On Tuesday, it was Ladies Day at the Meifu Cine Pipia (a movie theatre at Meifujinja station). There was a Japanese movie that I was interested in seeing, "Haru no Yuki". I went to the first show at 10:30am, what I didn't realize was that the movie was close to 3 hours long...sigh. It was a love story type movie with a not-so-good ending, but it was still a good movie.
What I've come to notice in Japan is that there are a lot of people with weird habits, some talk to themselves, some have weird twitches, but while waiting in the lobby of the theatre, there was one lady who had a sniffing habit.
At first I thought she had a runny nose or something, but she kept sniffing every few seconds, "sniff sniff" "sniff sniff"...it got to be quite irritating, so I move away from her. When it came time to be seated for the movie, I waited for my number to be called and hurriedly entered the theatre so that I could find a seat FAR away from her...she unfortunately sat at the end of my row...during the quiet parts of the film you could hear her, "sniff sniff"....ugh...
After the movie, I walked towards Nakayama and went to my favorite arare (rice cracker) shop, Nagaokakyo Ogurasanso. Previously, when Satoshi and I went to the movies, I came upon the store when we were walking to have lunch at an Italian restaurant, Fraulein.
This time, I bought my favorite--chocolate covered kakinotane(a spicy rice cracker in the shape of a persimmon seed (kaki)). Ogurasanso uses the highest quality Belgian chocolate from OCG Cacao, called Chocolate Couverture which means chocolate covering. This chocolate has more cocoa butter than regular chocolate and is good for coating things like truffles...if only they would use dark chocolate only. :)
Nagaokakyo Ogurasanso-Takarazuka store
12-1 Meifuhigashinomachi
Takarazuka, Hyogo
Phone: 0797-83-0030
Today was my bead crochet class. I had to catch-up since I missed the last lesson. This was the project that I finished today. A very gaudy bracelet...I have some other "homework" to do before the next lesson, so that I can catch-up with the others.
Since I was in Umeda for my beads lesson, I stopped at a favorite chocolate shop, Chocolatier Palet d' Or. They are celebrating their 1st anniversary with a chocolate called Marl Chocolate. It is 100% Cacao mass with a hint of sweetness from different types of honey.
They had 5 dark types and 5 milk types. I wanted to buy the 5 dark types, but ended up only getting 3 dark types and 1 milk type. The dark types: Rouge (raspberry puree with berry honey), Citron(lemon paste with French lemon honey) and Orange (orange filling and Spanish orange honey). The milk type: Provence (Assorted South France floral honey)...can't wait to try them. :)
Chocolatier Palet d'Or
Herbis Plaza ENT 4F
Phone: 06.6341.8081
With a holiday in the middle of the week the week seems to have flown by. Hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving and have a great weekend.
In 2005, I wished that Ogurasanso would make my favorite chocolate covered kakinotane in dark chocolate. Three years later, my wish came true...
On a recent trip to the Ogurasanso shop in Takarazuka, I also picked up Kyonodaikoku which are a type of amanatto (ama means sweet and natto means fermented). These large black beans from Tanba (a city in Kyoto prefecture), are soaked in sugar water then dried (I think).
Both were a great snack and went nicely with a hot cup of yamecha. Yamecha is the name of Fukuoka's sencha (green tea).
p.s. today is the Honolulu Marathon in Hawaii...it is 10 years ago that I 
