Giving Thanks in Japan

I'd like to start this post off by wishing Sydney Rajchel good luck.  She is taking the LSAT as I write this, and as anybody who has ever studied for that monster of a test can tell you, she could use the positive thoughts!  So, good luck Sydney, you'll do great and we love you!


Speaking of Sydney, I get to see her soon!  She won't let me start counting down the days on Facebook, so I'm going to do it here instead.  I get to see her in almost exactly one month!  Words cannot express how excited I am to see her.  I had dinner tonight with some great friends, one of whom had just returned from the States where she spent the better part of a week with her boyfriend.  Most of the time I do pretty well; not getting lonely, or sad, or depressed, but tonight it was especially hard to stay upbeat when I could Machiko's face light up every time the conversation turned to her trip or her boyfriend.  January 4th can't come soon enough, and January 15th can't stay away far enough away.  


Alright, lets move on before I get all emotional.  Back to dinner.  I am incredibly lucky.  5 months ago, I moved to a totally foreign country.  Not only that, but I was moving to a city I had never heard of before, and the only person I knew who lived even remotely close to me was my girlfriend's aunt.  I didn't really speak the language, I was starting a brand new profession, and my only prior contact with the people I would be living with for the next year was an hour long lunch and some emails.  Given all that, to say that I was nervous would have been an understatement.  So why do I think I am lucky? Within 5 months, I have met what has to be the coolest collection of people in Tsu.  Sitting in Minnesota, I never could have hoped that I would meet even a few decent friends, so I can't be thankful enough for the people that I know here.  Considering Thanksgiving was only a few short days ago, It only feels right to take a moment and say how happy I am here, and how lucky I was to come into such a great situation.  So thank you to all of my friends here that have made these five months of living 6,500 miles away from Sydney not only bearable, but wonderful. 


I know a lot of people back in Minnesota were curious about thanksgiving here.  Since the pilgrims stopped Mayflower about 10,000 miles short of Japan, the holiday isn't terribly big over here.  Most of my students' experience with the holiday came from past lessons with OBC teachers, and most of them had never even eaten turkey before!  However, there are plenty of Americans in Tsu, and we kept the holiday spirit strong.  Sarah and I joined our friend Jessica and her husband Hide for Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday night.  Since Thanksgiving is not actually a holiday here, we all had to work on Thursday.  Dinner was a nice mixture of traditional and unique.  They found a turkey somewhere, so we did get our yearly dose of tryptophan, as well as some chicken.  We mixed in some Japanese fare with some delicious fish, and the sweet potatoes were definitely not your mom's yams with marshmallows on top.  They were still quite tasty though!  Hide is also something a pizza connoisseur, so we added pizza to the menu as well.  Most Japanese kitchens don't come with ovens so Hide had to improvise.  Fortunately, his kitchen did come stocked with a blowtorch, and with the stove's burners and the torch, he made one hell of a delicious pizza.  We rounded out the menu with some pasta salad, cornbread stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, and bread.  Dessert was superb, with brownies and pecan pie, made by our neighborhood friendly Canadian.  


Well, its now 2:14 am, so I think I am going to head to bed.  Hopefully I'll be back to writing regularly again!  Good night!