Day 10: Monday October 27

Today Joe went to work so we all walked with him and stopped halfway there at "the really big park" -- the best playground we've found so far. Recess at a nearby kindergarten was in session, so there were many little kids running around. They clearly thought Archer was an attraction, but even more interesting was Malcolm who was napping in his stroller. A couple of times the teachers had to shoo the crowds of children away from him as I did what I could to convey that he was sleeping so they should be quiet. It was a really funny scene.

Then this afternoon I tried my hand an being a Japanese housewife. Laundry, dishes, airing out the futons. With no real laundry hangers or clips, this was quite a task. It seems all the other balconies are equipped with elaborate hook, hanger and clip systems. But I got a couple of waves and head nods from women across the alley who were beating their futons with broomsticks.

A mystery has been solved as well. Almost every afternoon we hear a jaunty little tune coming from a truck that is driving slowly through the neighborhood. It sounds sort of like an ice cream truck, but adults go up to the truck and come away with large packages. Today the truck stopped across from our building so I stood and watched. Three women dashed gleefully (seriously, they were positively giddy) out of the building and hauled big packages of toilet paper off the truck. Hmmm. A toilet paper delivery service? Seems unlikely, but according to my research it appears so. I'll keep watching.

Last night Joe and I were lamenting the fact that we've been in Japan for just over a week and have had NO SUSHI!!! We really want to eat sushi, circumstances just have prevented it. So today, on a whim, I bought some from the grocery store for lunch. Let's just say that if grocery store sushi is this good, we're in for a serious treat when we make it to a real sushi restaurant. It tasted different, to be sure: fresh and flavorful. There was no rubberiness to any of the ingredients, and the rolls were neat and tidy. It came with little packets of soy sauce and pickled ginger, but no wasabi (we had some at home, though.) I talked it up enough to Joe that he agreed to stop at the same grocery store and buy more for dinner. Probably silly, but wow. It was good! I can't wait to go to Tokyo's fish market and have sushi there. We've heard more than one person tell us it's "the best sushi in the world."

Ice cream taste test #3: The yellow submarine


Description: Wafer outside, ice cream and caramel inside.
Rating: Pretty good! This was, however, probably the least "Japanese" ice cream we've eaten so far, which prompted me to make some really, really questionable purchasing decisions at the store the next day in an attempt to up the ante. We'll see how that goes.


Sweet Treat Tasting #1:

When in Nara, we saw lots of sweet shops, and the Japanese tourists were plunking down money like crazy for them. So we bought a few different ones to sample. Learn now from our mistakes.

The way they fool you is, they make them look very pretty on the outside:


And the inside looks innocent enough...

So bad, it made the forehead vein pop out.

Next up was what looked like two pancakes with some dark spread in between. Kate bought it with the hope that it may have been chocolate.

A disappointed Kate peeks inside after biting in.

No, you're not seeing things--those are beans.

The best of the batch were two cookie-like items, that were actually OK. The one on the right had a walnut on top and some thick, semi-tasty filling. The one on the left had a pretty character stamped on top and a less tasty filling.