A Very Fulbright Japan Thanksgiving Special

On Saturday I hopped on an ANA flight out of Sendai and headed down to Kyoto to celebrate Thanksgiving in Kyoto with 70% of the Fulbrighters (none of the J-people could make it: John is in the forests of Hokkaido; Jen is in Thailand; John is in Okinawa with his Dad). Kyoto is among Japan's most historic cities (in the greater Kyoto area, there is an unbelievable number of shrines and temples: 1,700) and it is a beautiful, and is particularly beautiful this time of year because of the fall colors.

I've been staying over at Dave (Junichi) Follette's place which has been excellent; we stay up late nightly chatting it up like girls at a slumber party and just generally have a good time. Saturday night, we all headed out on the town to have some dinner and free entertainment (ie, sitting around talking). Sunday was arbitrarily chosen as Thanksgiving. The other Dave (Junichi) ordered a pre-cooked turkey from a department store, Dan and me Dave (Kenji) were in charge of mashed potatoes and random errands, Anna and Laura baked a pumpkin pie, and Katie and Lauren skillfully dashed off a variety of dishes (such as stuffing, homemade applesauce, salad, pie, and even jello salad). Considering my annual Thanksgiving back home with the Isozakis, Hayashibaras, and Nakashoyas usually involves Japanese food in addition to the traditional foods, this was ironically the most traditional, American Thanksgiving I've ever had. We had a couple of Japanese guests (guys from Dave Junichi's lab) as well as one member of last year's Fulbright squad who still has some unfinished business in Japan over as well. We played a few card games and drinking games after dinner, and enjoyed some pie with ice cream and cream we whipped by hand with chopsticks, a fork, and a potato masher (we don't own a whisk). It was an excellent night on all counts, and I'm very impressed that we managed to pull off such an authentic Thanksgiving so far away from any Puritans and Indians.

Today, we woke up, grabbed the Thanksgiving bento's we made the night before from leftovers for lunch, and headed out to a temple called Kurama with Katie, Lauren, Anna, and Laura. After walking around and eating our Bentos, we headed up to a nearby onsen (hot spring), where Dave and I sat naked together in hot water with a bunch of other naked men for like 1.5 hours, with nothing more than a small square towel to cover up. It's not as terrible as you think. Well maybe it would be, I don't know what you're thinking. Afterward, we had some tonkatsu and sang it up at karaoke.

I'm excited about tomorrow: heading to Osaka to meet up with Jen and play for the day! Woohoo.