International Exchange Society New Year Party 2016

We attended the annual new year party, hosted by the local international exchange society last week. This was the fifth one we've attending since moving here, so we knew what to expect.  We saw some old friends and made some new ones.  We ate more than we should have - it was all so delicious!  Our contribution was deviled eggs, and they must have been liked because we didn't take any home.

We sang a couple of songs.  (I didn't really sing, I was just trying to read the lyrics and follow along.) We played some games.  I was the winner of the flags of the world game!  Another game started with each person having a ten yen coin.  Each person finds a partner and does rock-paper-scissors.  The winner takes the loser's coin.  This continues until one person has all the coins.  I lost my coin the first round.

I enjoyed a fun afternoon with interesting people and delicious food. Happy New Year!

Annual Mushroom Party 2015

The International Exchange Society’s annual mushroom party and potluck was held last Sunday.  Normally it would be held in the forest, but because a bear was seen last month, the forest is closed, so the party was held in the visitor center.

 

Besides the Japanese members of the IIES, there were foreigners from the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa at the party.

 

 

After an introduction and welcome, the eating began.  The mushroom professor picked many kinds of mushrooms and assured us they were all safe to eat. We had mushroom tempura and mushroom miso soup.

 

 

A meat barbeque was also cooked up with many kinds of meat, udon, corn on the cob, kabocha, and maybe some other things.

 

Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of the potluck food items before the eating started.  We brought a fruit salad.  Zucchini bread, scalloped potatoes, raw veggies and dip, onigiri, Champon rice with chicken and ginger, and sponge cake were among the pot luck items.

 

It was great to get together with old friends and make some new ones. (If you are interested, I wrote about past mushroom parties here and here).

IIES New Year Party 2015

Sunday we attended the annual international exchange society’s new year party. Hard to believe this is the fourth we’ve attended! (2012, 2013, and 2014).

Ted made a crock pot of baked beans, a typical American dish that many Japanese people haven’t tasted.  There was a lot of delicious food!

 

After  being welcomed to the party, we all filled our plates.

My plate

table decorations

 

After eating and eating, the game playing began.  First we played a fun gambling game. Each person started with a ten yen coin and did the Japanese version of rock paper scissors with someone else.  The winner took the loser’s coin and the loser lined up behind the winner. This went on with the losers lining up behind the winners into longer snake-like lines until there were just two winners with lines.  One of the two lost and the other took all of the ten yen coins.  I lost my first round, but Ted was winning for quite a long time until he lost.

Next we played bingo. Everyone seemed to really like this simple game. There were many prize bags that bingo winners could choose from.  Ted won a bottle of soy sauce and I won a fancy box of chocolates.

 

We wrote New Year’s resolutions on a paper shaped like a house with Japanese pictures on it and taped it to the wall at the beginning of the party.  After bingo, we read our resolutions.

 

Soon after that it was time to go home. It was a great international get-together with people from Japan, the US, Canada, and Italy.