Nato, Shabushabu, Squid?! It's all food...

Perhaps it's that I'm in college, perhaps it's that I have lost my pickiness over the food that I eat, but anyway that I look at it, I really enjoyed everything that was served at the Kanno's house on Saturday night! Hissakosan (Nobuko's mom) picked me up and we picked up one of her friends(Anna from Belerouse) on the way to her house. They have a beautiful house and were great hosts! We chatted about basic stuff like where I've been around Sapporo, what my hobbies are, what I'm studying, how Nobuko is doing... and we talked about things that they like to do around town. She (Hissakosan) is an avid hula dancer and is going to San Fransisco next week to compete in a hula dance contest. Pretty cool!
There was so much food! The main course was Shabushabu,　　which consists of a large pot placed on a burner in the middle of the table with water to boil inside. Once the water is boiling, you take a piece or two of thinly sliced meat (we had pork and beef) with your chopsticks and stir it in the boiling water. While stirring, you say "shabu shabu" and in a few seconds, the meat is cooked so you take it out and dip it in various sauces.. my favorite was the sesame based sauce, but there was a shoyu base that was really good too! Shabushabu is very similar to Nabe (nah-bay). Besides the shabushabu, we had sushi consisting of things like tuna, avocado, sprouts, rice (of course), salmon roe, and nato (nah-toe). The whole family stopped eating and watched me eat nato for the first time, which I thought was odd. I was expecting some really odd flavor that my mouth wasn't ready for, but that flavor never came... The reason most foreign people don't like nato is the texture.. Nato is extremely sticky and invades every part of your mouth; it reminds me of feeding dogs peanut butter. I didn't mind the texture so I said that it was very good.. They were amazed. There was also some thin strips of squid in an orangish sauce that they were eager for me to try (I wonder if they were just trying to gross out the foreigner.. if they were, I think I disappointed them.) The squid lacked in flavor, but the texture made up for it, half was chewy, and the other half melted in my mouth. It was slightly salty, but good all around. They were very good about keeping my glass full throughout dinner. All in all we had a good time laughing and talking the whole time. There was a twelve year old boy there and his parents wanted him to pratice his english with me... He was so shy though, the only thing I could get out of him was what video games he liked to play, Final Fantasy. We took a group foto at the end of dinner, and then I shared a taxi with Yuko (Nobuko's sister) and her Husband. I had a great night and didn't make a fool of myself *fwew* The next day I e-mailed Hissakosan and thanked her for the great time, and she replied saying they had a good time too and next time we should all go to Onzen (hot springs).. Pretty cool!
For the rest of my weekend, on Sunday some fellow students from my studio/lab went to the outskirts of Sapporo and got some pumkins to carve, we got three smaller ones and on our way out of the farm store, the salesman gave us a huge one for free! It ways like forty pounds! We're carving them this evening. We also went to Moere-Numa Koen which was close to the pumpkin patch, that park is BEAUTIFUL! There's a huge fountain that sprays water about ninety feet up (not for playing in), there's a couple large earth pyramids to climb up, and a glass pyramid for relaxing or seeing an exhibit.. http://fotografia.web.infoseek.co.jp/moere.htm (it's in Japanese, but the photos are good!) There's the regular tennis courts and track too, and a playground for the kiddies. It was all built on top of a former land fill. That rasta party never happened, but that's ok.
It's Haloween! Nobody's really celebrating today though, they're all waiting for the weekend.. Tonight however, some foreign students and I are going to karaoke to celebrate I guess..
mmm- time for lunch!