Tonight after work Kuniko and I are heading into Kobe to buy a few choice items to bring along to Yoshi’s house on Saturday.  Yoshi and family invited us over for dinner on Saturday, and we’d like to bring some of our favorite items from Kobe to share with them.

In Kobe there is a new Mexican restaurant that opened up between Motomachi and Sannomiya, and it might be worth dropping in and seeing if it is any good.  Usually this kind of thing is just an exercise in disappointment, though.   Who knows – maybe it’ll be awesome.

The rest of the weekend should be slow and easy, however.  I’m hoping to do some reading and if the weather is good do some hiking.

Apparently this weekend is set to be the coldest weather of this winter.  Theoretically, every day after this weekend should be warmer until we bump into next autumn.  I’m hoping that it isn’t all that bad, but we’ll see. Yesterday was actually almost warm – nearly six degrees in the afternoon – which was a bit unusual.

As you can tell, I can’t wait for spring.

This morning, Kuniko is driving to work, and she’s giving me a ride to my office.  That means a warm car, good music, and maybe even some hot coffee along the way.  Hoo-yah.

After a carnitas feast last weekend I was back at it again making taco salad and putting them in baked flour tortilla bowls thanks to some pans I got from my parents for Christmas.  They looked nice, tasted delicious, and were easy to make.

Eating all this meat is really unusual for us.  Usually we eat meat once or twice a week, so I think the rest of the week we’ll get back to a healthier diet.  Maybe some nabe or other standard Japanese fare.

We walked to work yesterday in sub-zero temperatures, occasionally slipping and sliding on the ice and snow.  Luckily today won’t be a repeat performance.  It is indeed cold this morning, but no sign of snow or ice today.  Good news!

At work, most of my coworkers are waiting impatiently for the next fiscal year calendar to be officially published.   The next fiscal year starts in April, and it details all the factory work days until March 2014.   We have to wait for the calendar to be official before we can reserve some holidays  – and I’m dying to pull the trigger on some plane tickets that we found.  It would be good to get a good price on tickets, but at the same time I’d hate to commit too early and then not be able to use them because I can’t get some time off.

I’m 90% sure that it would be no problem, but even at only 10% the risk is a little too much for me.  Besides, these discounted tickets usually have restrictions on rescheduling, so if I miss I miss big.  But February is coming, and I think it is just a matter of weeks.

Last evening I threw together a dinner of grilled burgers and mushrooms and black eyed peas.  I walked in and out of our house on to the back patio to grill, and between the sun shining on the back of our house and the heat of the grill, it was a very comfortable experience.

Turns out it was just in time.

An hour after I wrapped up the BBQ in the cover and went back inside a sudden freak storm came through.  Thunder, lightning, and sheets of hard rain hit.  I’m glad I wasn’t out there in that.  And this morning I looked out the window, and everything is white.  Snowy white.

On Friday night we went out to see Life of Pi in the theater in Kobe.  I liked the movie – it was a good attempt to film the unfilmable and the writer of the screenplay wisely decided to skip a few choice parts.  Still, great movie – and beautiful.

Saturday night I was on my own for dinner, because Kuniko was eating out with Kori in Okubo.  I spent the day cooking up some carnitas, and they turned out very nicely.  In the end I baked them until the outside was crispy, but looking back I think I should have baked them a few minutes less than I did.  The result was awesome, however.  I’ll put that recipe away and maybe bring it back to serve when we host the Yamajis later this month.

OK, out to face the winter snow.

I had a nice time with the inspectors last night at the tachinomi.  They brought along two guys that work directly for one of Kawasaki’s customers, and they turned out to be good people to talk to as well.  It was interesting to have five Americans in the tiny little place.

During the conversation with the new guys, it slowly dawned on me that they were in some strange way my customers, and that I should keep that in mind while talking to them.  Fundamentally, we were all Americans staying in a foreign country, but during the talks I had to remember to be careful what I talk about and how I say things.  Just in case.

