End of Year Party, Hiroshima, Hida Takayama, New Year's, Nagano

Seems the time I take to write these things keeps getting longer and longer.  Not sure why, I think I just keep forgetting to write entries.

Anyway on the 20th I came down with a migraine around 9:30 and had to go home and miss the ceremony for winter vacation.  I was really sad about that, but managed to pick myself up for the end of year party 忘年会 at Ikkeikaku, a hotel near my apartment.  These enaki foods actually aren't that good, even though they're presented beautifully.  They asked me to sing happy birthday to the math teacher which was cool.  One of the teachers threw up after other teachers got him to eat multiple spoonfuls of wasabi.  We played bingo and I won a bunch of useless stuff like foot inserts and those rubber finger protectors that look like mini condoms.  Fun night, but I didn't attend the after party as I still wasn't feeling well from my headache.

On Christmas eve I started my trip down to Hiroshima at around 3pm.  24 hours later I arrived at the hotel I was staying at to see Machiko.  We went out and had okonomiyaki, then went and bought a Christmas cake.  The next day we went to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.  There were a lot of sad stories about the war victims.  I wondered if the government would have still dropped the bomb if they could see firsthand what it would have caused to people.  After seeing that we went to Miyajima to see the Itsukushima shrine.  It's a big shrine out in the water and I had always wanted to see it.  It was cool, although we should have gotten up a bit earlier so we could have seen the other stuff (it was nighttime when we finally arrived).

We took a night bus to a place called Hida Takayama 飛騨高山.  We went to a village that had been preserved and walked around and inside some of the buildings.  They had items from their respective time periods including spindles, silk worm raising artifacts, and cooking utensils.  The snow made it very beautiful, but we were also on our way to Tokyo that day, so we couldn't stay long, and ended up leaving around 3 pm.

We hit Tokyo and a few hours later were on our way to Sendai.  From Sendai I went home for a day, then Machiko came to Kesennuma the next day.  We tried to go to Brunch but it was closed, so we went to a different pasta restaurant near Big House.  We had wanted a parfait the other day, so we got it then.  We went to Stray Sheep for a while before turning in.

The next day we went back to Sendai and met Tara there, hanging out with Machiko's friend Asana for a sushi dinner then going back to her parents'. We watched the Japanese new year show (forgot what it's called) and I think the white side won.  The next day we went back to their place to eat osechi and

then went to a temple to pray for good luck for the following year.  We went to karaoke then back to the parents' house to look at Machiko's baby and early school pictures.  So cute!  Machiko's parents fed us soba (what you're supposed to eat on new year's day) and osechi (what you're supposed to eat that morning), then dinner that day.  Her mom is an amazing cook.  It isn't easy for me to eat breakfast but I got a lot down. The next day we shopped around for a bit before going back to Kesennuma.

Now I'm in Nagao with Tara.  We stayed at a ryokan the first night, eating chanko nabe for dinner.  Chanko nabe is what sumo wrestlers eat a lot of while they're trying to gain weight.  It wasn't too different from regular nabe in my opinion, but it's good, I can see how they could eat that every day.  The next morning we went to a mountain area with monkeys.  There's an onsen (hot spring) where the monkeys bathe so we went to see them.  They're so

adorable, picking at each other and hugging each other for warmth.  We tried an onsen there, but the water was too hot inside, so we went outside, clothes on, and sat with the monkeys as they picked at each other.  Went to Zenkoji temple and eventually to dinner at a high end restaurant where we were served a 7 course meal that included duck.  It was delicious, although I wish the portion sizes were a big bigger.  Afterwards we tried to get tacos at a different restaurant but they were all out so we just went back to the hotel.

The next day we hit the mountains.  Tara went skiing and I was trying to finish a tax document for CollabHealth that I should have finished already.  I got most of it done, and finally finished it for my Skype meeting Tuesday.  We went to an onsen and then finally got the tacos we wanted!  1,600 yen, a bit steep, but I had been craving them for a while now so I paid up.

Sekine Toru, who I met volunteering a year ago, came back to Kesennuma for a visit so I saw him last night at Stray Sheep.  Makes me feel like time is just flying by.  Pretty soon I'll be reading this and it'll be a few years past already.

If Machiko is still in Hiroshima in a month, I'll go to Osaka!

旅行【りょこう】 (ryokou) travel; trip