Saturday we had Antoine and Miwako over for cocktails and dinner. It had been a long time since we’ve gotten together, and it was good to catch up with them. They both seem to be enjoying married life, and they’re still loving their new place.
We grilled up some fat burgers out on the grill while sipping blue margaritas, and then spent the evening listening to music, playing wii and snacking on junk food. It was a good night – lots of fun, those two.
Sunday we had some of my ex-students from Mitsuboshi Belt in Kobe come over for a potluck lunch. They really wanted to see the new house (probably because while I was teaching their class we were in the planning stages so I talked about it a lot) and everyone seemed to like the setup we have. They also really wanted to spend some time talking with Kuniko and getting her take on relationships, careers, and living with foreigners.
We had plenty of food – a Korean noodle dish, paella, a daikon/pork/ginger dish that was spicy and delicious, some large pork sausages, quesadillas, caesar salad, and once they saw the gas grill they insisted that I barbecue something, so we had some pork loin medallions as well. For dessert it was mango and vanilla custard, some rare Japanese cherries ($1 a cherry!) and some Hokky Pokky ice cream.
The students presented us with a digital picture frame for a housewarming gift. It was the perfect gift, since we’ve been looking around for one lately. They took lots of pictures, and we drank lots of cocktails and champagne, and then they headed home in the late afternoon. It was so good to see them again – they really are a great group of people. Everyone was still trying hard to speak English, and that more than anything made me certain that they’ll continue to do well in speaking a foreign language.
