Day 171 in Japan - Back to the Daily Grind...

Today was the first day back at work after the winter break. So, we had an Opening Ceremony at Akashi Kita - now that the novelty has worn off, it's a bit boring to stand in a hall listening to speeches that would be boring even if I could understand them... particularly when it was so cold my toes got first numb and then painful. I didn't had too much school work to do, but I prepared for my first classes that will start on Friday, and started to get some ESS activities lined up.

The pond in the middle of my school was frozen over this morning.
This was  taken in the afternoon, after a full day of sun.

Tonight, we had dinner with Mai at ramen restaurant. Missed catching up with her! It has been quite a while, because she also went travelling a little over the winter holidays. We won't see her for a little while again, because she is off to Belgium and Amsterdam with her mother for a week or so coming up, so she'll be very busy. We were really glad that we went to our local ramen place with her, because apparently there are a billion options when you order ramen - do you want "deep taste" or "not deep taste" (nope, still don't get that one), onion or no onion, fatty pork or lean pork, more oil or less oil, more meat or less meat, etc. etc. We wouldn't have made it through that ordering process, that's for sure!

Food Highlight of the Day: Kotteri Ramen - Mai exaplined it as "deep" ramen, and kottori means thickly, richly, heavily. It was a nice thick broth with good tasting pork. Yum!