Delicious 3-Day Weekend
Saturday [the 体育祭] was pretty boring. =\ Oh, well. I watched a bunch of it from the balcony of the teaching room so that I could be out of the sun and not in a crowd of parents and siblings. x_x; There were some really interesting activities which I'd try to explain in text but would fail at doing, so I won't bother trying. They were interesting, though - really.
Has anyone [in Japan] seen the ads all over the dang place for Starbucks' new convenience store drink, the Kyoto Matcha Latte? Because I tried one and they're delicious. They're more milky and matcha-y than the ones you get in the store, I think. Well, more everything-y I guess. Yes.
So remember how I was supposed to have a veritable strobe light of a week? My jr hs called the elementary school and they decided to just give me off Monday like everyone else at the jr hs, so I too have a 3-day weekend! Yay! Not only that, but I won't have to deal with teaching the little kids by myself. Hooray!
Saturday night, I met up with Takao outside Shinjuku station. He got like a 3-hour haircut which was very cute but (honestly) not worth 一万円 (~$95). But then, I've always had a problem spending that much money on stuff like that. He was also wearing some kind of sweater that cost an absurd amount of money, and his bag.. let's not go there. In fact, let's get out of this whole subject. Moving right along!
We went out to dinner at a Sri Lanken restaurant that I found in a book [lonelyplanet]. It was so delicious! Well, almost all of it. He got a soup of the day, and we shared deviled fish, garlic shrimp, some kind of flatbread and pumpkin curry. The deviled fish was soo good!! The garlic shrimp was -so- much more, and the flatbread was good too. The pumpkin curry was underwhelming, honestly. This was apparently his 2nd time being served by a gaijin waiter [!!!]. The first time was when I took him to my favorite Indian restaurant [!!!]. Sigh.. ethnocentricism.
Anyway, from there, we went to 2chome for a little while because Takao wanted to, and then we went back to my place. Saturday, we had brunch at Otaru, the really cheap kaiten zushi [rotating sushi] restaurant near my train station and then headed over to Ikebukuro. I introduced him to Sunshine City and we went to the planetarium, which turned out to be very romantic. We also spent a spell at Namco Namjatown, where we got in free thanks to a coupon Nick and I got when we bought the crazy ice creams. I also got some good cheese at a little supermarket-y store inside SC. Mmmm...! ^_^
After SC, we headed over to a bookstore to find a recipe for something to cook that night. I'd asked Takao last week what his favorite food was, and he said it was wantons. So I looked for veggie wanton recipes and found a really simple [but good-looking] avocado wanton recipe. Which is really just putting a bit of 'cado in a wanton square, folding and frying. But we needed to find something else to make too, obvs. We went to a big 9-floor bookstore in Ikebukuro. I dropped Takao off by the cookbooks on floor 2 and headed to the English books section on floor 9 to check out the English cookbooks. I found a nice-looking recipe in a book entitled On Toast, which is, you guessed it, all recipes involving putting stuff on various toasted bread products. What could be bad?
The recipe called for English muffins, but my supermarket was all out, so we got croissants instead. Toast and butter those. Then poach eggs [slide egg from cup into boiling water, cook 4 minutes until solid]. Drain on a paper towel. Finally, melt butter in a saucepan, cook spinach in there about 3 minutes until wilted. Add salt, pepper and nutmeg and remove from heat. Put spinach and egg on muffin [croissant], put more salt and pepper on egg, and top with hollandaise sauce. Wouldn't you know it, couldn't find any at the supermarket, so we did it sans sauce.
I was so proud of myself, making all this real food! Fried avocado wantans and spinach/poached egg sandwiches. Yay! ^_^ Takao was really appreciative and he says he wants to cook something for me next time. :3
He has his part-time job yesterday and today, so we can't hang out. Aw. Yesterday, I went to Roppongi [a very fashionable, expensive, modern, high-class, gaijin-packed area of Tokyo]. It's one of the hubs of the Tokyo art scene. I went to a few galleries, an amazing museum, and ended up getting an afternoon meal/snack at a NZ cafe. [Mozzarella/salmon sandwich which came with some GREAT fries, + raspberry leaf tea.] I also took some awesome pictures and at some fresh caramel popcorn. All in all, it was an awesome day. I plan on going to another museum or 2 today, if I can get out of the house at a reasonable hour. It's already 12:10! Agh! Better get a move on.
