Happy Thanksgiving! Kani Tabe Hoe-Down....

Happy Thanksgiving, faithful readers!

We didn't find turkey today. We had to settle for this:

かに食べ放題: A beautiful Japanese phrase. It means, "kani tabehoudai," or "All you can eat crab." We went to the New Miyako Hotel's amazing dinner buffet. This time of year, it features king crab legs. Grilled. Boiled. Tempura-style. On sushi. In salads. Darrin has been talking about this since we got reservations two weeks ago.

In this restaurant, the cooks actually cut the shells before serving. Behold:

Our boy Hugo was off to a strong start, putting down three plates of food right off the bat. Not only crab, but also noodles, buns, sushi, and other stuff that went down too fast for me to identify. After about 10 minutes, he thought he was done-for.

Max paced himself by alternating crab legs with 4 cups of Calpis from the "all you can drink bar."

Soon it was time for dessert. Revived, Hugo tried one of everything here. (If you think I'm kidding, then you have probably not met Hugo...)

Alek focused on the chocolate fondue.

Here's Darrin's first dessert: Green tea ice cream, chocolate ice cream, and tiny chou creams (cream puffs) coated in fondue. And 14 ounces of whiskey from the adult "all you can drink" bar. Still not kidding: I think Darrin was distracting the bartender with his new Japanese repartee.

Here's Max on dessert #3: Strawberry and caramel ice creams.

After some fondue and cake, Max thought he was done. But then he found out there was a soft-serve machine. So that led to Dessert #6:

Not to be outdone, Hugo managed to stuff in some soft-serve, too...

As the evening wore down, tabehoudai began to take its toll....

Do you see the lady sitting right behind me in the stripes? She came back from the dessert table with a plate piled with 2 linear feet of soft serve. Please--I am still not kidding. She polished that off, and went back for some more crab.

We waddled and walked back to Kyoto station....

And then these revelers were on their way home....looking like cute little salarymen coming home from an evening of work....

We are thankful for all the happy memories we have built so far in our time in Japan. And we hope you all have a wonderful and tasty day--Alex and Katie, we will miss having bacon and brussels sprouts with you!

Thanks to all of you for reading and sending your comments ..^_^..