Bōnenkai in Berkeley

Last Saturday, Dan and I went to a bonenkai at Zabu Zabu in Berkeley to celebrate the end of 2009 with friends. For those that aren’t familiar with what a bōnenkai is, Wikipedia offers a good description:

A bōnenkai (in Japanese, 忘年会, literally meaning “forget the year gathering”) is a Japanese drinking party that takes place at the end of the year, and is generally held among groups of co-workers or friends. The purpose of the party, as its name implies, is to forget the woes and troubles of the past year, usually by consumption of large amounts of alcohol.

The Japanese love bōnenkais, and in Japan, it’s typical to go to several throughout December with various groups of friends, classmates, and colleagues. It’s a good excuse for them to do what they do best. 😉 This time, we got together with some friends from the SF Bay Area Japanese Language and Culture Meetup and celebrated over all-you-can-eat shabu shabu. It was fun to catch up with friends we hadn’t seen in a while, as well as meet newcomers and make new friends.

Dan and I both love shabu shabu and we stuffed ourselves so much that we were still very full for much of the day on Sunday. haha* But we’ll be going back soon enough — there’s only so long we can stay away from those savory thin slices of meat!

A huge thanks to Kyoko-san, who worked so hard to plan the bōnenkai and made it such a big success!