Two Meals in One Day

With the end of the year comes invites to parties. At many companies and schools it is common to regularly have dinner parties, called enkai, when nearly all of your co-workers go out officially for a meal. The regularity at which a company has enkais can vary widely, but most companies will at least have a bonenaki, the end of the year dinner party.

We were invited to a bonenkai at my company on December 10, and by a happy twist of fate, one of Becky’s co-workers invited us to lunch the same day as a Christmas present to us. So we had yummy Tibetan curry for lunch in Miki, and we went to Kobe in the evening to meet a few of my co-workers for dinner.

The enkai in Kobe wasn’t really a typical enkai. It was mostly to welcome me to the company but also to meet Becky. And it wasn’t a big company wide party at all but really just the core people I work with, plus the boss’s daughter, who attends an international school and is bilingual.

We went to one of the most popular Chinese restaurants in town, an old-school family owned place. We were served dish after dish, many of which were new to us, but all of which were delicious.

What evening to the downtown is complete without something weird? On this night it was a parade of trikes parked outside Sannomiya Station. The riders of the most outrageous trike, with Louis Vuitton design, were wearing Santa suits to top it all off.