saturday

As I told Lori in the comments from a previous post, we eat out mostly on weekends. This is an agreement that Satoshi and I have had from before we were married. The agreement is that on weekends, I don't cook...so I have "the weekend off". My half of the agreement is that Satoshi is allowed to sleep until 9:00 a.m. (Though with our holo-holo (galavanting) schedule, usually he has to wake up earlier.)

Anyway, last Saturday was a beautiful day.

Breakfast was really simple, yomogi (mugwort) toast, with adzuki cream cheese and a strawberry-banana flax seed smoothie.

Half a banana, 5 strawberries, 1/2 a teaspoon of ground flax seed and 1/2 a cup of milk. Whiz in food processor, makes 1 serving. Add more milk if too thick.

After breakfast, we walked to Suigetsu Park. Most of the cherry blossoms were billowing to the ground. Seeing the ground all pink is just as beautiful as seeing the blossoms on the trees.

We also visited Sonpachiyakujin, we've visited this temple before and I've written about it here. The archway at the entrance seems to be eroding and starting to lean. Still, it was beautiful with the cherry blossoms.

From Sonpachiyakujin, we walked to Satsukiyama Park then to Kawanishi. Lunch was at a restaurant called Corin. There was a line, so we waited for a table.

I ordered the daily lunch special--fried shrimp and Chinese roast pork (950 yen--about US$9.50). This came with ratatouille, a salad and "clam chowder". (Actually it was clam flavored soup, nothing chowder-y or clammy about it...)

Satoshi had the jumbo fried shrimp (1600 yen--about US$16). Ordering this, he was told he'd have to wait about 20 minutes for them to cook it. Boy, were they HUGE!

We both added dessert--ice cream (each 250 yen about US$2.50).

Mine was honey & walnut, Satoshi's was matcha (green tea).

After lunch, we walked to Hibarigaoka-Hanayashiki through a little park near the tracks. Most of the cherry blossoms were billowing off the trees, but it was still nice to be out and about.