a day at the movies (literally)

Last Thursday, Satoshi had the day off. We decided to go to the movies. The problem was that there were two movies he wanted to see, "Angel & Demon" and "Rookies" (a Japanese baseball movie).

Since Satoshi has to work most Saturdays and goes to his German language class on Sundays, we decided to see both movies in one day!

The closest movie theatre is about a 15 minute bus ride away. Since we were planning to leave the house early to make the first showing of "Angel & Demon", we headed to McDonald's for breakfast.

I had their griddle sausage sandwich. If you often eat pancakes with breakfast sausage then you'll like this because you can have your pancakes with maple syrup and breakfast sausage all in one. The pancakes have the maple syrup in the batter, so the sandwich has that sweet-salty combination.

After breakfast, we rode the bus and realized we had some time to kill before the box office opened, so we cruised around Carrefour.

I had heard mixed reviews of "Angel & Demon" and not having read the book, it was a nail-biter for me. Satoshi was comparing it to the book as he watched, but said it was still a good movie for him.

So, after the first movie, we decided to take a lunch break. The good thing about this theatre is that with your ticket stub, you can go to various restaurants within the mall and get discounts on food/drinks.

Satoshi and I ate lunch at Baqet. This restaurant offers an all-you-can-eat assorted rolls with your entrees. Satoshi chose the curry doria. Curry doria is a rice dish which is baked, kind of like risotto but baked. The rice was topped with curry and an egg. I chose tandoori chicken, this came with 2 pieces of boneless chicken, sauteed in a creamy tandoori sauce with some veggies, a little spicy but delicious. With our ticket stub, we were able to take home 2 bags of assorted rolls (can you say breakfast??).

Since we had a couple of hours to kill before the next movie, we walked around and checked out several shops. We also went into a cafe for some coffee and dessert.

Stick Sweets Factory, apparently just opened and they offer stick-type treats. Satoshi chose the rolled cake. I chose the sakura mousse and caramel tart. You know if you wrap something in plastic with preforation for easy access, shouldn't the preforation preforate?...sigh. As Satoshi took the wrap off his cake, the wrap took the whole outside of the cake with it.

My mousse cake didn't come out of its wrap easily either and turned out to be dry, and the caramel tart was way too sweet...totally disappointing. And the little cookie that they serve with your drink was unfortunately tasteless. I do have to say that the Gaggia cappuccino (was really delicious) and getting 100 yen (about US$1) off of our bill with our ticket stub was the highlight of this cafe, but we definitely won't be back.

So, after a disappointing tea time, we walked around a little more then headed to the theatre for our second movie, "Rookies". This was a dramatic baseball movie, I could hear a lot of women (and maybe men??) sniffling and think I saw Satoshi tearing a bit.

After the movie, we stopped back into Carrefour to pick up some sushi for dinner, then caught the bus home.

It was a long day, our butts were sore, we stuffed ourselves with all sorts of "stuff", but we saved on having to pay for bus fare on another day and got to see two great movies and hopefully we helped with the economy a little too.

Here is the breakdown of the day:
McD 850 yen
movies 3600 yen x 2 (yes, it costs 1800 yen about US$18 per person!!)
lunch 2060 yen
dessert 1033 yen
dinner 1274 yen
bus 840 yen
total: 13257 yen (about US$132.57)