Christmas Mass

Our story from Christmas Eve.

Because we wanted to do presents on Christmas morning and have a nice Christmas brunch we decided to go to mass on Christmas Eve. Our coach and his wife belong to a Carholic church here in Toyama and let us know that mass started at 8:00. My coach also gave us directions after practice on the 24th so we would know how to get there (at Toyama castle, go south on main road # 41 for 7 stop lights. Then take a left to get off the main road and immediately take another left onto the side street that will take you to the church). Coach said mass starts at 8:00 and we should get there early as there will be a lot of people.

No problem

We share a car with one of the other Americans on our team and his fiancé. They picked us up at about 7:00 and we were on our way. The drive to where we were going is only about a 20 minute drive so we were good for time.

When we got to the castle we turned south and started counting. When we got to 7 stop lights we turned off the main road and onto the little side street. Coach said we would be looking for a church (it will actually look like a church) and there will be Christmas lights on it. Here in Japan only 1% or so of the people are Christian so there aren't that many churches. Based on these facts: few churches, Christmas lights on the church and a service that starts at 8:00, we thought it would be easy to find. Well, we drove down the side street to the dead end and no luck - no church, no Christmas lights. We thought we had counted wrong so we checked the GPS and sure enough we went 7 stop lights. 

No problem. Since the directions were given from memory we thought maybe there was one too many/few stops lights so we went back to the main road and went to the 6th stop light and turned off. We found the side street and down just a little ways we found the church (that looked like a church) with Christmas lights.

When we checked the clock it was 7:25. We thought it was a little too early to head in so we sat in the warm car. Haven was sleeping so we let her take a short nap. While were sitting in the parking lot we didn't see too many people coming. We didn't see anybody actually, but didn't think too much of it as we couldn't see the front of the church. We knew coach and his wife said a lot of people would be coming so we thought we just must not be able to see them. At 7:40 we got everyone out of the car and headed towards the door. By the entrance there was a sign with the times for mass on the 24th. It was in Japanese so we couldn't read it but there was something listed at 7:00 and something listed at 8:00. We figured they must be doing 2 masses. As we walked in we could see many people in the pews. Coach and his wife said they would save us some seats and as the very nice lady by the door ushered us to only empty spots in the church we looked for them but didn't see them. The church wasn't that big but of course the seats were right in the front. As we sat down we could tell the priest was giving his sermon. We guessed that there must have been 2 masses and this was the mass that started at 7:00. We figured they were just seating us early for the mass that started at 8:00. (The sign outside had something listed at 7:00 and at 8:00 and we knew coach said mass was at 8:00). The priest spoke for 10 minutes or so, all in Japanese, and then finished. Then there was a little kneeling (on individual pads that they passed down the aisle from a stack at the edge of the pew). This made me think twice about where we were in the progression of mass though as coach said this was a Catholic church. Then we all stood up and sang Gloria. The nice people around us offered to share their music booklets when we started to sing. It was all in Japanese so of course we couldn't read a thing but we thought it was still pretty nice that they offered. We sang 4 verses. We did great on the chorus as we knew that by heart (although our accents were a little different for some of the words) and then mass was over.

As soon as we were finished some people stood up and started pushing the pews off to the side. As these individuals worked the rest of the congregation headed up towards the altar and started assembling themselves in lines, like you would do for a picture. Then sure enough, right in the center of the main aisle a man erected a pole to which a camera was attached to the top. Before we had the chance to wonder if we should leave or hide in the back, the people were calling to us and waving for us to come up on the stage. So we joined them and smiled pretty. Hopefully we made the bulletin or their Christmas card :) 

As soon as the picture was over they started clearing some tables in 2 little rooms back behind the pews and filled them with sandwiches and other yummy snacks. We had multiple people tell us to please sit and have something to eat. We let Myla grab a sandwich but felt a little guilty about showing up with the last 15 minutes of mass and being in their Christmas photo that we didn't think we could eat their food too. We did have a chance to talk to the pastor and he told us that he was from Kyoto and he came for the 24th-26th just to say mass. He said that there is no pastor in Toyama right now and he came to help out. He also told us that this was an Anglican/Evangelical church. So, even though were almost positive we were in the wrong place he confirmed our thoughts. For all of us, this was the first time we had ever been to this kind of service but we all said we will have smiles on our faces when think back on it.

When we left we wanted to drive to find the Catholic Church so we could have some piece of mind of knowing the church actually existed. All we had to do was go one stop light shorter. It was down the side street at the 5th stop light. And sure enough it looked like a church and had Christmas lights on it too. 

