Holidays
At the end of October, I broke my ankle. Since then, I haven't been allowed to go back to
work, and am hanging out at my apartment with a cast, attempting to recover. Because of this
rather sedentary life, I haven't had many opportunities to take pictures, but here are the
ones I do have for November and December.
Here I am on my couch, scratching an itch with a chopstick.
I can still hardly believe that I made it all the way to Hirakata on my crutches, but with
Alyson's generous help, I did, and we visited my host family! It was fantastic to see them
again, and so nostalgic to be back in their house! The dog, Mary, was as hyper as ever, even
with her own injured leg, which got people to call us twins. And I don't have to feel silly
for having my Christmas tree up already, since they did back before Thanksgiving.
Here are a few pictures my cousin Chris sent; he stayed here for a while when he was
visiting Japan, and caught a few pictures of me leaving for my weekly board of Ed meeting.
The woman with me is Tamao, my really nice translator, and that's her car.
On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I held a little Thanksgiving potluck! It was a small
group: just me, Emm, Wakana, and David, but it was totally fun! We all cooked together, and
despite my slightly cramped kitchen, we were pretty organized and got stuff done, even though
we'd never made these particular dishes before! Our finished menu included Emm's chicken with
orange and mushroom gravy, mashed potatoes, a modified version of Dad's sweet potato dish, and an
experimental but quite successful bean, bacon, and onion salad. Wakana and David brought cream
puffs and yatsuhashi for dessert! All in all, the dinner and preparation were a blast. Thanks to
a care package from Emm's aunt, we even had a proper Thanksgiving party sign and napkins!
I know it's up early, but here's the adorable little Christmas tree my parents sent me!
They also sent the ornaments, and most of the presents, although there are also some from
Grandma, my aunts and uncles, Brandon. Yay! Then Okaasan came to visit, and brought a
delicious Christmas pie!! And just today (it is now Christmas Eve), Miyabe-san brought me a
traditional Japanese Christmas spongecake! Awww, I feel so loved! :)
Spent a Saturday in Osaka with Alyson, Emm, and Jamie, and had a blast, but somehow ended
up with only one picture (there was one more, but Emm was hiding from the camera). The next
day was a fun, pictureless day in Himeji with Alyson, and then I stayed with Adam in Kobe
before going home. Some people in Kobe had made a Christmas display out of pet bottles. It
was odd. Meanwhile, Adam generously gave me his futon, and kept himself warm by sleeping in
his Pikachu costume.
On December 23rd, I went to Jujin's gospel choir's Christmas concert in Osaka. Here he
is on the electric guitar, looking wonderfully glam-rock for Christmas!
Group date! Alyson managed to pick up an admirer at a karaoke place we stopped at, and
she and Bianka and I went on a group date with him and two friends. We spent a hilarious
evening at an izakaya. Sugino provided us with quite a bit of entertainment through his
drunken pursuit of Alyson, and I ended up spending most of the time with Taka. Bianka chatted
a lot with Daisuke.
I spent New Year's up in Tokyo with Alyson. We went up a few days early and stayed in a
hotel in Ikebukuro, waiting around for the Johnny's Big Surprise Countdown! Whee! But we
did not waste our stay! We spent the whole time Johnny's dorking. Remember: the shinkansen -
it's faster than your MOM! Then we delved deeper into horribly embarassing fandom rituals by
covering our favorite uchiwa with tinsel. The picture of Alyson and the instant noodles is
an imitation of Nakai's ADORABLE CM!
Okay, and then we were unleashed upon Tokyo with nothing but Johnny's in our heads. Oh
dear. My fascination with photographing Tsuyoshi ads was just the beginning: we went to
Nagano Hiroshi's parents' bike shop in a neighboring prefecture, ate bibimba in a restaurant
in Shibuya that had recently been featured on VVV6, and made friends with Sakamoto Masayuki's
mother at her vegetable store in Tokyo. The sukiyaki pictured has nothing to do with Johnny's,
but was one of the best meals I've eaten in my life. YUM. The concert itself was awesome,
but of course photos were DAME. So you just get the one of us in the station afterwards.
Go back to picture index.
