A joint party with the next lab

The 4th floor of our No. 3 building harbors two laboratories, Lab of Marine Biochemistry (mine) and Lab of Fisheries Biology. Though we share the same floor, people in both laboratory, especially students, are have been rather stranger each other, partly because the two labs belong to different departments of the graduate school and the students have less chance to share classrooms.
So we held a mixer last night. Staffs and students donated snacks and cooked out several meals to enjoy cans of beer and some other drinks. In addition, a student in another lab kindly donated several pieces of fresh mackerel, which had donated their pituitary glands for his PhD research and then were served as sashimi for us.
We enjoyed the party very much with many interesting talks, chatting, and much lough, almost until 2 o'clock. I hope this kind of informal interaction promote further good interactions in academic and social activities between the two lab.

Visiting my hometown, Anjo city

We had a 33-years Buddhist memorial service for my grandmother in my parents' house. It was almost 10 to 15 years ago since a majority of my relatives got together last; some of them are quite old now, late 70's and 80's. On the other hand, it should be nice for my kids to meet their cousins after a long time.
In the service, after sutra recitation by a priest for 1 hr, we had a lunch party together. Then we all visited our grave by 10 min' walk. Though I'm just a part-time Buddhist, the holy feeling was nice to recall memories on my grandfather, grandmother, and two uncles, who had passed away until several years ago.

Then my sisters kindly prepared a BBQ party. It was much fun!