November - December: Terry returns, Thanksgiving & Christmas
Terry returned from his cruise right before Thanksgiving. In this post we have him back and us celebrating the Holidays.
We hit up the More's mall in town after he got back so Terry could dive right back into Japanese food that was not prepared on the ship. Mmmm.
Terry ordered something that turned out to be eel so he ate my Tonkatsu (fried pork, delicious). I was looking forward to that Tonkatsu. :(
At another restaurant they were changing out the food displays. In Japan almost every cheap to middle of the road restaurant has plastic food on display of their menu items. It helps Gaijin like us know what kind of food they serve in the place, lol.
Oh YEAHHHH. Wine in a cane from the local 7-11.
The mess of preparing a Thanksgiving meal for two. We went with Cornish Hens since a turkey for two isn't very practical. It still turned out to be too much...
Kurou patiently waited for something to drop. It didn't.
Finished the evening by Skypeing the parental units since we couldn't enjoy dinner together.
On December 3rd they held the annual Holiday party for Terry's ship. As you know, there are thousands of people on the ship so it's a mad dash for tickets --because even the three stories of the A-Club cannot hold the command.
It's a night of buffet food, tacky music, booze, and raffles. (Psst, everyone only goes so they can win free stuff, lol)
Surf and turf and normal Holiday fare was served. Eh.
This was a game of musical chairs to win a TV --Terry is in the middle. He actually got down to being one of the last 3 or so but a guy pretty much shoved him out of his seat in a round. Being that it was a Holiday party and tis the season, Terry let it go... I was pissed, lol.
But we did win an iPod Touch from a trivia question. Which we promptly sold because we have iPhones, ha ha.
Still wish we could have got that TV... >:|
This is the best picture I got of us on my phone. Oh joy, what a great picture. Not.
We did have fun, though. I'm looking forward to next year's party.
Random food porn. This was a meal I had at a Shabu Shabu restaurant. Very nice for 1,100 yen (about $12).
BBQ time. We've been grinding our own meat for anything that calls for ground beef, pork, etc. We were traumatized by all the propaganda movies that have been circulating the past year or two. There is some nasty stuff in the meat they sell at the stores. But home ground meat really does taste better, it's worth the effort.
Don't worry, we didn't traumatize Sarah and Bryan (our neighbours from downstairs), we just simply told them it was freshly ground, lol.
A little round of Guitar Hero... Rock Band... one of those games that destroys my living room.
Tee-hee.
The ship and guard shack were decorated for the season. :)
Later in the month we enjoyed a night out with friends eating Yakiniku, of course. Get some Gaijins around grilled meat and they're happy.
This place has an "All you can eat" deal for 90 minutes. Then you can add drinks (soda, liquor, beer) for an additional $12. It's an awesome deal.
Later we trolled the Honch for drinks with Amy (we lost a couple to a meat induced coma). Like we needed more drinks after a ninety minute frenzy. Ha.
We made Amy drink the Habu sake, AKA, snake infused sake. Heh.
There was a mail slot in a very naughty spot, we couldn't resist after the habu sake. Tee-hee.
Terry started some vacation time on the 23rd. That night we went out so he could take some photos of the Christmas lights, and some time-lapse shots. I'll post some of his pictures on here later.
But for now you can see some of the pictures in his DeviantArt gallery.
The base used to belong to The Imperial Japanese Navy that was around until the late 40's, and then, well, we took over the base because we won the war. So, there are a few dry docks on base that are from the late 1800s. And they're still in use!
While we were out we had a cheap dinner at Burger King. Mainly because I wanted to try the new Bourbon Whopper that you could order a real deal bourbon and coke or ginger with. It was ~AWESOME.
I wish I could order a bourbon and ginger back home. >:|
Ahhh, Christmas Eve. I decided to make several different cookies and fudge. Lol, we had cookies forever, I had to give away so much even after including it with presents.
That night we met up with two other couples for a little dinner and drinks out on the town.
The Japanese tradition for Christmas, is 1. That Christmas is a super huge date holiday for couples. And 2. They eat fried chicken, mainly from KFC, and Christmas cake --which is pretty much a white frosted cake with strawberries and christmasu decorations.
So all around there was cakes and chicken being sold by skinny santas. And the lines were long. The above pic is from Baskin Robbins where you could get an ice cream cake and bring it home in a carrier with dry ice. They were selling tiny ones for $40 plus, though. O:
We went to a fancy yakitori place for dinner. Lots of meat on sticks commenced.
All the boys work together on the same ship, but since it's so big it took us wives to meet each other in the first place. Sheesh.
Later we stopped off for a night cap at one of our favourite bars --Rock Bar Fuck Yeah. Lol, I still get a kick out of the name.
Until the next post about New Years!
P.S. Yes, I'm going to update this regularly again... I've got lots to post... My Bad.