Two Days with Teruo

Yesterday we decided to visit Teruo. A planned visit to the Imperial Gardens was put off until the next day, but never happened to to unusually bitter weather and fatigue.

We brought Dango, a gooey-rice-thing treat, smothered with red bean, to Teruo's. They had some similar small treats when we got there - I think I've had enough sugar for the rest of the month ;). Later, Teruo took us out to conveyer-belt sushi. It was delicious. We ate so much we thought we would literally blow up if one more bite was swallowed. We had: uni, tuna, mackerel, raw oyster sushi, scallop sushi, some kind of mollusc-on-the-half-shell, salmon (mushier than Vancouver's, but still delicious), ebi, and a few more (didn't know their English names). We also had Kirin beer and we picked up some ice cream for desert (at the 7-11 where Kyou-hei, Toby's cousin, works). The ice cream was chosen for the unique name: Le Chocolat des Chocolat. No, I didn't forget the plural on the end of that. :) Anyways, it was delicious.

Toby's relatives really wanted us to take a 10 kg bag of rice, but it was just about as big as I am and there was no way we could carry it. They wanted us to take even a little rice but we didn't. Instead, they gave us some souvenirs from Okinawa - including rice crackers, a book, and some place mats for our table. They also provided us with some more towels - it's raining a lot here and stuff takes a few days to dry.

We had a Japanese bath before bed and sat at the kotatsu table and watched t.v. We also got to wear hanten, which are very warm. I want one. :D

In the morning everyone had gone to work (except for Grandma), but our breakfasts were on the table covered with celophane with our names on it (just like last time!). Mitsue, Toby's aunt, had made them. They were delicious. We had sandwiches with bacon, cucumber, and tomato, and a salad with cooked brocolli, fresh tomato, and bean sprouts, onigiri (rice balls), and red bean buns (of course, I had to eat Toby's because they had egg. hee hee ;)). There was also hot chocolate. We hung out with Grandma for a while, who was delighted to have her picture taken with Toby. As soon as I finish the roll I'll post it.

As I mentioned earlier, we didn't go to the Imperial Gardens in Harujuku. The weather was miserable. We did try to go to the Central Library, but unfortunately it was closed :(. We took the train to Shibuya, walked around for a while and tried the all-you-can eat Indian restaurant. It was pretty good. Nothing compared to back home, but not bad either and the naan was very good. Tomorrow we have more training and so have a late shift.

I have finally downloaded the entire "City of God" with English subtitles (a difficult find) and perhaps we will watch that later. I will definitely post about it - it's supposed to be excellent.

Other than that we'll keep watching the many enterprise episodes we still have to catch up on - and I even have an L&O episode downloading. Hoping I haven't seen it.

Enterprise is excellent right now - especially the third season. They are easy to download if you don't get the channel on t.v., and I highly recommend it.

That's all for now I think. For xmas we are checking out the PS2...they are cheaper here and come with a DVD-RW. I haven't been able to find out if you can hook your computer up to it to burn stuff onto DVD's yet though. If anyone knows about this, please comment!