Sunday, September 20th

My host family enjoys hosting barbecues. Today they held their second barbecue since the time I arrived about three weeks ago. I wasn't expecting to attend this many barbecues in Japan, but I'm not complaining. Both Otousan and Okaasan know how to grill, but usually Otousan grills outside, Ryosuke helps with setting up the yard (disassembling the laundry lines, bringing out chairs and tables, and setting up the grill), while Okaasan and Yoko prepare the food for grilling (cutting up meat and vegetables, wrapping vegetables in tin foil, and preparing drinks). Today they had about fifteen people over, which is quite a crowd for small Japanese living quarters. However, my host family has a somewhat spacious backyard, so most of the guests sat in the backyard and talked and ate food, while a few people stayed inside and sat at the table. My family grilled beef, sausage, green pepper, mushrooms, bean sprouts, sweet potato, and fish. I decided to be adventurous and sample the fish eyes. I had never eaten animal eyes before, but people eat fish eyes in China, and my friend from Perù eats sheep eyes in soup sometimes. I ate two fish eyes, and I thought they were kind of dried out from the grilling and that they do not have any special flavor of their own, so the flavor was not especially pleasing or displeasing. Everyone was tired by the end of the barbecue, but after everyone left I had to finish my Japanese language class homework that was due the following morning.