Retirement party at traditional restaurant

There was a retirement party for three university professor from my department last Monday. We went to a traditional Japanese restaurant for the event. You can see the three professors below:
It was a formal meal with many small servings. It was the first time I had been to a restaurant like this with each person sitting against the wall with their own tray in front of them.
It was a delicious meal, and since the department paid for it all, it was even more enjoyable.

Happy Birthday to me

I was lucky that some friends still on their new year's holidays, so they could come visit out house and help celebrate my birthday:
Ayako made some delicious dishes and our friends from Toyohashi and Iwata had fun getting to know each other:

Of course, there was also a delicious cake that I thoroughly enjoyed. It was called ultimate lemon cake and it definitely had a super lemon taste:
Here we all are (minus Eiki taking the photo) before the Toyohashi crew had to head home:
It was a fabulous birthday indeed.

Farewell party for Abby

There was a farewell party for Abby that we went to on Saturday night. It was with the Photonics class that I used to teach, so it was nice seeing the class members again. We went to a nice restaurant for dinner and had a delicious cake for Abby's going away. Some of us then went on to a small jazz club.

The Last Supper

We got a call from Christine saying that there was one last get-together with old friends before she took off the next day. We met up with her and Keiji and Pete at the station:
Keiji found us a nice, quiet Okinawan restaurant:
He ordered lots of food for us including fresh fish:
Rie, Keisuke and their son, Ryotaro also met up with us later. It was our first time to see Ryotaro who is a year and 4 months old now. We found out that they will be moving to Yokohama soon so it might be awhile again before we see them next:
We got a nice shot of us together (none of us doing Big Arms...Eddie Izzard joke):
Today is called Setsubun in Japan (see last year's post about this here). Here's us throwing beans and shouting Oni-wa-soto (Devils out!):
I guess by the time of this writing, Christine is in the air on her way to Italy. Bon voyage!

More send-offs

There was a small party at Jack's last Friday so that people could say goodbye to Christine before she leaves for Africa. Jack made lots of delicious Mexican food for us:
And there was some yummy desserts as well:
Here are a couple of nice photos of Christine with people at the party:

Later on, we had a fun game of Balderdash which went from silly to serious very quickly:
It was nice to see Christine again before she leaves and get to see a few friends that we haven't seen for awhile.
Ayako also went to see a friend of ours who will be moving to Korea soon. Sad to see good friends leaving these days.

Ayako's Birthday

On Tuesday, it was Ayako's birthday. Unfortunately, we were quite busy on that day, so I decided to cook Ayako a birthday dinner a couple of days ahead. Since we will be going back to Canada for Christmas and since Ayako had never had Swiss Chalet before, I decided to give her a sample of what a Swiss Chalet dinner might be like. It was quite easy to make since Robin had sent us some spice packages that can make the Swiss Chalet sauce and the marinading sauce:
Here's Ayako patiently waiting for me to take the photo so that she can start eating:
For dessert, I made her a matcha cake:
It had a nice matcha colour and taste to it since lots of matcha powder was added:

Canadian Thanksgiving Weekend

On Saturday, we had some friends over for lunch (sushi). You can see me with Yoshiko and her granddaughter, Hiromi:
Yoshioko is the woman who straightens my back from time to time. Reiko (a secretary at Four Seasons with Ayako) also came but is camera-shy. We enjoyed lots to eat and chatted during the afternoon. We were also able to go for a short walk to watch the sun set.

On Sunday, Ayako was busy again preparing lots of food for Canada's Thanksgiving Day. We invited Christine over to have Thanksgiving dinner with us. We started eating just before four o'clock:

Ayako did careful planning for when to make all the food and how to do it all from scratch. Here's a close-up of what we ate:
Ayako also made some cute cupcakes for Christine's birthday, which was last week:
Here we are after singing 'Happy Birthday' to Christine:
We had another wonderful day relaxing and talking and going to watch a beautiful sunset. Ayako outdid herself this year by serving even more delicious food at Thanksgiving than last year.

Heather & Stef's Going Away Party

On Saturday, there was a sayonara party for Heather and Stef who will both be returning to their home countries (U.S. & N.Z.) for a bit and then travelling once again (Spain & England). Here are some pictures from the party:
Here's Stef with Megumi:
And here's Ayako and I with Heather at the end of the night:
Bon voyage and good luck with the next adventures!

Lunch party & Birthday party

On Saturday, we had some friends over for lunch. Ayako worked hard in the kitchen making lots of tempura:
You can see some of the dishes we had here:
Sarah came with Hiro, whom we met for the first time:
And Kathleen and Heather came as well. Here we are trying some yummy tofu-pumpkin pie that Ayako made:
At night, we went out to a birthday party for Sam, who turned 30. He had a good turnout:
Here he is before blowing out the candles:
And here he is with one of his wonderful gifts:
Some of the other guests that were there were Martin, Chris (whom I met for the first time and has his own blog on living in Hamamatsu here) and Pete:
Here's Ayako and me with the birthday boy:
Heather and Ayako with Sean:
and us with Christine and Keiji:

Ayako's birthday

Ayako had yet another birthday yesterday (Nov. 10). She had to work on the day, but she said it wasn't too busy. She got some nice gifts and I had dinner ready for her when she arrived home:

2 Farewells and a birthday party

On Friday night, we went out to say farewell to Benjamin and Valerie, who are both heading back to the States:
There was a surprise visit by J. Scott (hope he managed OK on his 'bike' ride back to Chiba):
Here's Ayako with Emiko & Heather:
And a shot of Ayako with Benjamin:
On Saturday night, we went to Christine's birthday party at her house:
Here's Christine (the birthday girl) with Ayako, Megumi and a mystery man:
Stef, Kathleen, Heather, & Jack:
Philip (the opera singer from England) and Taka (Ma-chan):
Keiji (with Pete) was a little sleepy at the end of the night:
There was an 'international food potluck' theme to the birthday party. The food was absolutely amazing. I wondered why this potluck was so much better than previous ones. My guess is that the international food theme made everyone try some new recipe, and thus some great dishes were brought.