tsukiai & crochet

What a long day today was...I had my bead crochet class.
We made this napkin holder.

And this necklace was a project that I wasn't finished with by the end of our last class.

Last night and tonight, Satoshi had "tsukiai" parties with co-workers. "Tsukiai" means association, and they do this by going drinking. Last night's "tsukiai" was a farewell party for some co-workers and tonight's "tsukiai" was a welcome party for new co-workers...why they couldn't put the two together is a bit odd to me. Ask Satoshi and he'll tell you that "tsukiai" is the MOST IMPORTANT LAW of being a company worker (salary-man as they are called here)...yeah, yeah...go drinking, but be able to wake up in the morning and don't fall asleep in the "furo" (bath)!

Anyway, since he didn't need dinner last night, I decided to make myself something simple, baked rotini with pesto cream sauce. It came out pretty good and I put together a salad to go with it.


After my class today, I popped into the Hanshin Department store. If you've ever gone shopping in a Japanese Department store, you'll know that in the basement they have their prepared foods and grocery section (for you aisle roamers out there this is the place to roam!). I went to check out the prepared area for a bento or something for dinner. I went to one of my favorite vendors, Mamehachiro. I like this vendor because they use a lot of beans in their dishes. I bought a seafood kakiage donburi. Kakiage is a kind of tempura. Tempura is usually shrimp or vegetables that are separately battered lightly and then fried crispy. Kakiage are different ingredients mixed together such as shredded carrots, sliced onions, green beans, corn which are lightly battered together then fried. Donburi means bowl. It was very filling.

I also bought myself dessert, ohagi. Ohagi is mochi rice that hasn't been pounded into mochi (rice cakes) yet, then is covered with "an" sweet red bean paste. This ohagi had a strawberry in it (sorry the picture is a bit blurred). It was very good and not too sweet.

I didn't have time to take a nap so I'm kind of hanging a bit...