All I did today was eat...

Two more reasons I love Japan...one, your birthday is a season, not just merely a day. And, two, when you eat at a Japanese home, you EAT. Eight days after my birthday, I am still getting cards, presents, and cakes. I have to say that it's fun celebrating my birthday days later. Barb cooked some yummy Mexican food and a birthday cake for me. With Mexican food difficult and expensive to come by, it was a most wonderful gift. Thank you, Barbie!! This is actually the only birthday cake I had. Because I was on top of a stupid volcano and using artificial oxygen to prevent altitude sickness, a cake on my actual birthday was not possible. Then for supper, Liz and I were invited over to Emi's house for sukiyaki. Here's Yumi cutting up meat. Here's Emi and her sugar booger, Nobu, in the kitchen preparing the meal together. They're pretty adorable. Liz with some of the ingredients for sukiyaki...tofu and some sort of noodle resembling earthworms. And here's the big pot of sukiyaki...it's a big mess of beef, mushrooms, tofu, cabbage, and onions with soy sauce. It is quite good and very foreigner friendly. The time it took for us to eat this meal was around 2 hours. Eating is an event here. Yumi, Liz, and Emi with bowls of raw egg in front of them. The correct way to eat sukiyaki is to dip everything in the raw egg and then eat it. I did it one time to accommodate my hosts and survived, but I passed this time on the raw egg. Yumi and Emi! What meal in August is not complete with a run to the grocery store to get ice cream?!