tokyo people

Today is the first day of Autumn and a holiday, Shubun no hi (Autumn Equinox).

Sharing some Tokyo people...This woman was helping her dog take a walk.

Its back legs seemed paralyzed, so by using this strap thingy, she keeps its weight off of the back legs.

Sometimes it looked more like she was "dragging" the dog around though...

I've seen a different dog with a "wheelchair" for its back legs, if I see it again, I hope to get a picture to share with you.

At first when I saw this woman I thought she was holding a baby.

When I looked closer it was her hand....ha!

The weather has gone back to Summer...yesterday was 29C (84F) but apparently felt like 32C (89F)

There is a saying that the heat changes to cold with O-higan...hopefully it will get cooler starting tomorrow.

jugoya

Last night was Jugoya which I've written about here.

It was the first time in 8 years that the day coincided with a full moon.

We purchased some sushi and had some sake for dinner.

The weather dude had mentioned that we might not be able to see the moon because of clouds or rain, but luckily we were able to.

I also wanted to get some ohagi, but the shop we usually buy from was a little too far from the market we were at, so hopefully we'll get some today or tomorrow for O-higan (Autumn equinox). 

unmanned bakery

One of my favorite bakeries nearby, Bakery Alice, started something new..an unmanned bakery.

From 19:00 (which I think is their closing time), they fill these lockers with all sorts of baked goods.

You can purchase them from the lockers for 500 yen (tax included).

I think they put the items that were not able to sell in here and it is a kind of a  “surprise” as to what you will receive.

In their email, they mentioned that each locker's baked goods value was about 600 to 700 yen.

I think it is a good way to cut down on the amount of food thrown out in Japan.

I want to try to buy it just to see what’s in the locker.

Will write up about it if I get a chance to purchase it.

keiro no hi

Today is the start of Silver Week and a national holiday, Keiro no Hi (Respect for Aged Day), similar to Grandparents Day.

I've shown you my grandparents in the past and wanted to share with you this photo of my great grandparents.

Am bummed that no one in my family knows where the original photo is (it was actually more like a ceramic thing that had their photo on it) nor what their names are.

Appreciating our grandparents, great grandparents for always watching over us.

We’re keeping safe and staying close to home, have a good week.

this and that

I baked banana nut bread with the muffin mix I received from Val.

I'm glad that there was a loaf pan option on the back of the box since my oven is too small to bake 12 muffins at once.

Even though my loaf pan is non-stick, I was lazy and didn't want to grease the pan (you know, just in case the bread got stuck), so I looked online for a way to make a loaf liner.

The batter went into the crevasse where the paper is folded at the ends but otherwise, this was an easy way to fold a liner and clean up was easy too.

As for the banana nut bread, I added 2 handfuls of chocolate chips and some ground flax seed.

It is a very moist bread with all the oil that goes into it.

I'm glad we got to try this, I have most of it in the freezer and we've been enjoying slices for breakfast.

It is kinmokusei (osmanthus) season. I love this fragrance.

My Flickr friend Genie, does a Paris People on her IG stories which inspired me to do Tokyo People...she's stumbled on some rather "ahem" moments...

Proof that it has been a blazing summer...no?!

you should see my shorts line....
 

We tried this sweet potato ice cream made by Lotte for Family Mart.

So good!

Tasted like yakiimo (roasted sweet potato).

I'm glad we got to try this.

Tokyo People...this guy with all the cans is taking them illegally and can be fined.

Do you see the guy up in the tree?!

The leaves are starting to change...

Tokyo as well as the rest of Japan's case numbers are going down.

But, the severe cases as well as the deaths are quite high.

We are expecting a Typhoon Chanthu to pass over the weekend.

The typhoons of late have been weird, they start somewhere below Okinawa and start to move toward China and then "get stuck" in-between Japan and China, then the typhoon "re-groups" and moves up Kyushu and Honshu.

We've brought some things off of our lanai, but I think I may need to find space for the plants to come indoors too.

Hope you all are doing well.

Have a safe weekend.

inose

I saw somewhere that Inose sells their beef stew every Tuesday.

So, since I was in a rut as to what to eat/cook, we walked over to Zoshiki and went to check to see if Inose had their beef stew.

They did.

500 yen (tax included) for 1 serving.

I should've taken the photo before covering the whole bowl with gravy.

Underneath the gravy there is half a potato, some carrots and very tender beef.

I added some broccoli for color.

The beef stew is rich and is a demi-glace base.

I'm glad we got to try this and we'll be back to purchase this again.

shine muscat

I told you that I had ordered 2 kilos of Pizzutello Bianco...well, after the grapes arrived, my fridge was filled with the box.

Then on Wednesday Satoshi had his Zoom German class and a classmate was selling Shine Muscat grapes.

So he ordered 2 kilos...and he tells me on Friday that he ordered some!

So over the weekend we were eating the Pizzutello Biancos like krazy since we didn't know when the Shine Muscats would arrive.

I thought about freezing some of the Pizzutello grapes but since they have seeds, I thought it might be hard to eat.

Well, the box of Shine Muscat grapes arrived on Saturday night.

As V said, "what a grape problem to have"....ha!

The Shine Muscats orbs are huge! sweet and seedless.

We'll be eating these this week...