Goodbye 2010

One of the more charming end of year traditions in Japan is the bonenkai (忘年会) or "forget the year gathering". This is a chance for any group of people who can claim a reason to know each other to go out and drink together in December. Of course, work groups do this, so do clubs and social groups. Groups of friends, neighbors, anyone takes advantage of the opportunity to go out and party.

Last night, Russell and I were invited to the swing bonenkai. One of the head people for the swing group found a restaurant in her neighborhood and invited us all to come out on Saturday night. Only a small group could make it (many were already booked for other bonenkai) but it was a lot of fun. The restaurant she chose was a Korean restaurant and it turned out to be a real find.

When we walked in, there were already two other large bonenkai groups going. The tables had been lined up into three long rows with a party at each row of tables. We wound our way around our own table and ordered drinks. Our fearless leader offered to do the ordering for us, which suited us all fine. In short order, two portable grills were being set up at our table. The owner came over, slapped a couple thick slabs of pork and a pile of kimchee and garlic on each grill and let things cook for a while. He came back later to flip the meat, and once everything was starting to brown, he snipped the meat and kimchi into bite-sized pieces.

At this point the responsibility for the meal shifted to us. We had a basket full of lettuce leaves and sesame plant leaves. We had to take a leaf, put a bed of bean sprout salad on it (to insulate our fingers from the meat), then add a piece of meat, some kimchi, spicy sauce and bird chilies if we wanted and then we rolled our creation up and chowed down. It was absolutely delicious. I would say this ranked among the top meals I've ever eaten in my life. Everything was so good.

Once the grills had been picked clean, the owner came back with white rice, some green onions and more spicy sauce. He mixed everything together on the grills to pick up the drippings and bits of over-grilled meat that were stuck to the grill pan. The let the rice cook until it was crispy and golden brown. Another delicious course. After that we got to try pajeon- or korean pancake. This is a vegetable pancake not unlike okonomiyaki, but it is much thinner with more chewy dough to it than vegetables. If you know what mochi is, it has a similar consistency. Of course, also delicous. Along side the pajeon came some plates of liver sashimi. I hadn't ever had raw liver before, but that was good too. It came withe a sesame dipping sauce and was really quite good. Finally, we got some sort of vegetable stir fry. At this point we had been at the "bonenkai" part of the bonenkai for quite some time and weren't really able to focus enough to know what was in the stir fry. It was vegetables and meat - and had it come before everything else, I would have been in love with it. After all its friends, though, this was the least stand out of the group. Poor little stir fry. It deserved more attention.

Another nice thing about group parties like this in Japan is that everyone just splits the bill evenly. No one worries about figuring out exactly what they owe. Our total for the feast and all we could drink came out to about $30. Seriously. While that's more than I would pay on my own for dinner, for something like this that seemed like nothing.

Around this point in the evening, we discovered that Korean food was only round one. We did lose two members of the party but gained two or three more at the bar next door. We continued drinking and ordered some appetizers to share.

The specifics get a little hazy at this point, but a good time was had by all. We were serenaded by one of our Japanese members with "Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy" ala Ren and Stimpy. We also discussed Christmas classic specials from America (all of which Russell and I have managed to gather together for our coming Christmas parties. We had a good night. We managed to catch one of the last trains home and were in bed by 1am.

Today I was feeling the results of the night before, but I had to go to work, even thought it was Sunday, to get some textbook writing done. Thankfully, it only took a few hours, so I spent the rest of the afternoon preparing for Christmas parties. I now have a rather large number of ginger cookies, an adorable Christmas outfit for the Christmas swing party on Wednesday and several Christmas accessories for the students to wear at the Tuesday Christmas party at school.

Should be fun!

(Oh, Russell has all the photos from this event on his phone, so I will update the post with visuals at a later date).