Okonomiaki night

It was a pretty lazy day. We spent a fair amount of time playing on the computer and lazing in front of the tube. The kids cleaned their rooms and Ian and I prepped for dinner. I made one of the salad mixes I brought from home - it's bag had broken in transit so it can't be given away anyway and we thought we'd serve it up.
There was quite a bit of cutting up and organizing so we would be able to just cook it up when the company got here. Ian got all the bits and pieces done - cabbage, beef, onion, mushrooms. He even cleaned and cut up the squid. I washed up so that afterward there would be less dishes.
We had suggested that Hiro might want to bring a friend and she brought two of the staff from the Chugakko. Yuki is the dietition and Naoko is the English teacher. We played Pit and had some of that Japanese popcorn - which it turns out is actually popped beans! Unfortunately Yuki had to go to Date to get supplies for lunch tomorrow so she couldn't stay for dinner. After she left we got to cooking and had YUMMY okonomiaki! Taran even had squid in his! (no mushrooms though - apparently squid is more tolerable than mushrooms!)
After dinner we played Catch Phrase - which was interesting with two ESL players. I did bring it for the purpose of working on vocabulary with the adults so this was a good test to see how it works - I was pretty pleased. They had to skip several words each but they still got a fair number of them. I think it will be a fun thing to do with the adults as long as we keep it low-key. We may leave the timer out of it for a while.
After we finished with Catch Phrase, Hiro taught us a Japanese game called Yubisuma where everyone puts both hands in to the centre and takes a turn saying how many thumbs will be up. At the appropriate moment people raise their thumbs if they want to (or not if they don't). If the right number of thumbs are up then the person who called it can take one of their fists out of the circle and the play moves on. The goal is to be the first to take both your hands out. It all happens quickly and the thumbs go up on the same beat as the number is called. It's fast and fun. We also practiced a bit of Jun Ken Po (rock paper scissors) since it is used almost constantly around here for deciding everything from which team will serve first in badminton, to who has to wipe the table after lunch in the cafeteria. Joisan was not sure of the rhythm so we helped her figure it all out.
It was a school night tonight so it seemed appropriate to wind it down early. Naoko and Hiro were gone by about 8:30 and we cleaned up and headed for bed.
The kids have to catch their bus a few minutes earlier tomorrow and I have to take myself (by myself) to Date. Wow! That weekend went fast! It's hard to believe how quickly the time is going - one minute it seems like we just got here and the next it's like we've been here forever!