What are the chances. 

We could see there were people standing in the back of the Church through the window of the door as their mass was in service. We thought about going in but decided not to as it was 845 and we had already been 45 mins late for one Christmas mass. We didn't need to make two.

Our night turned out a lot different than we thought it was going to when it started. But for some reason I feel we were meant to go to that church. It's a Christmas story we will always be able to tell and one that will always put a smile on our face.

Thank you to the kind and inviting people of the Anglican Church we shared Christmas Eve mass with and God bless.

Click here to see the Christmas Photo from the Church

Drive to practice

Here's a picture from our drive to practice the other day

Snow

Here in toyama there is a lot of snow. According to Wikipedia this place gets about 12 feet of snow a year. The temperature though hovers right about 32 degrees (freezing) so once we get snow it usually starts to melt within a couple days. That 12 feet of snow doesn't continuously accumulate throughout the winter and leave snow banks impossible to see over. I think it would be kind of cool if the snow was that high but it doesn't stick around long enough to form a magical white wall that even Elsa of Frozen could be proud of.

The last few times we have gotten snow we have gotten more than just a dusting. Two days ago in the morning it started snowing and snowed/sleetied pretty much continuously until the middle of the day yesterday. I am not sure of the exact amount but We got at least 14 inches of snow in this time period.

(My shoes are size 14)

Of course today though it has started to melt as it was about 45 degrees (7 degrees Celsius). So even though we got a lot of snow and everything looks great with a white covering I don't think it will take too long to melt if it stays this warm. The girls enjoy the snow and with the melt on we will just have to wait another week to get a good snowfall to go and play again.

Good English

This was what was on the toilet when we got to our hotel room for training camp. Does this mean clean?

Electricity...how much

This is a pay box that goes down and is connected to the outlet. It 100 yen, about $1, for 5 minutes. So, if you need to use the outlet you have to pay. 2 years ago we were at a practice at a different gym than we normally practice at sand one of my teammates plugged his phone into the wall to charge. No long after a guy came running and said he had to unplug it and couldn't use the outlet. Not sure if electricity is really expensive here or not but thought that was quite interesting.

Hanawelle

Today we got our elf-he appeared. If you know what elf on the shelf is then you know what I am talking about. For those of you that don't, you have an elf that you put in a different place everyday leading up to Christmas. Every night the elf then flies back to Santa and tells him whether you are naughty or nice. He then reappears the next morning in a different spot . Sometimes he is hard to find and it is a game for the kids to see if they can locate him.  In our house the favorite game at the moment is hide and seek so our elf will fit in nicely.

As part of the tradition of elf on the shelf you have to name your elf as soon as he comes. So, today we let Myla choose a name. I am not sure where it came from but she named the elf Hanawelle (Hana-well-wee). We all thought this was a really cool name and good way to start our elf in the shelf tradition.

Hanawelle on the tv

Getting ready for winter

Here in Toyama and in the northern part of Japan there are places that get a lot of snow. Because the temperature stats close to freezing the snow here can be really heavy. To protect the trees and bushes people use ropes and bamboo pled to help protect trees and bushes from breaking due to the eigt of the snow. Even though there is no snow yet it is pretty cool to see all the trees with what looks like a cone around them.

(For the trees they attach a bamboo pole to the trunk extending up into the air. Then they attach ropes to this pole and the other end of the rope is attached to branches to hold them up so the snow doesn't snap them)

All around town, at businesses and people's homes the trees and bushes are like this. This only leads me to believe there will be a lot of snow here as the other 2 places that we were at in Japan didn't have this (they were a little warmer and didn't get much snow).

Funny English

This weekend we had away games and when we are on the bus we stop at rest areas to go to the bathroom. Many have things for sale, like sweets. I took a few pictures of some of the English sayings on the sweet boxes.

Hope you enjoy.

Kids shirts

Here are 2 kids/little girls shirts we found in store. Maybe the sayings are a little different than what you would find in the U.S., but we think they are sort of funny.

Cantaloupe

How much does your cantaloupe cost?

$18?

Good English

Another great example of good English where we are:

When we were on our way back from our last road game we stopped at a conveniencecstore to get something to eat. This is what some of the options were:

One of my teammates got the: Pizza sand

Supposed to be pizza sandwich/wrap

And the second one-it says it's a rap (a ham and cheese rap to be precise)

And in case you are wondering, rap music did start playing when I opened this up.

Good English?

