Yesterday was a big milestone in planning our summer trip – I finished booking all our flights.  And there are a lot of flights.

For the first time we’ll be traveling in Europe in three countries that are not adjacent to each other.  Also the rise of budget carriers in Europe and their competitive prices means that we don’t have any plans that include a train ride at the moment.  I think we’ll probably end up on some trains at some point, but for the long haul stuff we’ll be hitting the airports.  A lot of airports.  All told we have ten flights on this trip, and that is a lot of take offs and landings.

Now our focus has shifted to hotels.  We’ve booked hotels in Istanbul and Santorini, but we’ve still got to find good places to stay in Granada, Barcelona, and Athens.  I’m loving the research, though.  I’m going to miss it when we’re all done.

Another busy weekend is over, and it feels like three days worth of activities happened in just one.  Friday night Antoine and I met up and caught up over drinks and chicken, and we even made it over to wine bar D to rendezvous with Kuniko and Koli.

Saturday we had the Yamajis over for dinner, and I spent the day cleaning house and making a big batch of carnitas.  I really liked how they turned out this time.  They are definitely an unhealthy indulgence, though.  I’ll have to wait a while before we cook those again.

This week we’ll have to focus on all the leftovers that are in the fridge.  I don’t think we need to actually make anything from scratch until next weekend.

Tonight after work I’ll meet Antoine for the first time in a long time, and we’ll catch up while running around Sannomiya.  It’ll be good to hear what he has been up to, and talk about his family and their holidays.   We’re kicking off the night at Rokko Beer Diner, and from there we’ll just have to see what happens.  Kuniko will also be partying in the area, so we might end up bumping into each other.  Sannomiya is a big place.

Saturday we both have the day off, and we’ll spend most of it cleaning house and cooking in the kitchen for a dinner for the Yamaji’s, who are coming over that evening.  It is our send-off for Yuki, and hopefully we can hear the latest details on his trip to study overseas in San Francisco.  The plan is to make a large batch of carnitas and serve tacos and guacamole for dinner.  Can’t wait – carnitas are a guilty pleasure for me.

Sunday we’ll clean up the aftermath and in the evening head to Kakogawa to spend some time with Kuniko’s parents to celebrate Kuniko’s birthday. It’ll be a busy weekend.

Kuniko made a great buy at school yesterday, and came home with 1.5 kg of homemade kimchee made by a Korean lady that visits their school now and then to sell it.  I love kimchee, and luckily for me there is no need to make my own when I can get great kimchee at every supermarket.  But the stuff we buy from this lady is really good, with a perfect balance of sweetness and spice.   My other source is a kimchee shop in Korea town near Shin Nagata, but the owner always tries to get me to take her out for drinks, so I don’t often go.

Kuniko got home late last night, so after eating a B.A.L.T. we went right through the first package of kimchee.  Tonight we’ll think of something else that can use kimchee as a base, and timing was serendipitous because my folks sent me a kimchee cookbook that arrived last night.  It will be Korean for the next few days, I think.

Yesterday was Kuniko’s actual birthday, and since she had her usual Tuesday half day off  she went to a baking lesson and got home just before I did.  She ended up cooking dinner herself, and it was delicious.  She made a shrimp and avocado salad with a mayonnaise/sriracha sauce, and then an avocado and pumpkin pasta dish.  Both of the dishes were excellent, and she said she just improvised the whole thing.  Awesome.

During her baking lesson she received several cakes for her birthday, and Valentine’s cakes and chocolates are still laying around all over the place.  We are slowly making progress but at this rate we’ll never catch up.  Today we’re bringing some of this stuff to work to try to give it away or eat it there.   There’s just too many delicious sweets to deal with over here.  I’m hoping we can get this monkey off our backs by the end of the week.

Day by day and step by step I’m putting together the itinerary for our summer trip.  It is something I love to do – almost as good as the trip itself.  Once again Kuniko has let me put everything together, and since the last few trips have been so good there is a little pressure to keep up the winning performances.  I love it.

