"Kampai!" (cheers!)

This was a welcome dinner for Mike. Held at Kawamura-sensei's house. It was a perfectly relaxed night. Next to Kawamura is Saito, one of the women who works in my school office. Not pictured is Nishida, one of the English teachers, taking the picture.

The meal= "Chirinabe". A traditional Japanese dinner dish, normally eaten in the winter. We were kinda sweating throughout dinner, cause it's cooked right there at the table. There is a huge pot of yummy clear soup simmering in the middle of the table, and you drop in whatever you want to eat and let it stew. We had vegetables and fish. There was also meat, but of course Mike and I stayed away from that.

After eating, Mike unknowingly got himself into a drinking challenge with Kawamura-sensei! It was quite funny, as Mike ended up pretty drunk. How did this all start? Kawamura asked him how he liked his Japanese sake. Mike replied "it's like a mild whiskey", so Kawamura took it upon himself to find the strongest sake he had, and made sure to keep Mike's glass full for the rest of the night.

We had the best time, with a mixure of broken Japanese and English. When food & sake is involved, you can get along with out much fluency. Kawamura-sensei is one of the funniest people I have met here in Japan. But he is a totally different person at school; very distinguished, serious, and well-respected. He teaches the martial art Kendo, which comes from Samari. We should have picures of that later... Colleen