Here is another example of great English here in Japan.......or is it? Unless they got something new this may be an oops.

Good English

This was on the shredded cheese package that we bought. Definitely written by a native English speaker right?

Halloween burger

On Monday we patronized a mcdonalds for a $1 ice cream for the girls and I couldn't help but notice the Halloween burger on the menu. They actually had 2. One of them had a bun that was shaped like a ghost and the other (pictured below) was on a black bun.

It's a black bun, with a couple black patties, and a black/dark sauce. Oh yeah, and throw on a raw egg (at least that's what the picture looks like) and you have yourself the Halloween burger in Japan. Because I don't fancy the food at mcd's I can't speak to the taste, but it sure does look interesting.

And for you egg lovers, here is a Halloween mystery wrap from KFC Japan

Rest area - changing board

Our bus ride to Tokyo took over 6 hours, and of course we needed to stop for some bathroom breaks. One of the places we stopped at had a "changing board" in the bathroom, in one of the stalls. I thought it was great that they had a place for the men to change a baby as I have tried to change our daughter's diapers when we have been out only to find there is only a changing station in the women's bathroom. 

The changing board was a little different than I pictured. Instead of being at a convenient waist high height, it was literally next to the ground-I think when the board would have been opened it would have been resting on the ground. (See picture).

I guess with the board resting on the ground when opened you wouldn't have to make sure it's fashioned to the wall securely enough to support a baby's weight or worry about a baby falling off. 

But, I don't know if it is the best place to try and change a squirmy kid-on the floor of the bathroom and in a stall that is just a whole in the ground at that. What if someone had poor aim and previously missed? I have seen quite a few of those toilets/holes in the ground with liquid on the floor around them - yuck. And what if some splatter hit the changing board? Even though it would closed that is still nasty.

But I guess there is one bonus, it would be easy for you to put the diaper in the garbage as it is literally right there. You could almost use it as a tiny seat. And you wouldn't have to touch it with your hands. You could just plop down on top of it and do the changing right there. 

And.........since we're being ridiculous (talking about a changing table on the floor of a stall with a hole in the ground for a toilet), you could even take care of your business, if you had such #2 business to take care of, while you cared for your baby.

Weird,gross,strange........whatever you want to call it, it's just not right!

As we were walking out of the bathroom though I did see a normal changing table. Looking back on the changing board in hole-in-the-ground stall, I think it is for adults to change their clothes so they wouldn't get any remnants from previous potty users on their stuff. At first I thought it was it was incredibly gross but once I realized it wasn't a danger zone for little ones I think it is actually a pretty good idea.

1st road trip

This weekend is our first away games of the regular season.

One of the younger guys on the team was nice enough to get some movies for the 5.5 hour bus ride. So what does a basketball team living in 2014 watch on a bus ride? This trip we have Jaws and Frozen.

How you know you're lifting in Japan

This is how you know you're lifting in Japan: when you try to use the mirror but this is all you see.

Maybe I could find a couple extra mirrors and duct tape them up there :)

Park golf

The same day I was out and happened to see the hummer bike (previous post) I also saw something else I'd never really seen before. I never saw it last year in Kyoto and only once or twice when we were in Chiba 2 years ago. I was in a sports store and walked past something that looked like a golf putter but with a really big head on it. Interested, I stopped to see what itwas.

I guess out here they have something called park golf. I guess you could say it is like mini golf out on grass/a small course. Or maybe you could call it a cross between mini golf and croquet. I thought it sounded like fun and wanted to see how much the "putter" would cost. If you look at the picture you might be able to see the price- it means $1500. (Or about $1458 give or take) I thought maybe it was typo but the one next to it and the one next that one was the same price. $1500? I could buy a car for that much and drive the ball to where it needs to go and set it in the hole. 

There were some clubs, or whatever the correct terminology would be, that were cheaper but I could buy a whole set of real golf clubs, and nice ones for that much. Maybe there's more to this club though. Maybe it can cook you food while you're out for your round of park golf or maybe let you take a ride on a rainbow, I don't know. But , for $1500 there must be something special!!!

Oh, and the balls are about the size of a tennis ball, but hard.  $23 for those suckers.

P.s. If someone would like to take me, I love to go try it.

A hummer?

Yesterday we had off and I went to a few different stores looking for things for the family. One of the things I was looking for was a bike. I am hoping to find a used one so it will be cheaper and probably still really nice. One of the bike shops didn't have any used bikes but they did have this.

