HOT POT and SAMURAI

This was one of our first 'cultural exchanges' in my Japanese class. Jun-yi invited us all over for Hot Pot. I LOVE hot pot. I will bring back this plug-in style. You basically cook what you want to eat, right in front of yourself. Jun-yi, Reina, and Hiromi pose in back of all the wonderful food and meats. Jun-yi made a special trip to Yokohama's China Town to find some of the food. She said she found the shrimp balls in one of the oldest looking stores, but in the bottom of their freezer, were the ones she was looking for.
That's me, ready to dive in. We have so much fun just cracking up at our own jokes and telling funny stories.

Today, we talked about how superstitious the Japanese can be about spirits coming back to haunt them. You'll often see a small dish of salt near doorways. That is supposed to keep the bad spirits out. I told them I tried that, but William keeps coming home, every day! :)
Jun-yi's neighbor is a big, rough looking man, with a mean pit bull dog. Well, they'd thrown a big lamb leg bone over for the dog. The dog's owner was so appreciative, he gave them this suit of samurai armor! Seriously! It's one of the $3,500.00 or more varieties you can buy over here. He said they had more room to store it than he did. So, now it's in their tatami room.
All the samurai have this mustache thing. Jun-yi said the thing was creeping her out, so her husband put sunglasses on it!
We ended up making fried mochi. It brings out the flavor of it a bit. Very fun day. Burp.