Yesterday after work I signed another contract with KHI, so I’ll be sticking around for at least another year.  The conditions got a little better as well.  It’ll be nice to go on our trip knowing that everything is all wrapped up back here in Japan.

Speaking of our trip, I’m continuing to study some Indonesian vocabulary to use while we are there.  The language isn’t too hard to pick up, actually, but I doubt I’ll be stringing together any sentences.  “Tolong satu ronde lagi” is about the longest I can do.

Our weekend was not the same old routine.  It started with a Friday night at home together, but on Saturday Kuniko went with coworkers to Kinosaki on an overnight trip.  She was hoping to enjoy a crab feast, but unfortunately it turned out to be just a regular feast.  Meanwhile, I settled in at home and cooked up some pork on the grillpan in the kitchen, since the rain was ruining my outdoor BBQ plans.  I had a quiet evening at home watching the end of the Amazing Race.

Yesterday we had dinner at Swaad and then watched the new James Bond, Skyfall.  It was not my favorite Bond movie, but it was not the worst either.  Pretty good entertainment, however, and I was satisfied.  The bad guy was especially good.

I have a meeting after work today, and I should get some news on next year’s contract.  Let’s hope it is good news.

It appears that I’ll be on my own most of this weekend, as Kuniko will be off to the northern part of Hyogo to eat crab and enjoy the company of her coworkers Saturday night.  I have some things I need to take care of this weekend, so I guess this is the opportunity to deal with them. And maybe I’ll dig into the DVD collection on Saturday for movie night.

Last night I really enjoyed my dinner at the Thai restaurant.  It was a slow night and so the cook came out and we talked.  It was a strange conversation involving three languages.  My Thai skills are nearly zero, but he spoke some English and some Japanese – often at the same time.  It was a hard conversation to follow, but it was interesting to hear more about him.  Very friendly guy who sounded a little bored with Okubo.  He cooked a hell of a dinner – grilled pork salad and stir fried soft shelled crab with curry – yum!

We blew past hump day and we’re already thinking about the weekend. There’s a 50/50 chance Kuniko will have an overnight trip to Kinosaki to eat crab with coworkers. If she ends up missing the trip I’m planning on cooking crab at home – we’ve got a freezer full.

Tonight Kuniko has a year-end party, so I’m on my own. I’m thinking about grabbing Thai food at the local restaurant down the street from our house. Kuniko has Thai the other night, and she’s not a big fan of the local place. I think it’s great – it is a street food restaurant, and as long as you go in expecting authentic Thai street food you won’t be disappointed. Something to look forward to tonight.

Every time that Kuniko has a half day off of work means good news for me (and my stomach).  I came home last night to raclettes on mini-potatoes with a side of avocado and camembert cheese.  It was a cheese-fest.  We had some wine and listened to Christmas music in the background.  With our little Christmas tree in the corner it made for a nice atmosphere.

Kuniko also made a lot of bread at her baking lesson, so I’ve got breakfast and lunch covered today.  Life is good…

Yesterday we ventured to work by train, and it was damn cold.  The thermometer said 2 degrees, and with the high wind it was pretty rough walking to the station.  Still, winter is only just kicking in – no time to be wimpy now.

But today Kuniko is working a half day and she has a baking lesson after she leaves work, so she needs to drive.  That means a nice warm ride to work because she is nice enough to drop me off at my office on the way.  Woo-hoo!

Saturday and Sunday were kind of “on your own” days for me.  Luckily I recently discovered two distractions that took up the time nicely.  The first is the open world video game, Far Cry 3.  I love open world games, and this one has a huge place to explore.  I can see that I am going to be poking around with this game well into next year – very nice.

The other was a book I finished up last night, called “Old Man’s War” by John Scalzi. I got it as part of the “Humble Bundle” of books promotion a while back, and it was pretty good.  I’m hoping the rest of the books in the series are similar in tone.  Very approachable SF.

This week should be interesting.  I’m trying to do some research on our next destination during our winter trip, and also get my employment contract worked out for the upcoming year.  I’m not sure whether my company is already working on that detail or if they forgot about it.  The third option is too scary to consider!

Our larders are full.  It’s not Costco is so far away now, but the holidays means hosting and drinking, so we loaded up.  Actually, I loaded up, and Kuniko watched with kind of a bemused look on her face.  The shopping trip was a success.  We came home and put up our Christmas tree, did some quick decorating around the house, and then hit the hay.

I’m looking forward to a nice low-key weekend.  Maybe do some reading, catch up on my TV shows, and chill out around the house.  Between all the veggies and Costco food around here, there is no reason to go out at all.

Tonight after work we’re going back to visit our old friend, Costco.  It seems like it has been forever since we’ve been there, but actually it has been around two months.  That’s a long time for us.  We’re stocking up for the holiday season, so it’ll be expensive – there are a couple parties this month that we’ll be hosting.

Since we’ll need the car after work, we are driving to work this morning.  That is good news – a storm blew in after we went to bed last night and it has been windy enough to keep waking us up. I’m glad we don’t have to walk out there in this weather.

