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Tomorrow starts Golden Week.

Satoshi has 7 days off, but like I said, we are staying close to home.

Case numbers are going down in most prefectures but super slowly.

There are tours flying to Hawaii for Golden Week, BUT we are keeping an eye on them.

The thing is that we heard when people come back to Japan and have to take a PCR test at the airport, the wait for the results are 7 hours or more!

So..for now, we are waiting until things get smoother...

Hope you are all doing well...have a safe weekend.

ps also Japan only letting in 10,000 people into Japan a day.

hey

It is kind of summery...which means the "h" word...ugh.

Though the weather for the past couple of days has been rainy.

Kinda like rainy season..ugh

which means I haven't been outside for a couple of days...

In fact, the weather dude says that Okinawa might start their rainy season this week!

Global warming, yeah?!

One rainy day project was a batch of tomato suzuke (pickled tomatoes).

Friday is the start of Golden Week, though we won't be going anywhere, just staying close to home.

Hope your week is going well.

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Super humid and blazing on Saturday, but we got out and about and decided to check out Tsurumi, an area of Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture that has an Okinawan community.

(this photo of this public bath was taken while we walked toward Tsurumi from Kawasaki, I loved the look of it)

Crossing over the bridge from Kawasaki into Yokohama.

The weather was kinda of foggy/hazy from the rain the night before.
 

Tsurumi Shrine.

Seigetsu's yone manju is a Japanese sweet from the Edo period, soft gyuhi (mochi) wraps ume flavored bean paste, white bean paste or sweet azuki bean paste.

They also have a steamed kokuto manju (black sugar manju) made from Hateruma black sugar.

(Hateruma, is the most southern inhabited island in Okinawa which we visited pre-blog.)

I didn’t think the ume bean paste had much flavor.

Glad we tried these though.

 

There is a Japanese drama on tv now called "Chimu don don" and the heroine is from Okinawa and relocates to the Tsurumi area in Yokohama.

While looking for lunch, we noticed that the Honcho shopping arcade was pretty deserted.

We found these cuties waiting outside a Brazilian restaurant.

It seemed like this area also has a Brazilian community as well because there were flyers written in Portuguese.

Okinawa Bussan Center (OBC), a tiny market selling all sorts of items from Okinawa.

From the OBC, we picked up some andagi (plain and kokuto (black sugar) and kunpen/konpen, a traditional Okinawan manju filled with peanuts and sesame seeds that apparently has been around since the Ryukyu Dynasty.

The kunpen on the left is made by Hokama in Naha and is more “authentic” and not too sweet because it has less ingredients in it.

The kunpen on the right is made by Miyagi on Ishigaki Island and tasted more like peanut butter manju and was quite sweet.

Then we waited in line for Okinawan soba at Yajigwr (yah-gee-gwah)

Apparently Yajigwr means "a part of the Yagi clan" in Okinawan.

The main shop, Yaji, is located on the southern part of Okinawa.

I had their soki soba...fall off the bone tender pork..800 yen (tax included) so delicious!

Satoshi had their yasai soba...all sorts of veggies! 750 yen (tax included) He said he enjoyed this.

When we came out, the line was down the street!

Mazda Carol...so cute!

Ushioda Shrine.

Thought it was so neat that they had hydrangeas in the area where you cleanse your hands.

Nemophila (baby blue eyes)

Yokohama manhole cover.

Love the storefronts.

I would definitely come back for the Okinawan soba and andagi.

Seigetsu

4-28-18 Tsurumichuo

Tsurumi ward, Yokohama, Kanagawa

Phone: 045.501.2877

Closed Sundays & Holidays

Hours: 8:30-18:30

Okinwawa Bussan Center

3-74-14 Nakadori

Tsurumi ward, Yokohama, Kanagawa

Phone: 045.504.7816

Hours: 10:00-19:00

Okinawa Soba Yajigwr

3-72-2 Nakadori

Tsurumi ward, Yokohama, Kanagawa

Phone: 045.506.5754

Closed Tuesday

Hours: 11:00-15:00 (lunch), 16:00-20:00 (dinner)

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Myoga (Japanese ginger) season...already have a batch of myoga amasuzuke in the refrig.

French milled soap at Daiso.

Super crunchy chicken sandwich from Super Kitamura.

Ice cream weather (well it was a couple of weeks ago)...Fondy was good with red wine.

Black Mont Blanc had a delicious caramel peanut coating.

Shima shima uma uma...we tried the vanilla version awhile back, this time around it was strawberry ice cream swirled with chocolate...love the package!

72% cacao ice cream...so good with wine too.

Happy Earth Day.

Have a safe weekend.
 

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gerbera...Satoshi came home with these the other night...he said he "had" to get these because they were really cheap..220 yen (tax included).

shakuyaku (chinese peony)...glad I was able to purchase some of these from my favorite florist...not cheap like the gerbera, but still pretty...400 yen (tax included) each.
 

wisteria walk

Yesterday was a relatively sunny day, so I got out and about.

Up the street with all the flowers...

Construction on a road made me detour and stumble upon this house.

Tiny wisteria in front of a shop.

Love how they use the wisteria to shade their cars.

We're back to rainy and cold today.
 

wisteria walks

I've been stumbling upon wisteria on my walks these days.

Most are in front of homes.

This one was on the grounds of a school, I took the photo from outside the fence.

This one was growing on a house's fence that bordered a parking area and really low to the ground.

While walking, I noticed a woman who was walking a couple feet ahead of me, with a friend point at something.

Being niele (nosy), I looked in the direction she was pointing and this pocket park’s wisteria caught my eye.

I'm glad I looked.

When we went to Takeuchi Bakery, we walked along the Former Nomigawa Green Space.

We came upon these two walking their ducks!

And were able to see the wisteria in the same spot as last year.

The temps have been flip-flopping and there are days when it rains, so when the weather is decent we try to get out and about.
 

oh em gee

The last time we went to Takeuchi Bakery, their sign for roll castella caught my eye "after" I came out of the store.

Apparently they only sell this on Saturdays.

It is similar to swiss rolls except they use castella for the cake.

The castella is filled with buttercream.

Oh em gee.

The castella as well as the buttercream is so light! not dense and dry like some castella can be.

It was so hard to slice without "squishing" it but we got 4 nice sized slices.

Only 410 yen (tax included) 

They also have plain castella filled with raspberry jam and raisin dotted castella filled with buttercream.

Most bakeries have been raising their prices due to various costs going up, Takeuchi Bakery will be raising their prices in May.

I’m glad we tried this and will definitely get it again the next time we are here.

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Tokyo people...always think it is so cute to see grandpas packing grandmas on the back of their bicycles...although I think it might be illegal...

Resting.

It was super warm and these krazy people were jumping up the stairs of Honmonji.
 

This is what the stairs look like (taken April 2019)

Been seeing lots of cats in windows...

And dogs...

Hello.

super huge sunset the other night...

all the freesia this year...the lighter colored flower and the reddish one are the bulbs I planted last year. 

The deep pink is from the bulbs I had planted several years ago.

Oh, a word of caution about the salad chicken...if you zap it, I've noticed that the liquid "overflows" onto the turntable.

Realized this when I took it out to let it cool and it "stuck" onto the pot holder I had it on...not sure if the liquid leaked from the plastic wrap or bubbled over when zapping.

Mother Nature sent us back 10 degrees towards winter yesterday…brr!

Tokyo’s numbers have not been going down, apparently the 20 something’s are not been getting vaccinated. 

I know it is a personal choice but think everyone should get “at least” the first two vaccines so that we are all on the “same page”

Have a safe weekend.