Dinner at The Nakamura Family's House

Yesterday, Melissa and I went to visit the Nakamura family's house. Mrs. Nakamura used to be one of her JTEs (the English teachers we teach with, Japanese Teacher of English is the acronym), and Mr. Nakamura used to be one of mine. He's currently doing what's called kenshuu, which is something like taking a year working another job completely different from yours to experience something new, pick up new skills, etc. (you may remember him from earlier posts), and Mrs. Nakamura is pregnant and set to give birth within a month.

Anyway, they just had a new house built and it's beautiful. They designed and planned the whole thing. I remember Mr. Nakamura complaining about how they had to pick where they wanted to put the outlets in the room and he had no idea. The house has gorgeous dark wood floors and cream colored walls. There is one accent in the kitchen, which is a mint/lime green sink. I would LOVE to have a house just like theirs, but I'm sure it was expensive. It's very modern and minimalist, but feels very warm and inviting because of the dark wood.

I didn't know we were going to be having dinner, but it was delicious anyway. Mrs. Nakamura ordered sushi and also cooked ebi chili (shrimp in a sweet chili sauce), karaage (fried chicken), and edamame. I had a really fun time watching the two kids, Rio and Souta, pick at their food and use their chopsticks. At one point Souta picked up some ebi chili, put it in his mouth, sucked all the sauce off, then put the shrimp back onto the serving plate. It was really cute. Kids I think are are the same all over the world, these were just speaking a different language but they had the same cute little habits that I've seen in other kids. After dinner they took me to their play room and wanted to show me all their toys and wanted me to watch them read. Mrs. Nakamura's english is awesome so we talked to her quite a bit too, asking lots of questions, telling stories, and even trying to ask about how her and Mr. Nakamura met (he was still at work last night when we were there), but she got embarrased and said she was too shy.

It was a really fun night. Going to people's houses is one of my favorite things, I love seeing how "real" Japanese life is, if that makes sense. Afterwards, Melissa showed me where Okadake Park is, a nice park up on a hill nearby with a beautiful view of our city. I had heard of it but had never been there before. This has convinced me that I need to do more exploring of my area in the upcoming year.















Rio and Souta (picking his nose, haha) with the huge assortment of sushi for our dinner.