Had a great weekend – it started off with a mild hangover on Saturday morning, but it improved considerably with Kuniko’s arrival in the afternoon. We spent some time unpacking some of her things that she brought, and soon thereafter we caught a train to Kobe to meet up with Antoine and Miwako.
This is the second Saturday dinner in a series of three that we’ve got planned. Poor Kuniko is getting dragged to all these things, but she’s being a trouper about it, and I’m sure I’ll get the call to visit with her friends in the future.
Tonight’s dinner was Korean food. It got a little dicey there because Antoine is not a big fan of spicy food. He did really good, and the food turned out great. We got a set meal, so they just kept bringing lots of food, and we ate all we could.
The dinner conversation was really interesting – mostly in English I think, but we did slip into Japanese now and then. Antoine’s girlfriend Miwako is getting a crash course in English with Antoine, since he doesn’t speak much Japanese at all. Her skills are pretty good – I was impressed to see them communicating so well.
Anyway, Kuniko and Miwako had lots of talk about, and Antoine and I exchanged comments out loud at the dinner table, telling jokes, and having a good time.
The dessert dish showed up, and it was a mountain of ice cream. I’m talking maybe 12-14 scoops of ice cream on a foundation of mandarin oranges and corn flakes, and a moat of chocolate. It was the biggest ice cream sculpture I’ve ever seen in Japan – definitely influenced by American sized desserts. We left half of it on the table.
Afterwards we walked along the harbor, took lots of pictures, and goofed around in the mini-amusement park. We did the mini-rollercoaster, and got some good screams out of our system. Kuniko and Antoine did the taiko drumming video game, and got some of their aggressions out. They did pretty well, actually.
Finally we called it a night and headed back. The next day Kuniko and I caught an afternoon showing of “Batman Begins”. Kuniko gave me a little teasing about wanting to see the movie. Considering the other movies, I could see why. I had heard this was a little different, and it turned out that what I heard was correct. It was quite good – we both enjoyed it. I still owe Kuniko a movie of her choice – we’ll see what we end up checking out.
On the way home we stopped at Carrefour to do some Father’s Day shopping, and then later went over to her parent’s house for dinner. Father’s Day is apparently a recent holiday in Japan – although I guess Mother’s Day has been around a while. We presented Mr. Kageyama with a bottle of Shochu, and an Italian Muscato, since he liked the Benziger Muscat Canelli so much.
For dinner we had a really good homemade donburi – a bed of rice with shredded cabbage, kimchee, grilled beef, and a delicious sauce poured over the top. It was so good! It was nice to sit around the table and talk. Unfortunately I couldn’t talk very much, so I was satisfied with listening as hard as I could.
We’re starting to dream up plans for people that will be here for the wedding in November. Thinking about train schedules and timing – before we know it there’ll be a bunch of family on our doorstep here in Japan!
