Farewell to Yukiyo

Last Friday was the final day for our assistant manager, Yukiyo. We are going to miss her - she was always great with our students and super helpful to us foreign teachers. I remember on my second day in Utsunomiya, Yukiyo took me to the city office to apply for my identity card. She sat with me and we got to talk for a while - I think Yukiyo always has a friendly calming effect on people.

Here's the restaurant we went to - it's "famous" (as Michel loves to say) for its grilled lamb:
Michiko, Yasuko, and I split an excellent bottle of cabernet to get things started and then I dug into (or chopped into, I guess, since I was using chopsticks) some kimchi:
There were gas burners at each table with a cast iron grill pan that was raised in the middle - it's called a Genghis Khan pan - probably because the type of food is really Mongolian in origin I think - that and the pan kinda looks like a Mongol hat (in my imagination anyway). You put the meat in the center on the dome and surround it with veggies. The meat was marinated in either sesame or peanut oil which made it taste fantastic.
Here are some various shots at the table. Yasuko and me:
Michel and me:
Yoshiko and Sayaka (who is laughing hysterically about something - something to do with the bib she was wearing I think):
Here's the whole gang (Michiko must have moved in the pic as she's the only blurry one):
And here is dear Yukiyo trying to keep it together (we made her cry twice, poor thing)
It was a blast and I went home with a tummy full of wine, lamb, veggies, kimchi, and apple sour...


...I had a stomach ache the next morning.


(...but it was worth it)