Daddy’s gift

Yesterday we received a Christmas present / New Year's gift from 愛子's father.

Around a Kg of 和牛 - Japanese beef from Yamanashi prefecture. If you're thinking "meh, it's just meat...", stop right there, retail price must be over ¥30.000 (almost 300€).

Straight in the frying pan with some delicious garlic. Look at those beautiful nervings of fat permeating through the meat... *drool*

And a nice bottle of wine to complement the meal. You can't eat meat like this with any little cheap bordeaux from the supermarket downstairs so we picked this up at Isetan Shinjuku.

All set (except the forks and knives, forgot to put them in before the photo...), thanks dad! The taste was incredible and you barely need to chew, it almost melts on your tongue.

PS: so that my parents don't get jealous, I also received a huge pack full of foie gras, paté, rillettes, cassoulet, cuisses de canard confites from them and will post about it when I will eat it.

Alone at work for Christmas

It's christmas day and I'm at the office, working...

Actually, it's nothing unusual for Japan where the 25th is a day like any other day. But this year is special: you should know that I work for a big French automotive parts manufacturer, and this is not a very fun time for us.

Car production is down ~30% over all the industry, which means we also must cut our production by 30%. So our manufacturing plants all over the world are shutting down 1 or 2 weeks early for new year vacations.

But then, since part of my job is support, not only for Japan but for all our plants around the world, I have to be there in an empty office in an empty factory on Christmas day in case the phone rings or an email comes in requiring my mad skills...

*crickets chirping*... yeah, right...

JLPT Level 2

I took the test last Sunday at Surugadai University in Hanno, way out at the feet of the mountains west of Tokyo. Usually I'm assigned to Saitama Daigaku which is 10min of taxi from my new place, but I guess this year they thought I was too close and needed to suffer a bit more than usual... So I took my 1h+ train ride in the freezing cold of this Sunday morning of December a 7:30am to meet my doom: the grammar test...

As usual these past couple of years, the whole test with solutions were out on chinese websites a mere hours after the end of the examination. People in the USA have it easy with the jetlag.

I don't want to check the answers. I'm pretty sure I did the same thing as last year: 60~65% on kanji, 85~90% on listening and utterly failed the reading/grammar part...

See you next time archnemesis!!!