachers for once, but sadly it was exactly the same menu again. It is good food though, so I was happy enough. The waiter used to be a student of one of the teachers, so we got a free Guinness each!
Christmas eve, we went to my supervisor's house in Morioka. There were two students from the first year there too, and we watched lots of Disney videos and ate samosa and drank Beaujolais. One of her ex-students came and showed us how to make Hiroshima-style ekonomiyaki. This is slightly different to how we normally make it at home, and looks something like this...
For those of you who have never had ekonomiyaki, inside is meat and noodles, cabbage and an egg. It is then cooked in batter like a savory pancake, and a special sauce that tastes a bit like Worcester sauce, but is thicker, is spread on top.
On Christmas Day, I had six people at my house and I cooked a full Christmas dinner...in my microwave! A challenge to say the least. It worked though, and considering I had drunk wine throughout the whole process, I probably wouldn't`t have minded if it hadn't.
We just did the typical Christmas tradition of eating and drinking and watching TV. I also had my firsrt ever Whisky Toddy, courtesy of Mr Chris. It smelt like it was going to be unbearably strong, but was actually rather pleasant.
It was just after this that it all went a bit wrong, as everyone came down with a really evil cold. So between Christmas and New Year we spent most of the time under the heated table with a box of tissues, watching bad videos, drinking whisky toddys and feeling sorry for ourselves. We managed to drag ourselves out to Morioka to do Chinese tea ceremony one day, but that was about it.
By New Years we were better, but still pretty lethargic, so we just ate mochi and drank amazake (a drink made from sake extract and ginger), and I didn't even make it to midnight before falling asleep in front of the TV. Then New Year's Day we went to a shrine and prayed and had our fortune told, then headed home and ate soba. Sadly my fourtune for this year was about as bad as you can get, so really hope the tying it to a piece of string malarky works.
Now Chris has gone back and I am back to school, so everything is just normal again. Still sniffing over the few teachers who decided to come to work, which I am sure everyone is really pleased about.
Did attempt to go out this weekend and made it as far as Jo's house to have an onsen, but then abandoned plans to stay at hers when had coughing attack and realised it would be much more sensible to spend the weekend in my PJs, so headed back to Numakunai. Actually that was my first onsen of this winter, which is a very poor show. Sadly it was rather packed with children, but still a very nice onsen. It had a beautiful view of the lights of Kunohe from the outside bath.
And that I think brings us pretty much up to date. Hope you all have a good 2006, and please come back and read sometimes.