Dinner with UMaine Alumni

One event I left off of day 3's journal was our evening dinner with some Japanese UMaine alumni. We had a shabu shabu meal and it was all you can eat and all you can drink. Some of us took that more seriously than others, however I did have one nice drink called a cassis orange, and a couple small cups of sake that were quite nice. Myself, Jacques and Kenneth had the opportunity to dine with Tom Naguchi, a political science alumni from 1984 and his daughter Orono, named after the town. Tom had his 1984 yearbook which was a lot of fun to look through and we discussed the changes in college hang-outs since he was there. He was also gracious enough to show us how to dine shabu shabu style (see link below) and cooked for us. Orono's english was wonderful so we got to learn a little about the Japanese school system. All students through highschool wear uniforms and in her class she receives "money" for speaking in english in class, which can be turned in for prizes; similar to some American school reward systems. We have actually seen many very young school children walking alone in the metro and on the streets. Keiko says it is because parents want their kids to attend the best private school so often they have a long way to travel. Tokyo isn't a safe as it used to be though so this can be dangerous.

Since my camera is so heavy, I decided not to take it along for this event so unfortunately I do not have a picture of Tom and Orono. However, Dr. Jones did set up a photobucket account for our trip that others have been and will be loading photos to (not me, I have too many!) so if you'd like to check them out visit MBA Japan Trip Photos.

Also, here is a link to Wikipedia's shabu shabu page if you're interested in what it is. It was delicious!