Jonbu the baker

It all started with this:

“Don’t you have a nave party?”

One of ’s friends was asking her this question. And I thought to myself “maybe shirley is secretly into raves… ” After we decoded the language difference and a typo, it came out to be “Why don’t we have a nabe party?”

The party landed on me and Steve’s birthday weekend. So us being so eager as always for non-caf food, it only took us a few minutes to reach the decision to go.

“Shirley and Yoshie”

I remember Yoshie’s name by thinking of Yoshi the dino. It would be equally easy for me to remember people named Marioe or Luigie, or princess peach-e. Me and Stevie must have stood right behind her for 15 minutes at Starbucks before we met.

“John and Shirley”

When Yoshie took this picture she said we looked like a couple. Without looking at shirley I could feel her frown hitting the side of my head like a sonic sine wave.

“Steve and Shirley”

I was waiting for either of them to turn around while I held my camera there. But I got impatient and just took it this way. Just before this shot the two of them engaged in some physical wrestling, with my camera thrown in the middle, hence the tired looks.

“Takaaki”

This guy took some pictures for us during nabe. But he went to sleep right after so this is the only shot of him in this post.

I’m so sleepy. Earlier today Shyaari dropped by and said “hahahaha.. you will write about the nabe”. She being right everytime including this time, I’m here writing about the nabe…

While shopping for ingredients, Takaaki pretty much put back half of what Yoshie took, and re-shopped the basket. Among the things he put back was the Angler Fish cutlets with intestines. I was glad. Later on Steve developed a new fasination for Angler fish (Gotta admit its really interesting), for more details refer steve’s homepage in about a year.

Side topic here. Teeth grinding is something I have never seen or hear personally, not until that nabe night. Takaaki gave us a pretty good demo. It sounds exactly like rewinding a mechanical alarm clock. I had one.

” *the* nabe”

Let there be nabe, and there was nabe. And as a bonus, it actually tasted pretty awsome. Big thanks to bottled concentrated Kimchi Nabe soup mix. But of course it’s the ingredients we’re eating.

[I stopped here and went to sleep, because I find that I make a typo every few keys I press. In the morning ben and shirley, being such avid LJ-er's as they are, already commented. Thank you guys! ]

“Group”

Takaaki took this picture for us. In the background is the computer he just assembled this month. It boots up with an error message.

“Traffic”

I like the movements in this shot. Yoshie handing Steve the bowl. Here we see that Steve drinks Smirnof Ice, I had coke. Shirley had coke. Yoshie Takaaki and Nabe-san had beer. There’s also a plate of Hamachi-sashimi.

“spice in progress”

Like shirley mentioned in her comment, that’s Nabe-san. The pot looked spicy but actually it wasn’t.

During the first round the chefs were asking “Do you like spice? Do you mind spice”. Us being so polite as we are all said “Okay.. we’re okay…”. It sort of created an illusion that someone among us don’t eat too spicy.. For second round Takaaki just decided to make it more spicy, so he dumped all those red liquid into the pot.

The Japanese standard for spiciness is really not that spicy. It’s well known that the Japanese believe they have the best tastebuds in the world.

Ohh I’m so hungry now.. Had like 3 crackers for breakfast.

“4 ppl”

Nabe loves smoke. He wouldn’t give it up for drinking. In this picture he was either out smoking or taking this picture for us I forgot.

Hm.. I remember I was adjusting the flash for Takaaki, so Nabe must be smoking then.

When Takaaki used Steve’s Ixy, he said something to the effect of “Wha.. this is a nice camera. I really want one.. must be expensive.”

and i thought “mine cost more.. wuwuwu ><~" Nobody understand my Sony... But seriously, I think my next camera may well be a Canon. I used to be a Canon fan, you know. There was once when I bought a calculator only because it was Canon. It was like "Woah, a Canon Calculator, must buy..." rush to cashier...

"On the Car"

This is already the next day. the sleep was rough nevertheless greatly appreciated. I love these kinds of pictures. There was absolutly no reason for taking this picture at that time. But the fact that we took it then is the very reason this picture is worth keeping now.

“Crazy Canadians”

Shirley plotted this picture out since the beginning. She knew Steve would wear the fur hood, so she wore it to make this picture harmonize. Had I bought that Fortune bag at UniQlo, we would have needed a tripod, or asked a Japanese to take picture of three Canadians in Inuit-styled outfit.

“On the Train”

We stayed in the train to keep warm at the Hashima Shiyakushyo Mae Station. Look at our innocent faces. This is why the Train conductor invited us onto the train to keep warm. Steve used his timer for this picture..

It was a great weekend. More so after I took the chance to reflect while thinking about what to write in this post. I believe this is what writing journals is all about. It gives you the opportunity to rethink and re-experience what happened.