Thanksgiving Tokyo 2010

Plans for Turkey and all the trimmin's were not gonna happen cuz I had some wicked deadlines. So I thought KFC could satisfy the flightless bird meat, mashed potatoes, corn, and biscuits at least....


This was not thanksgiving day. thats coming up later. This is the first "real" pizza i've eaten in like a year at least. It's from Pizza hut. if you know about Asia then you know pizzas here are "different". This one ended up not having any pizza sauce, it was some kind of cheesy thing. These two medium pizza were a "deal" totalling 3,000 yen ($35, the exchange rate is bad now but still). $35! these pizzas are the size of dinner plates. My roomate and I each ate one and it was just enough for my now japanese sized stomach. when you order pizza there is supposed to be left overs and its not supposed to cost you $17. Anyway pizza in Japan is pretty damn good, its just different.



theres stuff like egg plant, salmon eggs, etc...



shinjuku looks like its a Tremes Delirium (that super strong belgian beer) cafe





Aoyama woman's universty and its Ginko trees.



This is Lulu, aka Tang Xiang Lu, aka Tang san in japanese class. she's from shanghai, is something like 25, worked in shanghai for a japanese company and works for them a lil' here. shes funny and the reason you're seeing her pic here is probably cuz shes above 20 yrs old and graduated from school and worked already and is fun and has the interest to do stuff besides go home directly after class and so she hangs out with us sometimes. she went to eat bootleg thanksgiving thanksgiving with us. we had to explain to her what American thanksgiving is. she didnt get it and just thought eating burger king would fulfill this american tradition. they dont really have mashed anything in china.



So KFC had chicken, corn, biscuits, but no mashed potatoes and gravy. what is wrong with KFC in asia? china has no biscuits, the biscuits here in japan are weird, and they didnt have mashed potatoes which took the wind out of my sails. we tried to find somewhere else that might have mashed potatoes and fufill the main staples of thanksgiving. i knew there was no way we were gonna find pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce or stuffing. there are places with real thanksgiving dinner but i had deadlines and thought i could just eat KFC quick and go home. in the end we ended up having a chinese thanksgiving shabu shabu/hot pot all you can eat dinner. Look at that above. does that look like thanksgiving dinner to you!!



so it was all you can eat veggies and trays of this thinly sliced meat. in 1.5 hrs i did manage to get very full but its a different kind of full. the kind of full that goes away in an hour unlike turkey and stuffing. anyway its ironic and funny that the chinese girl got her way and our american tradition was squashed.



can you imagine eating 3 pounds of bean sprouts and spinach for thanksgiving?



and tons and tons of these mushrooms? they look pretty cool though.



went to some gallery party with my friend and her friend had this amazing 200,000 yen bike ($2,300). its super light, fixed gear and super fast. oh man it would be so awesome if i had a bike like this. this thing goes dangerously fast. my mountain bike weighs as much as i do.



another reason to love japan. 2nd round at an izakaya. it was a nice place, service was super friendly. they even gave us water at the end without asking and cups of miso soup. and as we were leaving they gave us these pocket warmer things. amazing. and this is what my friends ordered as drinking food. a thing of fresh veggies and some kind of amazing sauce warmed by a candle in their special pot. the veggies were cooled with some kind of cooling plate in the other special pot.



and another reason. that's sweet tofu in there, not cheese. amazing.



two rapper guys at Velours club in Aoyama. i think they were rapping in english.



there were 2 days where we had to decorate the school with crap for the welcoming in the new year party in 2 weeks. i ran away on one of those days cuz i had work to do and didnt have time to cut out snowflakes and sh!T. thus concludes this thanksgiving post, making this the 2nd thanksgiving dinner where i've had to sub asian food in in the last 3 years. In beijing i got the full dinner.