At work there are 30 days left until my first year employees’ final presentation.  There are five groups and five presentations, and while some of the groups are looking very good, others seem to think that a month away is an eternity, and they’ll have plenty of time to wrap things up.  From my experience last year, one month is not quite enough.  Hopefully some of the groups will start to feel the heat and get to work a little harder.  I’d like them to make a good impression on the rest of the company next month.

It is oyster season in this part of Japan, and seaside towns are busy having festivals and other events to celebrate.  Because we have very few chances to go to something like this together, I was hoping to sneak out to that area and buy some oysters to bring back home and grill for dinner one night.

As it turned out, someone was way ahead of me.

Yesterday afternoon one of our neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Tojo, called us up and warned us that they were on their way back from Hinase, a small town that specializes in oysters.  They said they had a bag full of oysters for us, and to get ready to receive them.  Awesome! We grilled them up last night and they were delicious.  I was a little worried that somehow I’d screw up the cooking and we’d get food poisoning for a week, but as it turned out, everything was OK.

Friday night we also had a really nice dinner out to celebrate Kuniko’s birthday a little early.  The restaurant was our current favorite, Anonym, and the chef outdid himself this time.  Friday night we were the only ones in the tiny restaurant, so we had plenty of chance to speak with the chef and his wife, and talk about all kinds of topics.  It was a really nice night.

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day, and it went pretty much according to plan.  There was chocolate everywhere.  First thing in the morning Kuniko and I exchanged chocolates (marzipan for her, chocolate macaroons for me), and then we went to work.  I received some chocolates from the receptionists, since I often give them souvenirs from our trips.  It was very nice of them to do that – and I’ll have to remember them on White Day in March.

However, when Kuniko got home that night she was loaded down with homemade chocolates and cakes from her students.  There are enough calories on our counter to power a small city for at least a week.  Because they are handmade the timeline for eating them is a little shorter than usual, so once again we’re under the gun to eat a lot in a short time.  It’s that time of year, I guess.

We finally got the basic framework of our summer holiday sorted out and we booked the most important flights last night.  Based on the flights available, the destinations that we wanted to visit and the price we ended up changing the trip a little, and adding another country to the holiday.  This is what happens when you are high on sugar, I guess.

It is Friday, and tonight we’re celebrating Kuniko’s birthday at her favorite restaurant in Kobe.  Her real birthday is next week, but going out on a Tuesday night is not so exciting, so we moved it up to tonight.  Unfortunately she has to work all day tomorrow, but at least tonight she can enjoy some of her favorite foods in a relaxed atmosphere.

I’ve got no special plans tomorrow or Sunday, and no guests are visiting, so I think I can finally do some chores I’ve been meaning to do.  A quiet weekend!

Yesterday was a busy morning, and somehow I forgot to blog as per my usual routine.  Must be a sign of old age.

Luckily there wasn’t anything particularly exciting to blog about.  I think we’ve finally nailed down the dates for our summer trip, and the next step is to get a flight there and back.  At work, several of my students are on business trips overseas, and it has been difficult to fill the holes that they have left in my schedule.  Part of the problem is that everyone there works so hard that they have no free time to join a suddenly open lesson, but also I think that my current pool of students is smaller than usual.  Next term it will be larger and it shouldn’t be an issue.

That’s about it from the middle of the week.  The weekend should hold a little more in the way of interesting events.

We had a pretty busy weekend with a party here at home on Sunday and a party over at the Fukumi’s on Saturday.  Luckily Monday was a holiday for most of Japan – unluckily it wasn’t for me.  I think Kuniko is well-rested this morning after the holiday, and I managed to get to bed last night around 10 pm, so six hours of sleep will have to do.

Fortunately I don’t have any social events on next weekend’s calendar, but Kuniko has a full schedule with work events on both days.  February is turning out to be a very busy month for us.

This weekend will be another couple of parties.   Tomorrow we’ll head over to the Fukumi residence for a small party with them, and then on Sunday we’ll host some of Kuniko’s friends for burgers on the grill.  Most people in Japan have Monday off, but my company has shifted the holiday to another day, which means I’ll have to be ready to be back in action on Monday.

