Wine Tasting

Today is Monday and I’m back at work getting ready for the week’s classes. We spent a pretty relaxing weekend, and I’m eager to start work with my students again this week.

Last Friday I was able to join the VP, his support staff (Ms. Yamada) and a general affairs worker (Ms. Harada) in attending a wine tasting event at Fuji Industries in Kobe. Fuji Industries has some relationships with Kawasaki, not the least of which is that one of the executives there went to elementary school with Kawasaki’s VP. We met him at the tasting, and he was really a nice guy. The tasting was held in one of the conference rooms in their office, and they brought in some good food to go along with it (mini-quiches, foie gras rolls, cheese and bread, etc).  

The wine selection was fairly good – mainly French burgundies and almost the complete lineup from Cuvaison in Napa. There was quite a big group attending, everyone wearing suits and looking good for the occasion. It was quite a networking event – and I was glad I happened to have some business cards in my wallet.  

We stayed for about an hour and the time flew by. We walked from there to the restaurant that Ms. Yamada reserved, and ended up arriving at exactly the same time as Kuniko. Everyone was keen to meet her, and we had a good time eating and drinking sake while talking. Kuniko really got along well with everyone (surprise, surprise) and they had lots of questions about her job, and our what our relationship was like. Interesting night.

On the way back to the station, the VP had us stop in at a sushi place. He had wanted to take us there for dinner, but they were fully booked, so we ended up somewhere else. The reason we stopped in on the way home was because he wanted to buy us each a sushi roll to take home with us. Later we ate the sushi and it was really tasty – grilled eel and konbu.  

Finally we split up at the station and headed home. It was a rare chance to spend time with some nice people – I’m lucky to be able to work with them. This week I have two classes with the VP, so he won’t be able to get rid of me.

Today Kuniko is taking students to Universal Studios Japan for a school trip. It may be fun, or it may be a pain, I’m not sure which, but either way she’ll be home late tonight. That’ll give me plenty of time to ride the exercise back and try to burn off some of those calories from the weekend.


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