Thanksgiving Feast! and then Sushi!

So on Saturday, we celebrated Thanksgiving with fellow JETs up in Chiba. We did this on Saturday because everyone is busy during the week....so the best time to get together was the weekend! Of course! Well, there were a total of about 40 people that gathered to help cook, prepare, and eat the Thanksgiving dinner! It was an awesome day of food, filled with American Thanksgiving goodness that you wouldn't find anywhere else in Japan.




The menu included a plethora of items...Turkey, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, gravy, salad, pumpkin salad mix, stuffing, potato salad, bread rolls, and of course our all time favorite, pumpkin pie! Turkeys in Japan are not common at all...in fact, no one in Japan besides foreigners will eat turkey...probably.

The turkeys were bought at Costco, along with the pumpkin pie. Yes, there is a Costco in Japan! I have not personally been there, but if a person has a membership anywhere in the world, I guess it works anywhere as well!











Please take a look at the feasting pics!





















S0 the day after the feast was planned to be a cultural event. This was our official Sushi Making event. We went to a class which were taught by 2 older obasans. They taught us how to make 2 different rolls. The first one was a basic roll but had some complication in it. It has a flower shaped center surrounded by rice and seaweed. This was a fun project and it made me hungry to work up the appetite while making the sushi! There was a lot of rice, wrapping, and rolling involved! The second roll that we created was actually an アンパンマン designed center to the roll! Yes, that's right. He's a famous Japanese animation character that has been around for many years and will be a national icon for many more years to come! It was a bit more difficult, since we had to make the different parts to the face, but it was fun and worth it! We created awesome sushi rolls in the end and now I'm full! With plenty of leftovers! Take a look!!