Tonight we’re going to Costco on the way home to buy some supplies for the parties, but it should be a small bill this time around.  Mainly we’re there for the hamburger meat – it is 100% US beef.  At the supermarkets in Japan you can buy 100% Japanese beef but it isn’t practical for hamburgers and has way too much fat content (in my opinion).  They have a blended mix of pork and beef that is better for burgers, but there is something better tasting about the American ground beef.  Probably has horsemeat in it or something.

Work is entering an interesting stage.  My students in the group lesson are getting close to the point when they will make a presentation in English in front of a large group of their peers, bosses, and maybe one or two executives.  I’ve got to get them motivated and organized so that their presentation doesn’t suck, thereby showing that the lessons they are taking are useful, subsequently giving me a little more job security for the longer term.

So come on guys, let’s get to work.

Doing public speaking in another language is tough enough, but doing it in front of so many people that could potentially impact your lifelong career is another thing entirely.   For the next few weeks I’ll be stressing the feasibility of the whole situation, and try to break down the process into bite-sized chunks that they can manage without being overwhelming.   This point also marks the shift in when the attention is off me and onto themselves as they start the project.  Hopefully they take this seriously and do a good job.

Last night after work I was heading home and it happened to coincide with Kuniko heading home, which is quite unusual.  She sent me a text with the secret password, which meant that the top priority was to go out and get a drink ASAP.  This happens two or three times a year, I think.  We swung into action as soon as we reached Okubo station, and went over to the local yakitori for beer and chicken on sticks.

Turns out she had a pretty rough day at work, and so we talked it out, drank plenty of beer, did some drunken shopping on the way home, and I think we could back off of Defcon 1 for the evening.

We’ll get back on the healthy diet tonight – I’ve got to figure out what to do with some eggplant and tomatoes…

Yesterday I had to attend a consultation at my company’s health facility, because I set off some red flags during last year’s health check up.  Specifically, the combination of my weight, height and the measurement of my waist put me into the category of “at risk of developing metabolic syndrome“.

I’d heard that if you set off the red flags, you had to attend some kind of meeting, but this was the first time to see for myself.  I rescheduled one of my classes so that I could attend, and then went over to talk with the medical staff.

Before arriving I had to fill out a “lifestyle survey”, and then when I arrived they weighed me in and sat me down to discuss the survey.  To make a long story short, they wanted me to set a goal for the next six months, and to stick to it they would be checking in now and then to monitor my progress.  My goal ended up being lose 3 kg in six months, which should be a piece of cake (pardon the expression).

The staff were very friendly, and I think what they are doing is a good thing.  I was impressed that the company was trying to keep their employees healthy, even if it kind of felt like an intrusion into my private life.  It was a good experience overall, and so I’ll report the results in six months and see what happens.

On Saturday night Yoshi and Mamiko invited us over for dinner.  Akira was on an overnight trip, so we it was a little quieter than usual.

Mamiko knows a shop nearby that specializes in chicken, and previously they have done homemade yakitori using meat from this place.  The quality of the chicken is top notch, and it is sold to be either cooked or eaten raw as sashimi.  I’m just getting into eating raw chicken.  At first it was a little difficult to take the plunge, but now it is no problem.

But Yoshi wasn’t serving the chicken raw.  Instead they had a big pot of hot dashi broth, and we dipped very thinly sliced raw chicken breast into the broth until it started to cook, and then dipped the now white chicken meat into some ponzu and yuzu kosho.  It was fantastic.  There was almost no fat in the meat so it turned out to be very healthy, too.

We had brought some wine and cheese and we got into that as well, but I liked the idea of delicious and healthy party fare on Saturday night.

Sunday was Setsubun, and we ate a couple of upscale sushi rolls while facing south-southeast, and per tradition, not speaking.  This is one of the weirdest traditions that I participate in in Japan.  But I’m certainly OK with weird, and any excuse to eat some delicious sushi is good enough for me!  After dinner we supplemented a little with some takoyaki, and then finally had some soybeans, which is also a Setsubun tradition.  Yum!