So the punch line of last week was a good one. It had been a while for me since having gone to an Enkai, or ‘dinner out’ party. These work-related gatherings can be quite fun, if not just for the food. Friday’s ‘sending off, and welcoming in’ Enkai was just that -food. The lot of our department, some people who work directly in our office and some who are posted to different parts of town like say, the library, all gathered at a hot spot restaurant in the Friday p.m.
I was among the first to arrive, with another co-worker/friend in tow, and after ascending the steep, unforgiving stairs as seen in so many Japanese homes to the second story we pulled a sliding door open to find a nice, low and long Japanese-style table laden with multiple plates per sitting and cushions for tired backsides all appropriately arranged.
Each seat had a small nabe or soup pot with tiny burner underneath, a plate of sashimi (of course the prawn still toting eyes and shell), hand-formed nigiri sushi, seared beef tataki with sauce added just for color, and plates of fried zangi, or chicken bits marinated and fried to mouth-popping and searing perfection, etc. It was a nice spread. But of course no Enkai would be complete without assigned seating, tobacco-smoking, beverages overflowing, and chatterings of hungry/exhausted workers laughing away while seated on rich-smelling tatami floors. The food was great.
After the ‘first’ sitting, we group of twenty-five or so neared our time-limit and were off to our ‘second’ sitting at a local karaoke/snack establishment. Simmered daikon, Japanese pickles, and other vegetable/tempura-fried offerings all appropriately plated rested on table tops and we all called in our beverage of choice. Toasts were again made and soon Japanese rhapsodic-melodical music was soon pouring out of speakers, lights dazzling off of old CDs and traditional posters streaming (almost decoratively) off the walls; and we sat and sung our way further into the night.
Friday’s Kansougeikai was a success, and the event comes only once a year -sending off workers that are changing departments and welcoming new workers into others. Saturday and Sunday were both fun days for me, too. Saturday I took a drive with another office-friend and we endured our way over still-snowish roads out to the Okhotsk Sea and back home. Sunday was a day for shopping at a nearby town with an onsen soak in the evening. Not too much money spent on my part, but much fun had over those sunny two days.
Today however, the snows are back. More slush and steady streaming snowfall outside. Nothing some sunshing cannot handle. I was informed on Sunday that the sakura-viewing season is nearing its peak in Tokyo. Here in Hokkaido after some chilly spells at last pass over our island, I am sure we will be graced with the viewing of Japanese cherry blossoms, too. Well, until such a Spring-ly time comes I feel that I have endured enough winter to not care too much about a few more snowy days. With classes back in session this week -though none for me today (lest office work), there is certainly enough to do and watch over to keep one’s mind from tarrying over the weather.
No coffee today yet. And maybe there won’t be. I went a full week without the black brew last week only to endure some mild caffeine-withdrawal symptoms. Headaches, headaches, sleepy feelings, but some kind of pure and ‘clean’ feeling was soon to follow -that is after about five days of no drink. I don’t miss that kind of caffeine all too much today but still agree that coffee is certainly a necessary and important part of my life. Coffee, a warming tradition that pulls people together for pensive thought, or tepid conversations. The swirling bits of steamy air escaping off a fresh-brewed cup of joe lending the almost temporary air that every short, stalky, clinking saucer to annular-based cup offers -escape.
So please do continue to have a fine Spring. And the next time we chat there may be more sunshine to complain about. But today, it’s snow. Content and longing.
Ciao,
(sunsets in northern Japan. ‘The Land of the Rising Sun’ certainly knows how to throw in a tasty sunset or two..)
The Traveller's Typewriter 