My favorite little cheapo grocery store, Niku no Hanamasa, always has a seemingly random assortment of foreign goods at reasonable prices. Though the bulk is from Korea, including metric ton tubs of kimchi and economy packs of roasted seaweed (which I still manage to finish in a day), there’s also plenty of foods more familiar to me from Italy and the U.S. Lately, Hanamasa has had big bags of cornflakes cereal. I never even ate cornflakes when I could find them everywhere, but now that I’ve gone two years without food I never ate anyway, I apparently want nothing more than a good old bowl of breakfast cereal.

Before you head over to pricey-if-reliable foreign supermarkets, see if your local Hanamasa has what you’re looking for for cheap.

I go running early almost every morning, and at that hour, the only other people I see on the street are coming home from bars or tossing buckets of water on the sidewalks in front of stores and homes. The bar stragglers make sense, but what’s with the water? A Japanese friend finally explained to me, and it made perfect sense after weeks of huddling under my always-on AC: the water was to cool the homes and stores, which would leave their windows open and let the cool air blow in as the water evaporated.

That, and possibly washing up after the bar stragglers.

OK, the picture below is the same chicken dish as the last post, but at a different angle so to show the bigger view. GEEZ, makes me hungry just looking at this !!!!!!!!!! ><

And LET ME TELL YOU, the BEEEEEEEEEEEEEST OMELET EGG (I couldn’t care less about the rice), yes the EGG part, is SOOOOOOOOOOOOO SUPER SOFT and the TEXTURE, you just cannot forget, no you cannot, oh my goodness, SOOOOOO GOOD and the flavor was just SUPER AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★

The best OMELET “EGG” I have ever had.

Unbelievable.

I did not expect they deliver exactly what they show on the menu.

But I guess they did that magic well!!!!!

BTW, how can they make it look so pretty?

I meant the EGG, not the oily bacon below.

It was all good.

To conclude, I have a super blessing SUPER SWEEEEEEEEEEEET AUGUST, soo sweet that honestly I have never had this feeling before, believe it or not.

I don’t know what that is but it was just awesome beyond words.

Not a big fan of beer cause it gives me headache in the morning, but that does not stop me from taking pictures of beautiful satisfying looking beer ~~~.

This is also another family restaurant, a little cheaper than Denny’s, however, it is super cute.

OH and below is the, yes there you go, meat.

Chicken we have here.

LOVE this, even though it might look a little over-cooked or “over-brown” but heck ya it taste good.

The funny thing is no matter how much meat I eat in Japan, actually I ate at least 2-3 more meat in here than I was in USA, but the meat here just never get me extra pounds believe me or not, and you know what, I ate all my meat here super 安心。

( If that day never happened, even MORE 安心。It was sad. )

Anyway, I had a wonderful night, it was ALL good, very good.

Please do not look down upon the chain family restaurants here in Japan.

They are like a small heaven to me, except some of them just seem not know how to separate the Smoking and Non-Smoking areas and when you sit in the Non-Smoking, it only means you suck less of secondhand smoke, but the smoke IS there, trust me.

OH YA.

lots of secondhand smoke.

However, it did not stop me from taking pictures of beautiful food.

In Denny’s. Can you believe this beauty?

I really love this, the chicken, oh geez.

And PLUS, you cannot taste unnecessary grease.

You can call it a blessing.

August has been awesome, too.

Very very smooth and sensational. Super 幸せ。

The beginning of last year, bet never thought this summer, a summer that I was sooo afraid of, can turns out to be NOT HOT, but personally HOT. (笑)

The picture below is a very good place for people to drink “suuuuuper cold” beer, well, that was the idea, don’t know how their sales is compare to their expectation, however, this summer, is not as hot as the one 2 years ago, thank GOD, and … have we survived this already? or, we still have to keep an eye on SEPTEMBER?

In 新宿駅。

OH GEEZ look at this bowl of ラーメン。。。

Why do the just have to look soooooooo tempting???

And trust me they taste good, too.

But I forget the place …

I’ve never been a diehard fan of actually drinking ramune, but there’s just something about that fancy glass marble bottle that always gets me. When I went to the grocery store a few weeks ago, a special summer flavor caught my eye: watermelon. That, too, is how they getcha. Seasonal flavors. So I bought a bottle, proceeded to accidentally shake it up and have it explode all over my desk, then drink what was left after I rescued my computer from a sticky death.

I don’t know if it would have been worth it if it had killed my computer, but considering it didn’t, it wasn’t too bad! If you’re a ramune lover and see it at your local market, give it a try.

Before I moved into Premier Kiba, I had already visited the area last summer. I love museums and galleries, so visited the Museum of Contemporary Art, located at the end of Kiba Park. We had lunch in the area too, and a walk around, and I thought then that it was a nice, busy, interesting part of Tokyo.

When I started looking for a guesthouse, I wanted to be closer to one of my schools that I teach in often, and I wanted somewhere close to a station, and close to shops etc. Kiba ticked all the boxes for me – almost halfway on the Tozai line, with a park, cinema, and shopping centre very nearby.

I’ve also recently joined Tipness gym, and it’s so handy being just a 5 minute walk…means I have no excuse not to visit it often!

There are also lots of good restaurants and bars in Kiba, and between Kiba and Monzennakacho. Some of my favourites are: Q-Bar pizza restaurant and bar, Namaste Indian, and Spice Heaven which is in the restaurant complex by Ito Yokado.

I recommend Kiba as a destination for people – come and visit the gallery and park, have lunch and dinner, and do your shopping too!

The timeline goes a little something like this.

Summer 2012:

Me: Wow, I just hiked Mount Fuji. That was super hard and I haven’t been able to walk right for a week and I’m never doing that again.

My Dad: Hiking Mount Fuji sounds really great!

Me: Wait, which part sounds great?

My Dad: I want to go when I visit you next summer.

Me: Nooooooo.

My Dad: Please?

Me: Okay fine.

Summer 2013:

Me: I appear to be at the top of Mount Fuji. Again.

So that’s how that happened.

I love good food, and food from all different countries and cuisine types. I especially love Asian food – Chinese, Thai, Japanese etc. It was a lovely surprise in Taipei to find so many different cuisine types, it was very international, and all the different dishes we tried were lovely. I don’t eat meat, and it was very easy there to eat vegetarian – even vegan- which was a nice change to Tokyo! My first meal in Taipei was in the food court at Taipei 101, and there were so many places to choose from! I decided to go for an Asian hotpot with tofu and seafood, served with udon noodles, and it was delicious! A little spicy, but not too hot, and I had a delicious Taiwan Beer with it 🙂 It was also served with a selection of side dishes, so I got to try lots of different flavours in one meal..