Receptions: Double the Fun

Day 2 of the wedding festivities. After an interesting hodge-podge of japanese and american breakfast favorites at the hotel, we headed off to the first of two wedding receptions for David and Nana. The first reception was for family only and was planned by Nana's older brother. This fact amused and amazed Lisa and I to no end. We could not imagine any one of our three brothers being willing to, much less capable of planning a beautiful reception to honor our marriages. It was an interesting blend of many different countries and cultures. It was held at an Irish Tea House, where we were served a beautiful 7 course meal of french cuisine, while listening to a lovely performance of an Italian opera aria while hanging out on the west coast of Japan. Who would guess? David had asked my mom and Lisa to sing at this reception, but late in the game. No one had any time to pick out a song and practice. The morning of, my mom decided she didn't feel well enough to participate. Lisa did not want to let David down, and picked a Celtic love song she had recently performed at a vocal recital. It was lovely, albeit acapella with no time to set up any music. My mom was also scheduled to play piano. That was also not communicated by David very well and without any time to practice and being in a bad place physically and mentally, it was not as smooth as it could have been. The meal was incredible. Nana had requested, very kindly and with late notice, two vegetarian meals for Lisa and I (the Japanese really didn't get the whole Vegan thing, I was so grateful there just wasn't any meat. I have really lost the taste for it!)





At the end of the meal, Nana and David cut a beautiful cake and then personally served it to all their guests to thank them for coming.










They also handed out a giant bag full of gifts. Two beautiful tea cups in a wooden case, a box of cle-
mentines, a perfectly packaged mango. (Who packages a mango? The Japanese. As they should at nearly $10 a mango!) And a box of shortbread cookies. They also stood at the door as each guest left handing out more parting gifts.





After the first reception we headed back to the hotel for about an hour break before the next reception started. I had spotted the back of a giant buddha from our hotel window and wanted to see it up close. Lisa needed a break of silence so Kurtis and I headed out to find it. We did without any problem and it was another hidden gem. We explored the shrine which had the actual shrine in the middle and a circular hallway of paintings on wood of all kinds of gory scenes. The descriptions were in Japanese only, so I have no idea exactly what story they were depicting, but they were fabulous, none the less.

After the quick Buddha detour, we started off for the second reception. This was a party that both Nana's brother and Nana's ward had planned. Because of those two details (the only two details known to us.), I figured it would be a "ward-house special" type of reception. You know what I mean, in a ward house gym with a receiving line and a piece of cake. No dancing, no real socializing. We Utah mormons are famous for our deadly boring wedding receptions! I was so wrong. The ward had rented out a nice hall in a building and had decorated it to the hilt in a pink passion theme. (Not my taste, but also much better than I had imagined.) Apparently, 1/3 of Nana's ward is from Brazil and they know how to throw a decent party. The food was plentiful and interesting-- blending meat and salads from Brazil with sushi and rice from Japan. The ward had asked several missionaries from the area to translate for David's English speaking family. The ratio worked out to be about 1 missionary translator per person, but the missionaries were so grateful for a break from the normal everyday ho-hum activities they mostly just visited with us and each other. It was also evident from spending time with them that Japanese is a lot harder to learn than David made it look. They all were still struggling with the language and really could only translate about 1/2 of what was going on. It was still most welcome after sitting and smiling blankly for 4 hours at the first reception, which had been completely in Japanese.

The program at the second reception was hilarious. There were several kids from the ward that we affectionately called "street urchins". They would run around David and Nana and the hall like wild animals. They wouldn't leave poor David and Nana alone. (At one point I was sure David was going to swat them away with his hands). Members of the ward also reenacted David and Nana's courtship as well as providing a musical number that included Japanese beat boxing. They had David and Nana play the newlywed game for almost an entire hour. At the very end of the reception, David and Nana presented their parents with giant bouquets of flowers to say thank you for raising them. It was a sweet touch.

With both receptions behind them, David and Nana could not wait to get some alone time back at the hotel. The rest of us were also grateful to be in our quiet hotel rooms, resting up for the journey in our rental car back to Tokyo. Luckily for everyone, David and Nana would not be joining us in the car. They would take a train to Kyoto to start their well-deserved honeymoon. Kurtis had a flight out of Tokyo Sunday and opted to take the train back so he would be at the airport in time for his flight. This would leave only Lisa, my Mom and I to try to use the Japanese GPS (all in Kanji and spoken japanese) to try and find our way back to Shinjuku to the car return in the basement of the train station. We were all a bit nervous for that, but were grateful to have a good nights sleep before tackling that adventure.