Sunday Yardsale in Japan

It was a whirl wind of a week this week. There was the exercise so between the dog barking at the "big voice" on the loud speaks and the voice on the loud speakers being loud, the baby hardly slept and drove me a little nuts. But it's ok. Ian was actually home a lot more this week so at least there was someone around to take the baby at night.

I had two wonderful lunches with great friends and got to try lots of yummy Japanese food. Did you know that the Japanese do Italian food really well? Like superb. I'm sure that I would only get Italian food that good if I actually went to Italy (fingers crossed). There is a small, cute little hole in the wall Italian cafe that opened up right outside the Main Gate. They have a lovely and reasonable lunch set. You get a drink, salad, pasta/pizza, and the cutest little desert. The portions are just right too. Small enough to be filling without being overwhelming and you have to ask for a box to take it home. Sometimes I think that Americans get it all wrong with their huge portion sizes combined with unhealthy and unattractive looking foods. And on top of that they are expensive and not in the least bit fresh.

I got to back and do some Ikebana therapy at Sensei's house. Chinese red wood, lilys, and iris leaves? The other arrangement is curly willy and those wide flat leaves done by a more advanced student. I think she is sensei level. The good news is that I'm going to be going up a level at the next test so I will be a Sensei's Assistant.

This weekend was lots of fun. I had another Pysanky egg class but unfortunately only one student showed up. One rescheduled and the other was sick. I made this beauty, and had lots of fun talking about babies and crazy people on Misawa Asks (the FB site where people get info about base).

Sunday, I got to go to the Hachinohe fish market for the weekly Sunday yardsale with some friends. It was indoors this week because of the weather. But they have decided that it's getting warm enough for it to be outside next week. We are really going to have to prepare. I was selling a bunch of Bea's clothes that she's outgrown to help pad her savings account. It was so much fun talking to everybody and Bea was being her perky self. She was getting lots of  kawaiis from pretty much everybody.

Here we are on the 3rd floor hawking our wares. I had never been on the upper floors of the fish market. The third floor is pretty bare but there is probably meeting rooms or something. The second floor has an arcade and a big play area for the kiddies.

The best part of the fish market is all the fish. There wasn't really anything in season that I wanted or that we hadn't tried so I got some tuna sashimi. Ian seared it and put it over rice with green onions and reduced soy sauce. Mighty tasty. I also got some octopus balls (takoyaki) and an adzuki bean filled cake. Strawberries are back in season! but I've probably used up my yen budget for a bit so maybe next weekend we'll go to the strawberry farmers market.

On the way home we stopped at a fabulous bakery at Shimoda right before you turn onto the road to get to the mall. It's a yellow building with a tower and a green roof. They have a really cut wooden cake and large teady bears in the front window. The guy working knew a fair amount of English and so a little flirting got us some free pastries. I also got a petite baguette that a french person would be proud of. Breakfast! There is nothing I like better than a breakfast of hot cocoa and baguette with strawberry jam.