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).

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.

JALT conference 2009

Last weekend, I went to the city of Shiuoka with some co-workers to a conference for language teachers in Japan. It was the annual conference for all of Japan. Luckily, Shizuoka only takes about an hour to get to so it was much closer for me to get to than others in Japan.
It was my first time to attend the conference and with about 500 presentations going on, it was difficult to choose good ones to go to. You can see Tony, Tara and Sian trying to decide for themselves below:
After the talks on Saturday, we went out for a night on the town in downtown Shizuoka. We finally found a good restaurant that wasn't already packed and enjoyed some good Thai food. Afterwards, we continued at a small bar and them some of us (but not I) continued on for some karaoke until 4 am. Here is me with Carrie, Sian, Tara and Tony at the Thai restaurant:
I did terrible at choosing good talks to go to on the Saturday, but I did much better on Sunday and could see some good ones. Hopefully I can remember how to choose good talks when I go to the conference next year.

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:

On our bicycle ride home

On our way home from Mosaiculture (see post below), we came across some Gray Starlings sitting on the telephone wires:
Actually, there were thousands of them (only a fraction in this shot):
Making it difficult for some of them to find a parking spot:
We also passed by an old stone building that I've always wanted to take a photo of and so was glad that I finally got the chance:
And then tonight, the moon was magnificent as it rose in the east tonight:
This all wrapped up a very nice day.

Hamamatsu International Mosaiculture

Ayako and I were able to both have days off work on Wednesday, and so we decided to go visit the Hamamatsu International Mosaiculture (ie. plants grown in various shapes), which was happening just down the road from us. We got on our bikes and had a leisure ride to Flower Park where the exhibition was taking place:
About half of the sculptures were from Japan and the other half from around the world including some from very small countries. This one was from Japan:
The girl in the next photo was singing a song about a pony while I took this shot. It was very cute:
This was an impressive sculpture of Mt. Fuji erupting:
We were able to have a nice shot taken in front of it:
Each of the sculptures had been given a prize for some area. This one of green tea being poured won 3rd prize for a 3D entry:
The next one was from Hamamatsu and had classical music playing:
This one was from China:
Ayako seemed almost more impressed with these purple flowers growing along the path and so she wanted her photo taken with them:
Halfway around the park, we watched the water fountain display which was put to music. I'm happy I could get the rainbow in the shot:
This next one is of the large kites that are sometimes flown during festivals in Japan:
Here was a dragon that has steam coming from its mouth:
A cute turtle:
This one won a 2D prize:
As did this one:
But the grand winner of the exhibition was from Canada...Yeah! It's called "The Man who plants tree":
The dog in front was very simple yet very life-like:
Here are some of the sheep that are with him:
As well as some horses running behind him:
It was a beautiful day and so we enjoyed ourselves greatly at the park. Hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Persimmons

It the time of year when persimmons are ripe on the trees. People often have one or two in their yards and enjoy eating in various ways. Here's a tree that's near our house full of ripe persimmons now:

You can see that the leaves have already fallen off, but the fruit is just getting ripe now. One type of persimmon is nice and sweet to eat fresh. Another type is quite bitter though, but after hanging it out to dry for awhile, it becomes sweet. On our drive out to the GamaRock festival today, we found some persimmons for sale by the side of the road:
Ayako was happy that we could buy 6 for ¥100 since usually you could only buy one for that price in the supermarket:
Here's me posing by a persimmon orchard:

GamaRock

We had a two-hour drive to a park near Gamagori, Aichi today to watch a 70s revival rock concert. It was fun watching many middle-aged Japanese guys playing some classic tunes pretty well. There was also a friend of Sian's, Devin, who performed with one of the bands called the Dododos. Here he is singing on the left:

And here are a couple other shots of different bands performing:

Unfortunately, by mid-afternoon, it started to rain and so we all found shelter under a tarp while still being able to watch:

It was a good, if wet day, and hopefully we'll get to see the people we met from Toyokawa again sometime soon.