This is a yellow hummer bike. That red and white checkered seat would have been a sweet addition but that is from a different bike. If you want to own a hummer or tell your friends you have a hummer without spending all that money for a big one with 4 wheels. You can pick this 2-wheeled, 1 seated version up for a little over $300. I do have to say though for $300 it needs to have some sort of key to start it or some special amenity for that price. What do you think.? (They also  had a Chevrolet bike)

Fashion show

Yesterday our team was part of a fashion show. It was a real fashion show with a runway and everything. When we got there the girls going down the runway were showing off active wear. Somebody also said that wedding dresses were being shown as well as fall collections. (As I was sitting eating dinner yesterday with the tv on they did a story on it and this a picture from the TV story).

I do have to say though we probably had to best at working the runway................. Or something like that

Dinner and sumo

Tonight I sat down to eat dinner and when I turned on the tv sumo was on. I think there are 4 tournaments a year so it's not on all that much and it was nice to sit down and watch it - it's pretty cool.

Tokyo University Performance - Precision

One of my teammates showed me this video. It is from a university here in Japan and this was a performance they did in Tokyo. Could we maybe see something like this in 2020 when the Olympics come to Japan?

This video is the whole performance the put on.

Check it out - pretty cool

 

Let me know what you think

Where I stay

In one of my other posts I mentioned that right now I am staying in an apartment/dorm with some of the others. I thought I would include some pictures from the area. Our dorm, looking down the street toward the mountains, and one of the many rice fields around here with the mountains in the distance.

Holiday Card

Merry Christmas (a little early)

Stationery Card

View the entire collection of cards.

Good English

Today i was down in the laundry room and happen to notice this as the name of one of our dryers.

Okay, the steam dryer part makes sense, but what about the line below it?

Does that mean the machine spins the clothes around in an oval or almost round motion? or does it mean that the inside drum is almost round? Or could it be that this was sold as a discount because the manufacturing process was a little off, where the correctly put together machines say "simple round clothes dryer"?  But since it was close and the thing still works well they just say "roundish"?

Or, and most likely, is it just a simple case of great English :). ?

Shoes

AndShoes in Japan are an interesting thing. When you go into a building, like a house or a restaurant (or even a gym) you have to leave your shoes by the door. There is usually an area for this, like a little step that you need to leave your shoes at. Then when you go into a building where you take your shoes, you put on your inside shoes. Most of the time these are slippers.most places you go have inside slippers for you to wear. At the gyms there is a big box of slippers that you can grab some from. If you go to someone's house they usually have slippers there for you to wear. In the picture you can see the entry way of the dorm\apartment where most of the players live. The shoes below the step are outside shoes and the slippers above the step are the inside shoes.

And, there are some places inside the house, like a carpeted room or a tatami room where you take your inside shoes/slippers off. I don't know if I completely understand it yet, even after 3 years I am still learning, but I think I have a pretty good idea.

Stretch pole

As an athlete is it important to take care of my body, as I need it to be able to work. Massage is a good way to help muscles loosen up or recover, so if there a tight muscle it doesn't cause bigger problems down the road. One way to do this is using a foam roll or "stretch pole." There are many different kinds you can buy that come in different sizes. As you can see from the picture we have a few different ones on our team. Some are very soft and some are very hard. I prefer the latter as I feel it really helps my muscles the most. You can go online and buy one for $20 to $30 or you can do what I do and go to your local home store and pick one, a hard PVC pipe, up for about $5. I brought one over when I flew to Japan almost 2 weeks ago but last weekend when we played our preseason games in Akita it decided it wanted to stay. So, it was back to the home store and for $4 I was able to get another one in a lovely shade of grey.

Country in one song

Over here in Japan you pretty much get 2 types of music: j-pop (Japanese pop music) or top 40 hits (actually everywhere we have been when you turn on the radio you usually get one or two top 40s stations and that is pretty much it for music, maybe if you're lucky there will be a station that plays some older hits too).

But country? Outside of the U.S. It's pretty much non-existent. Even in Australian where Keith Urban is from, people (at least those we ran into) knew Keith Urban only from the fact that he is married to Nicole Kidman. Crazy if you ask me.

Anyway, I was riding in the car with a Japanese player and he asked me what kind of music I liked. When I said country he said he didn't know what that was and asked me to play a song so he could hear what country is.

Wow........big question!

I didn't know what to choose so I played him my favorite song at the time - Pirate Flag by Kenny Chesney.

The song is a phenomenal song and I still really like it but looking back on it I don't think it was the best song to sum up country music.