Times like yesterday, I love Japan soo much and feel like I never want to leave. But then having that crappy job changes everything. Hopefully I can study well in NY and come back some day (if I still want to).
Has anyone [in Japan] seen the ads all over the dang place for Starbucks' new convenience store drink, the Kyoto Matcha Latte? Because I tried one and they're delicious. They're more milky and matcha-y than the ones you get in the store, I think. Well, more everything-y I guess. Yes.
So remember how I was supposed to have a veritable strobe light of a week? My jr hs called the elementary school and they decided to just give me off Monday like everyone else at the jr hs, so I too have a 3-day weekend! Yay! Not only that, but I won't have to deal with teaching the little kids by myself. Hooray!
Saturday night, I met up with Takao outside Shinjuku station. He got like a 3-hour haircut which was very cute but (honestly) not worth 一万円 (~$95). But then, I've always had a problem spending that much money on stuff like that. He was also wearing some kind of sweater that cost an absurd amount of money, and his bag.. let's not go there. In fact, let's get out of this whole subject. Moving right along!
We went out to dinner at a Sri Lanken restaurant that I found in a book [lonelyplanet]. It was so delicious! Well, almost all of it. He got a soup of the day, and we shared deviled fish, garlic shrimp, some kind of flatbread and pumpkin curry. The deviled fish was soo good!! The garlic shrimp was -so- much more, and the flatbread was good too. The pumpkin curry was underwhelming, honestly. This was apparently his 2nd time being served by a gaijin waiter [!!!]. The first time was when I took him to my favorite Indian restaurant [!!!]. Sigh.. ethnocentricism.
Anyway, from there, we went to 2chome for a little while because Takao wanted to, and then we went back to my place. Saturday, we had brunch at Otaru, the really cheap kaiten zushi [rotating sushi] restaurant near my train station and then headed over to Ikebukuro. I introduced him to Sunshine City and we went to the planetarium, which turned out to be very romantic. We also spent a spell at Namco Namjatown, where we got in free thanks to a coupon Nick and I got when we bought the crazy ice creams. I also got some good cheese at a little supermarket-y store inside SC. Mmmm...! ^_^
After SC, we headed over to a bookstore to find a recipe for something to cook that night. I'd asked Takao last week what his favorite food was, and he said it was wantons. So I looked for veggie wanton recipes and found a really simple [but good-looking] avocado wanton recipe. Which is really just putting a bit of 'cado in a wanton square, folding and frying. But we needed to find something else to make too, obvs. We went to a big 9-floor bookstore in Ikebukuro. I dropped Takao off by the cookbooks on floor 2 and headed to the English books section on floor 9 to check out the English cookbooks. I found a nice-looking recipe in a book entitled On Toast, which is, you guessed it, all recipes involving putting stuff on various toasted bread products. What could be bad?
The recipe called for English muffins, but my supermarket was all out, so we got croissants instead. Toast and butter those. Then poach eggs [slide egg from cup into boiling water, cook 4 minutes until solid]. Drain on a paper towel. Finally, melt butter in a saucepan, cook spinach in there about 3 minutes until wilted. Add salt, pepper and nutmeg and remove from heat. Put spinach and egg on muffin [croissant], put more salt and pepper on egg, and top with hollandaise sauce. Wouldn't you know it, couldn't find any at the supermarket, so we did it sans sauce.
I was so proud of myself, making all this real food! Fried avocado wantans and spinach/poached egg sandwiches. Yay! ^_^ Takao was really appreciative and he says he wants to cook something for me next time. :3
He has his part-time job yesterday and today, so we can't hang out. Aw. Yesterday, I went to Roppongi [a very fashionable, expensive, modern, high-class, gaijin-packed area of Tokyo]. It's one of the hubs of the Tokyo art scene. I went to a few galleries, an amazing museum, and ended up getting an afternoon meal/snack at a NZ cafe. [Mozzarella/salmon sandwich which came with some GREAT fries, + raspberry leaf tea.] I also took some awesome pictures and at some fresh caramel popcorn. All in all, it was an awesome day. I plan on going to another museum or 2 today, if I can get out of the house at a reasonable hour. It's already 12:10! Agh! Better get a move on.
Times like yesterday, I love Japan soo much and feel like I never want to leave. But then having that crappy job changes everything. Hopefully I can study well in NY and come back some day (if I still want to).