Is that sushi in your pocket or are you just happy to sashimi?

It has been a busy week. Between working, going to school, studying and keeping up with my busy social life, I find myself running around nonstop most days. But I am loving it! I am working at a small Japanese law firm that specializes in general commercial and corporate transactions for international clients in Japan. I do a lot of legal editing- basically I read over what they have written in English and edit it! I also talk to people a lot. The staff is very friendly and most of them really want to learn English so they ask me lots of questions. I am also taking four classes at Temple: International Dispute Resolution, Japanese Law, International Contract Drafting and Comparative Immigration. The classes are all interesting and I am enjoying the reading. I have also been making friends with the other students in my program. I have somehow ended up clicking with a group of people where no one really speaks much Japanese. So I have been doing a lot of translating at restaurants (because, as anyone who knows my Japanese ability knows, I may not be able to have basic conversations in Japanese some times but I am fluent in food!) which is fun. Here is a random splattering of photos taken from other people recently:

Out dancing in Roppongi. The club was so crowded that you could barely dance and forget about trying to get a drink at the bar. You couldn't even walk across the room. I won't be going back.

Out salsa dancing for Vicki's birthday (who is not even pictured here!)

At my apartment before going out.

It can be hard to find restaurants that will take over 10 people. But this sushi restaurant was nice enough to let us take over nearly the whole back part.

Sushi!

Mayumi and Paul's Wedding

My friend, Mayumi, that I met in Kanazawa recently married an American named Paul. They met briefly in Kanazawa and then started dating when Mayumi was living in Vancouver and Paul was in Oregon. They will be moving to Hawaii soon to start their lives together! Today they had a lovely wedding party- it was an "American style" Japanese reception of sorts. Lots of lovely food and drink and, of course, karaoke!

Father/daughter dance? No. Father daughter karaoke!

Mayumi singing to Paul

Poor Paul doesn't speak a word of Japanese and had to sing a song in front of the whole group (in English)

Me, Paul, Mayumi, Yukie and Yoshiko (two other friends from KZ)

Me, Yukie and Davin (another friend from Kanazawa)

Cutting the cake (with explanation about how this is traditionally done in America and then people feed the cake to each other)

They had a storyteller but truthfully I couldn't understand him. People were rolling on the floor with laughter but Davin said he was really funny. Japanese humor, I guess.

They read "vows" of some sort to each other- Mayumi in English and Paul in Japanese.

Sumo Tournament

Temple organized a trip to a sumo tournament so I went on Saturday.

Some photos:

American Cobb Salad

The "American Cobb Salad" that I ate for lunch consisted of lettuce, potatoes, corn, squash, and soy beans with an "American dressing" that tasted just like Russian dressing.

Tokyo Disneyland

Fiona and I went to Tokyo Disneyland on Saturday and had a ball!

Gyoza Stadium

After visiting the Imperial Palace, we headed over to Ikebukuro to go to Gyoza Stadium, a collection of fried dumpling vendors located inside an indoor amusement park called Sunshine City. There were rows upon rows of different kinds of fried dumpings. Fiona and I tried the sesame ones and the black miso ones.

Imperial Palace

January 2 is one of only 2 days per year that the public can visit the Imperial Palace grounds. The Imperial family comes to the window and waves to the crowd. It was really neat to be so close to the longest unbroken line of royalty. There were a ton of people there but we were able to get quite close.

Gotta love a good Japanese sign

Mmmm wasabi chocolate

So true...


I should hope that you would not forget woman!

Oshogatsu

We rang in the New Year with thousands of our closest friends at Zojoji Temple. Zojoji Temple is the chief temple of the Jodo-Buddist sect. It was originally founded in 1393. It is right next to Tokyo Tower.

At this temple, people write wishes for the new year on slips of paper and attach them to eco-friendly balloons and then release them into the air at midnight.

Temple gate with Tokyo Tower in the background

Washing hands to purify

Traditionally people eat mochi, a glutinous rice ball that is made from pound hot rice with a wooden mallet until it is sticky. Here people are cutting the mochi and packaging it up.

This temple is dedicated to the soul of unborn children. People decorate small statutes called jizo to remember their babies.

Offerings in front of the temple

Fiona and Me before midnight!

Temple and Tower

Tokyo Tower also wishes you a happy new year!

Japanese people also pay close attention to the "firsts" of the new year so we thought that we would do so as well. We headed to the busy area called Roppongi after enjoying our time at the shrine. We walked around to take in the madness until dawn. Here is Hatsuhunode- the first sunrise of the year, taken from my apartment.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy New Year! An adventure in eating with ninjas!

Fiona and I decided to try out a nearby restaurant called Ninja. The restaurant is decorated like an old cave with tunnels and trapdoors and fog and all of the waitstaff dressed as ninjas.

A very inconspicuous entrance

The ninjas come and do magic tricks at your table. One of them pulled an ear of corn out of Fiona's arm.

My salmon over rice porridge

My bubbling hot pot of vegetables

Fiona and her "salad"- does not look like salad but when you broke threw the dressing foam and crouton shell there was indeed lettuce inside! Surprise!

Our bird's nest drinks. Made from the regurgitated spit of swallows, this gelatinous substance didn't really do anything to enhance the flavor of our drinks but hey, now I can say, "Been there. Done that."

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