Kanshasai 感謝祭
This evening was really fun. I got an email this morning from Narumi (I was still sleeping when everyone left, lol) that she would be home at three so that we could go shopping together for Thanksgiving. :D I talked to her yesterday about my eyes and everything and I told her that I was planning on going to the doctors. I did go, and they put eye drops in my eyes to dilate my pupils. That wasn't fun. Haha, I guess it makes me feel grateful for being able to see regularly. He said what I thought he was going to say, and I asked him really in depth about it. He said that there wasn't anything else wrong with my eyes, so I guess I just have to come to terms with the fact that I'll see those little black/white dots when I'm outside and when I look at white walls and paper. Sigh. He said it was very common, but that there's nothing to worry about since my eyes are otherwise healthy. So that's good news; I'll just ignore the dots from now on.
I had borrowed Koizumi-san's bike to get there, and I went shopping for some lunch and laboriously went home. The combination of flatish tires on the bike and my dilated pupils didn't make for the best bike ride every, but I got home safely, so that's all that matters. I still could barely see close-up, so I made my ramen cup, tried to stare at the computer, gave up and decided to take a nap. As I was just about to sleep, I got a phone call from Jeremy, the guy I couldn't meet at Starbucks on Sunday because I went to the wrong place. He seemed to want to offer me the job at the airport, and I talked with Narumi about it and I think that I'm going to take it. It pays 7,000 yen a day regardless of the hours worked, which includes transportation fee. So that means I'd get about 5,000 yen a day, a little less, having to pay for transport fee. But basically all the job entails (from what he said) was greeting customers at the airport, bringing them to the bus and making sure they arrive safely and stuff. Seems okay. It wouldn't just be me, either, more people would be there, so I guess I can take it. I'm not really sure if I'd be working every day, it seems more like I would only work if I happened to have people come in on my day or something, so...I dunno. For the time being it seems alright. Going to be kind of hard to get to the airport in all the snow, but I guess I can manage.
After that, I took a rest, Narumi came home and we went to Jusco to see the little import shop they have. We got black olives, dip mix, a graham cracker crust, cranberry sauce and some tea. Then we went shopping at the regular grocery store. We ended up making American style kabocha (butternut squash), mashed potatoes, garlic chicken, (we found a whole chicken at the store, but we had no idea how to cook it, lol, so we gave up) chips and dip and salsa, American-style salad, black olives, butter rolls, cranberry sauce, deviled eggs and Purin-pie. Haha. The purin-pie was just purin that I slathered whipped cream on top. It actually tasted really good! Yay for graham cracker crust! The deviled eggs, too, were super popular, I told Kanto that they were Oni Tamago.The cranberry sauce was a hit, even though I've never liked it. Narumi got upset when I told her I didn't like it, and then I assured her that she'd probably like it, and then the general consensus was that since most Americans like this and that I don't that I'm not American. Hahah, thanks, guys. Midori-san helped make the purin-pie, helped with the salad and Narumi helped with the chicken and the kabocha. Baa-chan came over too and it was pretty fun. We all talked and it was really nice. Kanto didn't seem to like the food at all, but Narumi had made him some nori maki and he ate that. He ate the pie, though, which was good. We listened to Christmas carols the whole time we were cooking. <3 Yay. I talked with Midori-san a lot about many different things and she talked about how her family raised six turkeys when she was a kid and how scary they were. Hahaha. But they gave them away to a farm that probably ate them, so she said that she's never tasted turkey, but only remembers how terrifying they were. She wants to keep cooking with me to learn a bit more about American cooking, so that was fun. ^^ I really do like cooking, I just have very little faith in my Japanese food preperation abilty so I get shy.
Overall, I think that it was a pretty good Thanksgiving, despite not being able to eat "traditional" foods, it was still really nice to be able to share it with everyone. Happy Thanksgiving! :D
I had borrowed Koizumi-san's bike to get there, and I went shopping for some lunch and laboriously went home. The combination of flatish tires on the bike and my dilated pupils didn't make for the best bike ride every, but I got home safely, so that's all that matters. I still could barely see close-up, so I made my ramen cup, tried to stare at the computer, gave up and decided to take a nap. As I was just about to sleep, I got a phone call from Jeremy, the guy I couldn't meet at Starbucks on Sunday because I went to the wrong place. He seemed to want to offer me the job at the airport, and I talked with Narumi about it and I think that I'm going to take it. It pays 7,000 yen a day regardless of the hours worked, which includes transportation fee. So that means I'd get about 5,000 yen a day, a little less, having to pay for transport fee. But basically all the job entails (from what he said) was greeting customers at the airport, bringing them to the bus and making sure they arrive safely and stuff. Seems okay. It wouldn't just be me, either, more people would be there, so I guess I can take it. I'm not really sure if I'd be working every day, it seems more like I would only work if I happened to have people come in on my day or something, so...I dunno. For the time being it seems alright. Going to be kind of hard to get to the airport in all the snow, but I guess I can manage.
After that, I took a rest, Narumi came home and we went to Jusco to see the little import shop they have. We got black olives, dip mix, a graham cracker crust, cranberry sauce and some tea. Then we went shopping at the regular grocery store. We ended up making American style kabocha (butternut squash), mashed potatoes, garlic chicken, (we found a whole chicken at the store, but we had no idea how to cook it, lol, so we gave up) chips and dip and salsa, American-style salad, black olives, butter rolls, cranberry sauce, deviled eggs and Purin-pie. Haha. The purin-pie was just purin that I slathered whipped cream on top. It actually tasted really good! Yay for graham cracker crust! The deviled eggs, too, were super popular, I told Kanto that they were Oni Tamago.The cranberry sauce was a hit, even though I've never liked it. Narumi got upset when I told her I didn't like it, and then I assured her that she'd probably like it, and then the general consensus was that since most Americans like this and that I don't that I'm not American. Hahah, thanks, guys. Midori-san helped make the purin-pie, helped with the salad and Narumi helped with the chicken and the kabocha. Baa-chan came over too and it was pretty fun. We all talked and it was really nice. Kanto didn't seem to like the food at all, but Narumi had made him some nori maki and he ate that. He ate the pie, though, which was good. We listened to Christmas carols the whole time we were cooking. <3 Yay. I talked with Midori-san a lot about many different things and she talked about how her family raised six turkeys when she was a kid and how scary they were. Hahaha. But they gave them away to a farm that probably ate them, so she said that she's never tasted turkey, but only remembers how terrifying they were. She wants to keep cooking with me to learn a bit more about American cooking, so that was fun. ^^ I really do like cooking, I just have very little faith in my Japanese food preperation abilty so I get shy.
Overall, I think that it was a pretty good Thanksgiving, despite not being able to eat "traditional" foods, it was still really nice to be able to share it with everyone. Happy Thanksgiving! :D