Tuesday, December 22, 2009

The last of the year-end parties

The last four year-end parties have come and gone. All were good, but probably the best was one put on by a professor in my department, Angus, who is in the picture below:
It was held at an old, traditional Japanese house in Toyohashi and lots of teachers, students and friends were invited. There was a bonfire outside and lots of good food including banana flambe which was made at one of the centre tables. Here are some other shots I had taken with some students and friends:

Only one more class to teach and then it is off to Canada for the holidays. It's been a busy December and so I'm looking forward to relaxing with family this Christmas. See you next year (of course with photos from our trip to Canada).

Monday, December 14, 2009

Year-end parties

As we are half way through December already, a few bonenkai (forget the year gatherings) have already happened. I enjoyed going out with Sian, Carrie, John and Angus (working in my office) on Friday night. We enjoyed some nice food and many bottles of wine.

On Saturday, Ayako and I went to get haircuts and then passed by Sumiko's (Ayako's sister) place to see how Sana-chan was doing:
She is 2 months old now and was peacefully sleeping until we came by. Still, she didn't mind us passing her back and forth and dozed on and off during our stay. Of course we were also happy to see how Neo and Rio were doing:
After our short visit, we headed downtown to visit Eric and Tomoe, who had invited us for dinner. We enjoyed playing some Wii sports for a bit:

And then were served a great meal of nabe, gyoza and sashimi by Tomoe:
It was very delicious:
Later that night, we headed to our common izakaya (Japanese pub) for Four Seasons' bonenkai:
It was nice to see how catch up with people from Four Seasons.
This coming week, there are four more bonenkais I'll be going to so there will be more photos of them to come.