Bounenkai time!

O-hisashiburi everyone! Today's japanese word is "bonenkai." You'll usually find it translated as an "end of the year party," but a better, and a more literal translation would be "forget last year party." It's a time to drink and forget the troubles of the last year, and it's a great part of japanese tradition. So, tonight I'm having my own little bonenkai. Forgetting all the bad things from last year, and going over the past 20 days of not posting. Well, well, well... what's been happening...? I guess I'll take a look at some pictures and see what I've been up to...

I guess we'll start here:

A couple of weeks back I sent home some presents for the kids to celebrate the first annual "Uncle B Day!" The presents got there on Dec. 23rd, only 5 days after I sent them, a bit faster than I had anticipated. The kids all said that they liked the presents, and that makes me happy :) It was sad that I couldn't be with them all for christmas, but it seems that they had a good time.

Next, we have this:











Just a couple of pictures of food I made... that's all...

Next, I've been on vacation now for a few days, and god, let me tell you, it's been great! I love vacation! I've taken a couple of walks around the neighborhood, and taken some pictures, here's a couple of them:

The last one there is a picture of a Japanese cemetery, just thought maybe some people might be interested in seeing how different they are from western style ones.

Lastly, hubun and I made a trip down to Roppongi to see "Letter's from Iwojima." At least I think that's the english name. The movie was pretty blah, but the acting was good. Both Watanabe Ken, and the little guy (can't remember his name, but he's from the singing group "Arashi") gave great performances, especially the little guy, who I think was in his first big role, maybe only role? But anyway, it was my first trip to Roppongi Hills, and only my second trip to Roppongi ever. Although I must say there were more "gaijin" than I could have imagined there, the buildings around there are freakin' beautiful! Really really superb architecture! I was very impressed, especially at night. Here's one of the pics I took that night:

Anyway, it was pretty!

So, here I am, hanging out in Tokyo, hunbun went back to her hometown for New Year's and so I'm just relaxing and chillin' out. I hope everyone had a good christmas, and I hope everyone has a great new year! Rock it hard! I'll let you know if I do anything special for the holiday, I have some ideas...

The best of what's going down!

So, I gotta say I'm a little sad, I just googled "no airplay" and I'm down to #7. At the peak, I was up to #2... what's up? Maybe because I haven't put up post in a while, or maybe I just need to talk more about the "Seattle sock job." That seems to help out most websites. Anyway, first I'll say a little something about why I haven't posted anything, and then I'll move onto what I've been up to outside of that. So, the reason I haven't put up anything is because I've worked about 17 of the last 19 days and just really haven't had time, even on my days off I've been busy with laundry, cleaning, or entertaining the ladies... well, the lady at least. So I had such a hard go recently because of a couple of shift swaps that I did because of moving and K-1, but anyway, that's almost all been taken care of now, I do get three days off this week and that will end that whole thing, so, wahoo! I can't wait, on more half day of work and I've got my first consecutive days off in about a month and a half. wahoo!

Well, so the first thing I gotta talk about is the futsal tournament that my school was part of. Of course I(we) represent Gotanda, the best place in the Shinagawa ward of Tokyo, and we took on such famed locations as; Toranomon, Shinbashi, Oimachi, and Hibiya. Well, it was our first go round, and we ended up at 2 wins, and 2 losses, not a bad showing I'd say! We were pretty happy, but of course we would have liked to come away with the trophy (more on that later) Here's a group shot of the greatest team to ever take the pitch:

After an uneventful 9 days straight of working I finally got to spend some time with hunbun. We spent Friday night and Saturday together, and it was good. Friday night I made Mabodofu and we watched "The Amazing Race" and on sunday I made breakfast, and then we watched "Ice Age 2" and in the evening hunbun made stew! What a great weekend!
Then there was today... what a crappy morning! 2 teachers called in sick and f'd up the schedule, but it wasn't too bad all-in-all. Anyway, this evening we all met up and went to a place in Shinbashi for a Nomihodai and Tabehodai. Japanese lesson! Well, something-hodai means "all you can." In this case, adding "tabe" makes it "all-you-can eat" and "nomi" means "all-you-can drink." Both of these combined to equal 3000 yen, or about $25. What a deal! and it was good stuff! Self-serve beer on tap, Sake, and Shochu, as much as you want, along with sushi, curry, beef, pork, chicken, french fries, freakin' what ever! It was great! Anyway, Great times, and the walk to station looked like this:

Anyway, at dinner, surprisingly, the trophy from the Futsal tournament made its way into our presence, here's kinda what it looked like:

Anyway, this week is gonna be great! Three days off, relaxed schedule, and just all around more time, the one thing that I am a bit sad about is that A.O.S. is gonna head home soon. Several other teachers are gonna go home for the holiday's but, A.O. S. will only be coming back for month after the break, it's too bad, gonna miss ya man!