Ah ha! Last day at the Kencho this year. Tonight....I hit the bottle.

So Xmas came and went without much hoopla. In fact, absolutely no hoopla at all. It was only mentioned once to me by one of the girls in the office. "Merry Christmas," she said to me unsure of her English. "Same to you," I said. And that was the extent of the social part of the holiday.
As for my birthday...not a peep, but then again I am not like other people I know who announce the imminent arrival of their birthday and then expect to be treated like royalty. Heh heh. No, I just sit back and think about the fact that I have now made 33 trips around the sun. And if life stays this good, I hope to make at least 33 more.

I did end up going out last night. The five of us (I used to think there were four but have since learned otherwise) went around the corner to my favorite hoto place. We sat at a low table on tatami (my legs are gradually getting better at this) and started off the night by ordering five beers. Perfect. So we talked as best we could and drank the beers and eventually started ordering food. I had thought I would just order my favorite and be done with it but Yamaki-san said we would order the actual hoto later. First we would have a few appetizers. "Hmm," I thought, "a few appetizers and I won't be able to eat that hoto." But I figured I'd had the hoto plenty of times in the past and would be having it plenty more times in the future and dug into the appetizers we ordered. I think we had at least 10 different plates of all kinds of food: pickles, salmon eggs, different kinds of yakatori, eggplant, seaweed with vinegar, boiled pork with some strange but good sauce on it, and various other things. I tried most of it, but some of it came in very small portions and I left it for the others. So Yamaki and I ordered more beer during all this and next thing I know the waitress (who was quite cute and had eyes that...well, you know) brings over a tray with a bottle of alcohol, two containers of water, some glasses and a small bucket of ice. Because I don't speak Japanese things like this happen all the time and seem to happen quite suddenly. I'm sure they had ordered this but to me a waitress showing up with yet more alcohol is magic, "How did she know we wanted that?"
So anyway, the alcohol turned out to be shochu. Now, I have heard some awful things about shochu. Things like "it takes like rubbing alcohol," "I use it to remove paint," and "Yuck!" come to mind. But really it was quite good (granted I do like alcohol, in case you haven't figured that out). Yamaki and I had a short discussion about shochu and I learned (if the translation is valid) that it can use several main ingredients as its base: rice, wheat, potato or sugar cane. The kind of shochu you get depends on the base. Last night we had one bottle made from wheat and one from "dark sugar cane" whatever that means. So Ono-san was over there mixing up the drinks which were made one of two ways. First he would pour the shochu into a glass mug to about the halfway point and then he would either pour in hot water the rest of the way or he would add cold water and a couple cubes of ice. I had mine cold and the first bottle of wheat shochu tasted of nothing more than straight vodka without the burn. Later we ordered the sugar cane shochu and he mixed one for me in exactly the same manner and this one tasted more of whiskey and water. Anyway, both were good although nothing flavorwise when compared with good beer. And since we didn't get to finish the second bottle they gave it to me to take home. Amazing, aye? You can leave the restaurant with a half finished bottle of alcohol. So I learned a little about shochu and it has left me wanting to learn more. I can't find any websites on it but perhaps if I try harder I will. Anyway, I'd drink it again.
So after all the appetizers we did eat some hoto (pumpkin hoto) but I could even get close to finishing it. Was good though. So between all the talking, drinking, and eating I had a pretty good time. This Bon Enkai was not like the others in terms of the party, kareoke, bingo and all that but it was nice to just sit with these four guys and talk a bit.
Oh and I learned that Bon Enkai means this: bo means "forget", en means "year", and kai means "meeting"; thus a bon enkai is a "forget the year meeting" (or party).

So for today's lunch I was asked if I could stay in the office because we were having a traditional final work day lunch feast. "Hot damn," I thought. It's things like this that I stuck around in Japan at this time for. While all my friends are away enjoying their homes, family and friends or away on vacation, I am here because I wanted to see how the Japanese celebrate this time of year. I've read many things about it and would like to see if for myself. So I was pretty excited about today's soba lunch. Soba is a kind of noodle for those of you who don't know.
Well, the lunch time announcement over the speaker arrives and three of the girls in the office start passing out the food. But immediately I could see that this wasn't exactly what I had thought it would be. I got a small plastic dish/tray with the soba noodles in it, and two paper bags, one of tempera and one of some kind of caked potato. Didn't look like much but I gave it the benefit of the doubt. And the girl that always talks to me brought me over a small cup of hot green tea. So I was set and dug in. But alas, it really wasn't all that flavorful and everything was served cold. "Hmmm," I thought, "This isn't exactly as great as I thought it would be. In fact, it's not even close." But I ate the entire bland meal with the knowledge that I was taking part in a traditional Japanese custom (did the samurai eat cold noodles in the winter?).
I also thought that lunch together would be full of life, people talking and laughing and generally having a good time, but no. Everyone ate at their desks in near silence and read their papers or watched the small tv they usually turn on at lunch. There was only some light and quiet conversation and lots of slurping.
Next year? I think I'll go somewhere.

But I don't wish to leave you on a bad note (not that I'm taking the above hard in anyway whatsoever). As many of you know, beer is one of the hubs of my world. Without it life becomes dry and boring. And I'm not talking about getting drunk on the stuff (although that ain't too bad either). I like good beer. Beer with flavor. Beer with smell. Beer that isn't the same color going in as it is coming out. And quite frankly it is quite hard to find the variety and quality of beer over here that I grew used to back in California.
So armed with that knowledge, my father, who I love very much and even more so now, took it upon himself to rectify my problem. I don't know how it all went down but somehow he learned of a small brewery over here in Japan run by an American. All I know is that upon my return from Tokyo on Tuesday there was an email from my father telling me that a box for me might be arriving soon, if at all, and that he wasn't exactly sure how it was being paid for but that I might have to pay for it COD. And then he goes on to say, and I quote, "What a gift huh? Maybe not ordered and if it is you have to pay for it!" Yeah, thanks, dad.
Well, lo and behold, about two hours later a delivery is made to me and I am not asked for a yen. I feel the weight of the box and notice that there is a warning sticker on the box indicating glass. So I think to myself, "Could this be beer?" excited at the prospect. But I controlled myself and put it over with the two boxes mom sent, not to be opened until Xmas Eve evening.
In the meantime dad ruins the surprise, which really wasn't in the first place, by sending me the two or three emails between himself and John (the owner of the brewery). John says that to transfer the money to Japan and pay in yen would cost dad more than the beer itself costs so that it would be wiser to just have me do a bank transfer from my bank account over here to the brewery's account. Now, in dad's defense he did say he'd pay me back but I just want to point out the fact that I have never had be reimbursed for my own gift. That along with the fact that John sent this beer without any payment whatsoever strikes me as a rather strange sequence of events.
But hell, the beer is good. Got a box of twelve bottles which held various kinds of beer. Three bottles each of stout, pale ale, and brown ale, two bottles of lager, and one bottle of something labeled "rice beer." I have only had one of the lager and it was pretty darn good. Tonight I will try the others. Anyway, thanks, dad. Great gift even if I do have to struggle in Japanese at the bank.

Ok, so those are my not-so-xmas stories. I've had a good time and am anxious to see the Japanese New Year celebrations. They just have to be better than the non-existent Xmas celebrations. But perhaps next year I will take that trip somewhere.