Even though Japan does not celebrate Thanksgiving, we want you all to know that we did not miss out. The culture committee at our school planned a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner for all the staff and teachers that were interested. After we found out it was an all you can eat buffet, we made sure we went for our hour walk/run that day to ensure we had a good appetite. The dinner was held at the Hilton Sea Hawk Hotel (near the Yahoo Dome) which is about 2 miles away from our place. We rode our bikes to the hotel. This was the first time we actually set foot in this hotel. It was quite impressive. It had huge windows facing the bay and a large open lobby which was already decorated for Christmas. Our buffet room was in the far corner surrounded by windows and facing the water. The food table in our room was filled with all the traditional Thanksgiving dishes as well as a few desserts. We were all anxious to start eating. Then we found out we could also select food from all of the other buffet bars as well. Hello crab legs, beef carpaccio, tempera, scallops, pizza, curry, etc…plus a sinfully overloaded dessert bar (which we visited 5 times). While we still would have rather been home with friends and family this was not a bad consolation prize. We are already looking forward to having Thanksgiving dinner here next year.
It started to rain later in the evening, meaning we would have to take a cab back to our place. This also meant we would have to walk back to the hotel in the morning to get our bikes. Instead of complaining, we decided to drown our sorrows in another serving of bread pudding (covered in caramel sauce). 🙂