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Holiday Party Number Two: A Part of the Family

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The ladies' side of the table....
On Christmas Eve, we went to a holiday party with my dance teacher's family.  It was Yuko and Mr. Shinoda, Shio and her husband Atsushi, and  Atsushi's parents.  We ate at an Okinawan restaurant, and the Shinodas drank, and drank, and drank.  It was a wonderfully fun time, and left Matt and me with the impression that we'd been adopted by this Japanese family.  At one point, I referred to Yuko sensei as my "Japanese mother" and Shio as my "Japanese sister," which they loved.  Mr. Shinoda kept trying to convince Matt and me that he could marry us in Japan, and that I should wear a shiromuku (a white wedding kimono) and wataboshi (a Japanese bridal hood).

The men, making faces.
The Shinodas, and Atsushi's father, kept downing beers all night.  Sometime last year Matt and I taught Shio the term "under the table," and she brought it out multiple times during the evening to give her parents a hard time.  No-one really drunk themselves under the table, though, they just became progressively harder to understand and a lot more huggy.  Mr. Shinoda kept urging Matt to drink, and somehow Matt was able to humor him without actually drinking much of anything.  Remarkable!  We were also able to get them to take part in silly pictures (which I believe they would have done stone-cold sober).

I was surprised by how much alcohol Yuko sensei could put away!  She's shorter than I am, but I suppose she's been working on building a tolerance.  The servers brought beer faster than anyone could finish, so here she is with two full ones and another half on the table in front of her.  To the right, Shio and I link arms to drink our aloe sodas.  Yes, I wrote "aloe" and "soda" together.  In Japan, they think that aloe in your drink will improve your skin and help you lose weight.  I don't think it does either of those things, but it tastes good!

Once I took a picture of Yuko sensei with all her beer, Mr. Shinoda insisted on his own beer picture.  That was awesome.  Spending time with this family explains why Shio and Atsushi are such amazing people.  Speaking of amazing, when the restaurant brought me tiny whole fish (shishamo), Atsushi agreed to chase Matt with one, since Matt hates them.  To be fair, he often has to eat pregnant shishamo whole, bones and all, for school lunch.  I'd had too much food to eat the fish, so I gladly gave them to Atsushi.  All in all it was a lovely evening.  We had good food and good company, which we felt lucky to enjoy.
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