Luxurious living in June

So DK set off on his work trip. I was a bit concerned as since arriving in Japan we haven't really been apart.

That day I went to lunch. To a restaurant at the end of a canal. It was great. The four of us sat outside protected from the sun under an awning and looked out over the water. We then went round to visit a Venezuelan woman selling Japanese pottery in someone else's house!

I had time to get out my sewing machine. Making a shirt using a Vogue pattern. (predictive texting suggested a fag pattern!)  I specialise in clothes that don't fit me in material I like - think the pattern needed a more draping fabric rather than cotton! Oh well onto the next one!

 

And of course I could go for curry, I went to the place that A and G ate at on their visit. I decided to go for the thali as I thought if I ordered separate dishes I would end up with a mountain of food. Instead I ended up a mountain range of food, the naan bread was absolutely enormous. I was so stuffed I had to come home and drink mint tea to help with my digestion! The next day at the Farmers Market I had another curry!

I also went to the hairdressers. Up till now I've been using one Dominic had found. This one was certainly posher and I was in a room on my own. The whole process took two hours!  I wandered down the hill and got a coffee and went for a wander and a sit down in the fabulous park nearby. From the map I could see there was a library in the park so went to have a look.  I arrived and asked where I could put my empty coffee cup and was told there were no bins. I pointed outside and asked if there was a bin. There wasn't. The woman pointed to the coin lockers. So I left my coffee cup and some of my other detritus and went to read a couple of magazines. Collecting the contents of the coin locker before I left.


You might find a recycling bin by a drinks machine or one in the equivalent of a Seven 11 shop. There are no bins on the street or in parks.

On my list for a while has been to visit Nippori also known as fabric town.  The place is packed with fabric shops.

On Tuesday I went out with a couple of people from Berlitz for another curry!  

The Issey Miyake exhibition which people had raved about was closing soon. I hadn't understood before that his clothes are just folds of fabric. if you lift a garment up by the straps it's a bit like a Christmas paper decoration.  It suddenly develops form and a dress appears! Pretty amazing.  On the way there I spotted this old house - in the centre of Tokyo.

Met a mate for a walk along a valley and then had dinner together....yes curry but totally different this time as I had a glass of wine with it. 

Invited to watch a parade 3 of us waited in the cool of a building. Fumie called the shrine from where the procession...running 20 mins late.  We waited some more. She then went outside to check- the lack of people had seemed strange. We were in the wrong street!  We hurried along and caught the parade.  We then went to see the guest place at the palace which is not open very often.

Saturday I headed off to an ikebana session - I chose my leaves and a thistle type flower.  I of course realised it was a true thistle after I'd caught my hand on the thorny bits a few times.  I couldn't decide where to eat...so you've guessed it - another curry !

Having a coffee the person next to me nipped off to the loo....leaving her handbag, computer and phone.  This is absolutely normal in Tokyo ...

DK returned from his work trip so we went to check out the local irises....as it is iris season. He struggled through the rest of the week.  At the weekend he'd promised me coffee - and here it is!

Bods here mad about animal cafes. I went to the hedgehog one.  Do you think this fella is confused by the fabric of my dress?

Manic May

We got back off holiday and I started an intensive Japanese course. Going to lessons every afternoon. I was in a group of eight and joined a week in. The others were able to write and read hiragana.  I scribbled manically trying to decipher the text rather than being able to read instantly from it. Turns out the student next to me had studied Japanese in college for a year! 

What got me through it!

Teacher on left  a bit shy! So I presented certificate to student

One evening we met up with Wei a friend from Shanghai vision days. He was in Tokyo on a conference. Dominic said we were going for a curry and I was delighted. However we queued up with the 20 people from the conference to go into the ninja restaurant!  We had to go in in sets of five and be led through the corridors and shown the various trapdoors! I was tired and was not amused by this delay in me getting food. We sat down and had pate with crackers in the shape of some ninja weapon. We then had gazpacho... And so the strange mix went on.  Wei asked Dominic if he could stand up and tell people what his first impressions were of working in Japan.  Then everyone stood up and did their summary of the conference.  They were all incredibly motivated by their experience here. We left them to go on drinking and we returned home.

C & M came to visit. I was so excited I woke up at 5:30 when their plane landed.  I decided to get up and do some lesson prep but it was soon 7am and they were ringing the doorbell. Well actually they had rung the doorbell of other neighbours twice.  oops!

We went to Akihabara otherwise known as Electric Town. We headed for Yodabashi Camera.  I stayed on one floor which was full of model making kits of all kinds of stuff as well as Gacha Gacha machines.  They show what the series of plastic things are: cats on sushi, parrots, hamsters in various poses. You put your money in and the thing comes out in a plastic ball. 

Yes it really is a whole bottle of whisky in a vending machine!

We came home via commune 246.  Basically a series of outdoor stalls selling different drinks and food. 

On Monday DK went to work and the rest of us went to the fish market together which was an experience. It sells $24 million of fish a day!  The plan afterwards was to go and eat sushi. However we'd seen fish in various states. In pools of blood, writhing on the floor with someone ready with a knife and a long bit of wire. Euch!  So no one said anything but we were no longer hungry for raw fish.  Instead we ate the samples from the many different food stalls nearby. 

The next day they headed off to Kyoto returning for the weekend. On Saturday we dashed over to Kamakura.  Where we saw the impressive Buddha and then caught an old fashioned train to go over to and around an island.  We had been there before but this time I did have the jellyfish ice cream.  All I will say is that the black sesame was better.  C queued up to get a prawn and a squid.  But they are mixed with some pancake type mix and came completely flattened as a big crispy wafer. 



On Sunday C had found a Time Out walk to do in a trendy area so this is what we did. It has a few French things in town including A Cordon Bleu cookery school. And we arrived to find a French festival going on! So Dominic and I had some French savoury pastries in other words - Pies!

We headed back home to a salad place we recently discovered that C loves.  C and M's second visit! 

Sadly M left which meant the next morning C and I did some work separately and then went out for a drink and a chat together. We went to some trendy organic kind of place. It had the green tea latte that C loves.  It also did decaffeinated coffee which is very unusual. I asked for a latte. That wasn't possible but I could have a drip coffee decaffeinated. I asked for some milk with it and was told that wouldn't be possible. However eventually it was!  We had a great time sitting out and chatting... How come you have the most meaningful conversations just before friends depart?
C then left to get a taxi to the train station to go to her business meeting in another part of Japan.

The rest of May disappeared quickly in a series of English and Japanese lessons.

It was our 15th wedding anniversary this year and I tried to book a posh lunch at Joel Robuchon's several months ago but the place was already busy. Well that's what it showed on the website but the problem was it didn't take bookings so far in advance. By the time I realised this it was actually full. Joel has another place in town which is less posh so I booked that instead. I joked with Dominic that we should go away for the weekend and he said we would see. I'm not sure why as we were both exhausted. The plan for the weekend was lots of nothing followed by lunch and then more nothing and reading papers.

DK had been trying different churches but decided to return to the original so we asked C and R if after church they would like to go to the trendy area for lunch which they did on the condition that we go to some random place they had been to before; a Yemen coffee shop that serves dates (and of course coffee).