Tonight after work I’m meeting Kuniko in Kobe and we’re going out to dinner and a movie.  The dinner is not entirely set, but probably will end up being the Rokko Beer Diner in Motomachi  – the closest source of locally brewed beer on tap.  The movie will be Life of Pi.  I read the book years ago when it first came out, and it remains one of my favorites.  I’ve heard that if you watch the movie and take that as a separate experience, you won’t be disappointed.  We’ll see tonight.

Kuniko is working both days this weekend, and she’ll be going out with her friend Kori tomorrow night here in town.  I haven’t figured out exactly what I’m doing, but it involves a big basket of giant mushrooms that I bought at Costco a while back.  I need to research some interesting recipes for those…

Tonight after work I’ll head back to the tachinomi for a couple of drinks with the resident inspector at the factory.  I was there only last week with an ex-student, and visiting twice in two weeks vaguely makes me feel uncomfortable.  I’m not sure why.  The timing works out quite well, however, because Kuniko will be late getting home tonight anyway.  Bring on the quiche!

I’m focusing this week on rehabilitating my Spanish skills, but it is no easy task.  When I think in Spanish, if there is some word that I have forgotten, my brain doesn’t seem to realize it and helpfully (?) substitutes the Japanese word.  Only later do I notice that it is not correct.  I’m concentrating on conjugating verbs right now, but it is clear that I’ve forgotten important prepositions and adverbs as well.  This is going to take a while.

I haven’t stop studying Korean this week – I’m using flashcards to review reading skills and I’m getting a little faster reading Korean words.  Next week I’ll get back to writing and start memorizing my first few words to use in conversations.  I’m really enjoying the study so far.

I think we can live out of our refrigerator and pantry for the next week or so.   Despite eating nothing but leftovers Sunday and Monday there are still enough supplies inside to keep us in good food for a long while.  I’m hoping that everything lasts as long as it takes us to get around to eating it.

Yesterday at work I brought some extra cookies that we got from one of our guests on Saturday night.  They are ginger thins from IKEA, and so I thought I’d share with my students.  The highlight was serving them to the Swedish guy who joined the company in April.  He said they actually are quite traditional in Sweden, and people there love to make their own and eat them.  The American guy serving Swedish cookies to the Swede in Japan – what an odd situation.

I’m hoping to get a jump on vacation planning soon – I need to pop the question to the HR department to see if it is OK to take a long(ish) holiday during the summer.  I’ve just got to find the right timing to ask…

This Saturday Kuniko invited two of the assistant language teachers from her school over for dinner.  One brought her boyfriend, and the five of us sat around talking and eating burritos.  I think the food went over well.  We’ve got plenty of leftovers, including some excellent chili that Amy brought over, so the deliciousness will last until at least Wednesday this week.

Amy, Matt and Tiffany all have a good sense of humor, and Matt especially seemed to share my love for cheesy movies.  He recommended “Commando” for Kuniko and I recommended (and loaned him) “Road House”.  Sunday Kuniko and I watched Commando at home, while he and Tiffany watched Road House at their home and Sunday.

It’s back to work now, and for a full five days this week.

It seems like we just got back from Bali and we were already thinking about our summer holidays.  Before summer gets here, Kuniko will be taking a school trip with her students to New Zealand in March, but I’ve got no such overseas travel to look forward until August.

The current plan is to head to Spain and Greece – kind of a broken economy tour of Europe.  We’re pricing out flights right now, and as soon as our companies finalize their 2013 calendars we’ll be ready to pull the trigger.

This weekend we’ll be hosting some of Kuniko’s foreign co-workers for Mexican food.  I think there are three Americans, so I’m planning to make carne asada burritos for them, along with homemade beans, salsa and guacamole.  I always love cooking Mexican!

Last night after work I met one of my ex-students for drinks at the local tachinomi.  It had been a long while since I had met him – nearly a year – and also a long time since I’d been to the “standing bar”.  It was nice to talk a bit and drink a bit, and I still got home hours before Kuniko came back from work.  Wednesday is her busiest day.  Frequently she arrives home after nine or ten p.m., so it was just a simple dinner of leftover soup and then to bed.

