Working Title: November 2007

The day after Thanksgiving is a national holiday in Japan so all of our university and career friends had Friday off. My fellow Journeyman and I decided to throw a somewhat traditional Thanksgiving party for our Japanese friends. We had two turkeys, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, green bean casserole, mac & cheese, salad, rolls, stuffing, dressing, cucumber salad, deviled eggs, sweet potato pie, pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin spice cupcakes, banana bread, fudge, birthday cake and more. And all of this was made by us young and somewhat inexperienced cooks. About 30 of our friends showed up to enjoy a traditional American Thanksgiving meal. It was great to meet some of the friends my fellow Journeyman are always talking about, and I can't tell you how cool it was to see all of our friends from various universities meeting each other. We shared a little about the reason we celebrate Thanksgiving as Christians and had an amazing night of fellowship and fun.

One of the highlights of the night was when three students from three different universities who had never met before or played together before put on a special concert. Yae from Chiba University and Satoshi from Keio University both happened to have their violins with them at the party. And Kaori from Kanda University was able to use our keyboard to play piano for us. Together the three of them played a few traditional Christmas carols and then took requests for other popular songs. They played "Silent Night," "Edelwiess," "My Favorite Things," "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town," and much more. Below are a few pictures and videos of our new band (hopefully coming soon!) as well as a video of those who attended the party.