For those of you that like country music, what song would you say sums it up in one song? If you had only one song to pick that would represent country music, what would it be? Could you even pick only one? Would you go old or new? Or is there something that would blend them both?

After thinking about it for a while I now think I would go with Hillbilly Deluxe, by Brooks and Dunn. Upbeat like newer country but still has a little twang, and from a group that was around for a long time.

Good choice? What would you choose?

The 2 songs I mentioned:

 

Akita

This weekend we are in Akita (northern Japan- took us 8 hours by bus to get here) to play 2 preseason games. One Saturday, and one on Sunday. Both games however are not in the same gym or even in the same city. After our game yesterday (which we won), we had to get on the bus and drive another 1.5 hours. The drive we took wasn't on a major highway but rather a country road through the hills. We went through and past many rice paddys and felt like we were driving in the forest quite a bit. I have to say the two things together, with the rice paddys tucked up against the trees was very cool to see. Akita will be a big rival for us but I their prefecture (their state) is quite beautiful.

And now for one more win today and this trip will be really beautiful.

The field (what looks yellow) is all rice paddy. If there was a flat open space it was pretty much covered in rice.

Yummy

Tonight I was lucky enough to be invited out for dinner. We went to yakiniku, which is a restaurant that has a grill in the center of the table. The wait staff brings you beef, pork, chicken, squid or whatever you order (all sliced very thin) and you cook over the flames of the grill. Delicious! One of the beef plates they brought tonight was a type of beef that literally melted in your mouth. It was so good!

And., we also tried beef sashimi tonight. Sashimi means raw, so they brought a plate of raw slimy beef - it actually wasn't too bad. Don't know if I would eat a ton of it but it wasn't too bad.

Sloppy running

 Today we had practice and the gym was HOT. We went for a good two hours but by the end of practice my feet were sliding around in my shoes and it felt like my teammate dumped his water bottle in them. (Good defense if you ask me.) But I guess it wasn't that far from the truth. I tipped my shoes up after  I took them off and this is what I got.

Dinner

Here in toyama many of the team members stay in an apartment building/dorm and there is a wonderful lady who cooks meals for the guys. This is dinner. Oishi (delicious) - Arigatou/thank you!

They dont mess around out here

Today we found out that we have a protein sponsor for the year. We also found out that it wont be a 2.2 lb bag, 5 lb tub, or even a 10 lb container - that's all to measly. Over here they get serious. Look at the picture - that's a 45 kg (about 100 lbs) bin of protein. The thing doesn't even come with a scoop to get it out, you have to use a shovel.

They say we can have it for after practice or when we need it but I'm not messing around. Why just drink it when you can take a bath in it? Protein helps your body recover so I might as well sleep in the thing too.

If the next time you see me, I have a delightful vanilla aroma to me, don't worry, it's only because I have protein-ified my body and have it running through my veins. And, because this is so fantastic I have even asked the team to change the number on the back of my jersey to just a simple word - protein. This might also help me not foul as the refs will have a hard time showing my number to the scorers table and maybe call less fouls. This is such a good idea... Don't you think?

Thank you protein

Made it

Well, I made it back to Japan safely this year. My flight on Air Canada over the ocean was great. The wonderful stewardesses gave me extra meals for both meal services (1 extra meal on the first meal service and 2 extra meals on the second) and were very friendly. Would definitely recommend that airline if you have the chance to fly with them.
Even the though the flight over was nice the trip didn't go without a hiccup. When I got to Tokyo I went to get my bag from the baggage claim, but instead of my blue suitcase coming around on the carousel I was greeted with a green plastic bin that said "Joseph Werner please see an airline employee." Well, because I am smart I knew I probably hadn't won $5 or something really cool like that and something, probably no good, was up. I was right. I was informed that my bag hadn't made the trip. I guess it wanted to spend some more time in Vancouver, where I flew from, and didn't make it to Tokyo......................fantastic (sarcastic). Its not that big of deal, only that I have pretty much everything I need in there. But I guess I can always cut two holes in a garbage bag and put it on if I need some more undies, so no big deal.
Other than that though alls well and it is nice to be here.

This year we will be in Toyama, Japan.

The past 2 seasons we have been in Chiba (on the east side of Tokyo) and Kyoto (right next to Osaka). This year we are pretty much right in the middle of those two places, only to the north. This team has been pretty successful the past couple of years and we are hoping to have another successful season again. Katy and the girls will be coming over in a couple weeks once I can get the apartment situated and set up (and I am already excited for them to come).