It is getting colder and colder around here, and harder to get out of bed in the mornings.  It is also harder to avoid the temptation of driving to work together and enjoying the heater and the convenience.  We’ll see if we can resist this morning…

One of my new year’s resolutions was to bump up my language skills in languages I know and a brand new language.  The two languages I decided to focus on are Spanish and Korean.  After having a great time picking up the basics of the Indonesian language, I thought it would be a good idea to start from scratch on a language that I have a better chance of using in the future.  So yesterday I finally got started learning the Korean writing system (Hangul) at work during my lunch break.  By the end of the day, I think I’ve got the basics down.  I was able to write my own name, and at home last night I was able to read Korean words English origin.  Not bad for just a few hours of study.

I’ll spend the rest of the week focusing on Korean, and then next week switch to Spanish for a refresher course.  Hopefully I’ll be able to keep all the languages straight in my head.

We had a pretty nice weekend – sushi, dim sum, yakitori, and a pretty wild party at our place with the Tojos.  Friday night’s sushi was as good as we had hoped, and the master seemed to think maybe we were eating a little too much.  I don’t think he was worried about our stomachs, really, probably more worried about whether our wallets could handle it.  Luckily, my wallet was OK.

On the way home we stopped at a pretty massive liquor and imported foods shop in Nada.  The wine selection was OK, but they really have a lot of different liquors.  We didn’t buy any booze, but we did get some pepper jack cheese and a tiny jar of caviar to splurge.  I think maybe this was the first time I’ve ever bought caviar myself – foodie milestone?

Saturday night I met Kuniko in Kobe after she finished work for dinner and a movie.  The dinner was trying a dim sum place in north Motomachi.  The atmosphere was nothing special – almost cafeteria-like.  But the waitress was not Japanese, and that is always a good sign for ethnic food.  The dim sum was great – just what I was craving.  Kuniko and I ate big and couldn’t stop.  I think we’ll be back – the place is called 大家好 – Daichahao.

Sunday night was hitting the Tojos favorite yakitori.  It has been a while since we got together with them, and between Mr. Tojo’s business trips and our trips for pleasure we mainly talked about travel and drinking.  The yakitori was pretty good – Kuniko thought it was a little salty for her, but I didn’t mind.  The master even prepared a secret wine list for us (me) to select from.  I guess word gets around. After dinner we invited them to our place for cocktails, and the party hit the second stage.  We tried all kinds of cocktails, wine and ended with some limoncello.  We had a good time talking and joking (and eating more) and even got into that caviar in the fridge.  Good times.

Monday was luckily a holiday, but we awoke pretty groggy from the night before, and ended up spending the entire day at home.  I just played video games, Kuniko was marking, and our customary weekend bottle of sparkling wine remained in the fridge while we were in recovery stage.  It was good to relax and recharge, though.  I would have hated to work after that party.

So we’re back to work today, and I’m looking forward to getting back to it!

Especially on the week after a long vacation.  We’re starting a three day weekend tomorrow, so this Friday is just a little sweeter.

This week I’ve been busy working on a translation project for work.  The work is a little high profile – translating a vice-president’s speech into English, so I’ve been squeezing in translation work between students all week.  I think it has turned out OK, but today I’ll put the finishing touches on it and then send it in.  It was a lot of work, and it’ll be nice to think about something else during the weekend.

Every time we go out of the country on a vacation, upon returning we get a serious craving for sushi.  This most recent trip was no different, and tonight we’re going to go to our favorite sushi shop in Nada.  It’s a nice reward for working hard all week.

Saturday night we’ll go out to see a “Looper” in Kobe, and then Sunday night we’ll meet Mr. and Mrs. Tojo in Akashi.  They are taking us to their favorite yakitori restaurant.  I’m looking forward to checking it out – we’re always looking to find out about more delicious local restaurants.

Monday should be a day of rest before going back to work.  Kuniko should be home all day on Sunday and Monday, so it’ll be a good chance for both of us to relax and spend some more time together.