Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Christmas 2016 in Moscow

Christmas in Moscow - 2016

The metro - at 6 pm on a weekday!

We finally made it to White Rabbit - ranked #18 in the WORLD! I'm not sure about that, but the atmosphere was definitely great. I need to go back in the evening though - the lighting would be gorgeous. We went with our US friends Tim & Elisa and their daughter. We neglected to get a picture of all of us though!
Cute!

Love, love, love the decor

Craig... before the bill (lol) and before Tim & Elisa arrived













The $30 bread basket - you've got to be kidding me!
The very unique butter holder - looks kind of like chocolate... or something worse


A free pre-dinner snack - turnip I believe it was

Craig... after the bill (lol)

The new Vlad the Redeemer statue near the Kremlin

One of the Kremlin towers




Christmas lights by Red Square

One of the many trees around town - this one near Red Square


"Se novim godim" - meaning basically Happy New Year



Christmas day dinner at Chicago Prime steak house






The Christmas lights looking towards the entrance to Red Square


Lights in front of the Bolshoi Theatre





Saturday, December 3, 2016

Japanese dinner - November 30, 2016

Japanese dinner:
I am most grateful for the unique opportunities we have while living here in Moscow. One of my favorite things is being invited to dinner in the homes of our attache friends.
It is such a pleasure to be able to experience food and culture from around the world and to meet all these wonderful people!

Our gracious hosts: Kazuya & Shinobu are a wonderful couple who treated us so warmly to the hospitality in their home. We were joined by Ilknur and Murat from Turkey and Sybren from the Netherlands. His lovely wife Ria was unable to join us because she was back home awaiting the arrival of their first grandchild!

Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures of the wonderful food we were served, but it was plentiful and impressive.

1st course:
Salad with wasabi dressing (yes, I cried)
Pumpkin
Boiled horseradish (thankfully, no longer spicy after boiled)

2nd course:
Deep fried shrimp
3 different flavors of chicken
carrot

3rd course:
Fish soup (not my favorite)
Chicken and mushroom rice
Chopped Japanese greens
Pickled radish (tasted like a pickle)

Dessert:
They called it "pudding", but it was a gelatin-ized  custard type consistency with a caramel sauce on top and accompanied by strawberry, raspberry and grapes.
The beautiful wedding kimono they allowed us to try on.



After dinner we went back into the den for more drinks and then we found each others homes in our respective countries on google earth. That was interesting to see!
As a parting gift they gave us a gift bag with the little cedar boxes we drank saki out of, the chopsticks, our name tags with the origami Santa and reindeer, a pen and a small towel.