Hello Again

On Sunday we had yet another welcome party. This one was for the new Japanese staff member, Yumi. This time around there was a little pressure on Nick because the staff wanted him to actually eat (recall the ‘fish head’ restaurant). They figured they couldn’t go wrong with “Yakiniku” which they refer to as 'indoor BBQ'. Basically Yakiniku is similar to fondue but with a grill in the middle of the table rather than a pot. There is a vegetable bar so you can pick out veggies to grill with your meat. It was an all you can eat, all you can drink affair as usual. One particular thing that struck us as interesting is that in the US when there’s an all you can eat buffet there’s a lot of waste. In this case, you pay a flat fee for your meal & drinks and it’ll keep coming until you can’t eat anymore. However, you cannot order another drink until you’ve finished your current one and you can’t order another plate of food until you’ve eaten everything on the table. This keeps the waste of food down to a minimum. IF there’s a considerable amount of food leftover on your plate at the end of the night then you are charged for it. I can honestly say I’ve never eaten so much meat in my life. As usual, the Japanese women went to work on their food. At the end of the night, they all sneaked “souvenirs” into their purses for late night snacks and breakfast. The longer we stayed, the more they took. Below is a picture of Natsuko’s purse at the end of the night.

After dinner we all went to karaoke. This was our first time going karaoke with the Japanese staff. They could sing so much better than we could. It’s like they’ve had years and years of practice and they’ve perfect it. They were able to sing both Japanese and English songs very well.