According to wikipedia:
Toyama Prefecture (富山県 Toyama-ken^?) is a prefecture (state) of Japan located in the Hokuriku region on the main Honshu island (main Island of Japan). The capital is the city of Toyama.
Toyama is the leading industrial prefecture on the Japan Sea coast, and has the industrial advantage of cheap electricity from abundant hydroelectric resources. It also contains East Asia’s only glaciers outside Russia, first recognized in 2012.
<sup>The city we will live in, Toyama city, has about 417,000 people.

View the rest of the blog here: http://katyandjoey.blogspot.jp/ and thanks for reading</sup>

Japanese Red

Here in Japan mnay people use the trains and public transportation to get to and from where they want to go as it is so easy and convenient. Here the price of your house or apartment, of course depends on how big it is, but the closer you are to the train station the more expensive your place will be.
Even though the trains are easy to use and get you to where you want to go pretty quickly, there are still many cars that drive. This past week we had many sponsor visits to say thank you to our sponsors and had go many places in the car. For the most part Japanese drivers are very courteous and follow the traffic laws. There is one thing that I get quite a kick out of though.
Here if you are at an intersection and need to turn to go across traffic you usually have to wait. Once the light goes red you get a green turn arrow. At some of the lights the normal green light is fairly long but the green turn arrow might be only 5 seconds (or something very short). This doesn't seem to work so well when there is a long line of cars waiting to turn. So the Japanese people have figured out how 'get around' this little problem.
 
If you are going straight at a light and the light goes yellow, you wont see many people speeding up to go through it. Once the light goes yellow the majority of people slow down right away, some even slow down a little when they are approaching the green in case it goes yellow (we have had quite a few taxi drivers who operated this way). A turn arrow is a different story.
Once a green turn arrow goes yellow though, it is your cue to get moving. There have been numerous times, maybe every time, where the green turn arrow has gone from green to yellow and then to red and still 3 cars will go. The most I have seen is 5 cars go after the light has turned to red. I am not sure if it is just the custom to do that here or not, but I am guessing the police let it go if everyone participates.
I have to say I haven't seen it like this anywhere else we have lived and it had lead us Americans over here to call it: the Japanese red.

Red Triangles

Here in Kyoto there are many apartments buildings. If you look at one of the apartment buildings you will see some windows have red triangles on them. For a while we thought this was a company's logo and that this company had almost all of the buildings. But, we found out this week that the red triangles are the 'emergency exits' or windows that can open. This makes it easier for the fire depart to be able to get people out if there is a fire or an emergency.

Katys Birthday - forgot to post

Katys birthday was a while ago now but we made sure she had a good day.
In the morning when we woke up we made Crepes. We got different fruit and some peanut butter to go inside and of course we got some whipped topping to make them even yummier (Myla liked the cream too :) - I am surprised Katy's crepes had any cream left as Myla liked to lick it all off).
Then after breakfast we went to Fushimi Inari Shrine. Here Katy got to take part in a Shinto ceremony and was blessed by a Shinto priest after he said a prayer for her. After her blessing she was given a small box of things to take home -rice, seaweed, and one other thing and she asked if she needed to eat it all to have a good year :)

 


Then in the afternoon we had a basketball game so she took the girls there.

The game was in the afternoon so when we finished we had some time to go out for dinner. We wanted to do something that we hadnt done before and went to Shabu Shabu. If you get a chance to try this I definitely recommend this. Shabu Shabu is where you have a big pot of sauce - ir at our restaurant, 2 sauces. One of them was a chicken based sauce and the other was a fish based sauce.

When you sit down at the table you turn your pot of sauce on so it heats up and starts to boil. When the sauce is hot you take the very thin slices of beef (or pork if you choose) and drop them in the sauce where it cooks. You also get dishes of vegetables that you can put in the sauce. This a very healthy meal and one that was very good. I think there are some shabu-shabu that are not all you can eat, but the one that we went to was. So, all we had to do was open up the menu (there was pictures) and we could point to what we want. We had an hour to eat (many of the all-you-can-eat places here have a time limit of 60 or 90 minutes) and we pretty much had the restaurant to ourselves as we went after our game. This was out first time and we really liked it; it costed about $30 a person but it was well worth it. I would recommend it if you make a trip to Japan and would like a nice a meal and want to try something Japanese! Myla really enjoyed it as she was able to help put the all the veggies and the glass noodles in the sauce, and had fun eating all the different types of food that we were able to get.