Last night the doorbell suddenly rang, and it was Keiko and Niro, Kuniko’s parents, delivering some holiday vegetables.  The unexpected visit sent us scrambling to organize the living room, as we are still in post-Christmas package shipping mode.  The dropped off enough veggies to keep us and the rest of the neighborhood in greens for the rest of the month.

We spent some time talking with them and catching up with what’s new.  Kuniko’s sister bought a house and will move in at the end of this month, so Kuniko’s folks had been out to Okayama to take a look at it.  Keiko’s wallet was stolen from her purse inside a grocery store while she was putting things in a grocery bag (“they got my point cards!” she complained).  And their cat is getting noisier and noisier in his old age.

After they left we got to work processing the produce.  Their were lots of Japanese greens, chigensai, mizuna, and so forth, so I started to clean and chop some for a salad tomorrow.  We had three heads of hakusai, so we kept one, and delivered the other two to neighbors.  We also gave away some daikons and koimo to neighbors, but we’ve still got tons of food to eat.  Tonight we’ll eat some oden that Kuniko’s mom brought over, and work on the salad.  Unfortunately Kuniko gets home around ten tonight, so it’ll be a big, heavy dinner late at night.  Lots of healthy, fresh food on the horizon, though!

Once again we’ll be off this morning early.  Kuniko is feeling a little better today, but since she can get out of work early she’ll be taking our Christmas packages and shipping them out this afternoon.  I still can’t believe that I would have to take a day off to mail packages in this country.  Having Kuniko ship them saves me a holiday from work.

It should be a pretty slow week this week.  Kuniko has a party on Friday, and we were considering a Costco run on Thursday, but other than that it’ll be a normal, cold week in December.

Towards the end of last week Kuniko was starting to feel sick.  I’m sorry to report that even after a day off on Sunday she’s in much the same condition.  She had to stay home on Saturday from a dinner with the Fukumis at Chiro, one of her favorite restaurants.  This morning she still seems like she’s in bad shape.  I doubt that she’ll call in sick, though.

So although Kuniko couldn’t go to the dinner with the Fukumis, I did.  We went through with it because the reservation was made specially (through our connections) and I would have felt bad cancelling on them.  But as three people we did have a good time eating and drinking, talking and telling stories, and enjoying the food there.   This time we had a seafood pizza, some mind-blowing pasta absolutely infused with rosemary, and a couple of nice bottles of wine.  The kitchen sent out a platter of Italian cold cuts on the house, and we even made friends with a new waiter who came from Italy.  His English skills were very good, and he confided in me that he thought the pizza at this place was better than most places in his native country.  Although in his hometown of Napoli this is this great place…

We finished up the majority of our Christmas shopping this weekend, too.  I’m looking at a pile of boxes ready to go out in the next week or so, and that is a good feeling.  With the New Year’s cards already finished as well, that is a lot of pressure off in the month of December.

We finally got our act together and printed out our New Year cards.  This year a relative of Kuniko’s passed away, and so our cards are sent out early, and basically they say, “Don’t send us any New Year cards because we lost somebody this year”.  We had to send them out earlier than normal to give other people time to change their plans.  Usually we are very last minute on New Year cards – I remember putting them in the mailbox at Kansai airport on our way out of the country during previous holidays.  So it is a strange feeling to get them all wrapped up so early.

This morning I’m on my own – Kuniko has a business trip today and so she can sleep in an hour or two.  She’s been fighting a cold since yesterday, so hopefully the extra sleep will help!

Tonight we’re going to decorate the Xmas tree and do a mini-Christmas party, depending on Kuniko’s health.  It is starting to feel like the holidays may be coming.

For various reasons, the last three days we’ve driven to work.  Kuniko and I jump in the car at around 5:30, and I get to work about 6:20 in the morning.  There is no traffic early in the morning – and it is very comfortable to ride in the warm car and listen to music and talk about our upcoming day.  It is pretty rare for us, since using the train is convenient as well.  Anyway, today is the last day of the four day streak.  We’ll be back on foot for the weekend, but it has been nice spending more time with Kuniko in the morning.

Yesterday after work we had to do a little shopping around our neighborhood, and that meant a great chance to go over to Swaad for dinner.  Our favorite local Indian restaurant has been skipped over lately, at first because of the heat of the summer, and then because we’ve been so busy.  We’ve been focusing on figuring out a good French restaurant and we somehow never thought of visiting our hole-in-the-wall Indian restaurant in our backyard.

Ha, ha, boy did we miss out.

The food was just as good as we remembered, and the portions seemed a little larger than we had ever had before.  The staff remembered us and seemed worried that we hadn’t been around.  I got the feeling that the chef was ready to call missing persons if we didn’t show up soon.

So all was well last night as we dined on Masala Kofta, Mutton curry, tikka chicken, and a giant piece of nan.  We’ll be back soon.

The shopping also went well, and we’re close to getting things organized for shipping for Christmas.  We’ve also got New Years Cards to write, so as usual, the beginning of December will  be touch and go.