Panda Bear Feast!

As promised, Minako took us to a real authentic Japanese sushi place last week for a special dinner treat! We went to a place that was conveyor belt style, which was completely new to me. In the middle of the restaurant, there was a kitchen area where two chefs were preparing all sorts of goodies wrapped up in seaweed. Mike, Lori, Minako and I sat at a bar-like table that wrapped around this little kitchen area, so it was easy for us to see what was being made. The plates of food rotated around on the conveyor belt; if something looked good, you were supposed to just grab it right off the belt! Minako knew we liked sushi, but she is not a fan of it herself so she was able to order different cooked fish instead. Lori and I shared several dishes and I enjoyed everything I tried! Some of my favorites though were tuna (which was just over rice), a seafood salad with octopus pieces and vegetables wrapped in seaweed, and salmon (again, over rice). Lori and I tried fish eggs too, which were bright orange! Each plate was a different color and represented a price, so it was easy for the waitress to add up add the different items we grabbed off the belt. My knowledge of sushi isn't that expansive, but I don't think this place ranked on the very high-class end. However, I thought it was delicious...and in the end, raw fish is raw fish, right?

Here's Minako looking cute, with the ice cream cone she had after dinner. Mike and I ordered a piece of chocolate cake and Lori tried a piece of cheesecake made from tofu.

On Saturday, we decided to explore the area around the school a little bit instead of heading into Tokyo again. We'd like to travel every weekend, but we also want to make our money last the whole trip and wait to see some places when the weather gets a bit warmer. We took our bicycles out and tried out different areas we haven't seen yet. Down one street, we stumbled across this path which opened up to a huge bamboo forest. There were trees everywhere! We saw houses not too far away, so it may have actually been a backyard. What a wonderful backyard it would be! I could have spent hours in there, just exploring little paths and looking up at the trees. We walked around a while to take pictures and I snuck away from the other two to explore a little of the forest on my own.

There was another clump of trees, except these were closer together, and I found a trail that led me right to the middle of the clump. The wind was blowing just a little, but since the trees are so light, they were swaying back and forth and making a creeeeeking sound like they were going to fall over right on top of me! Lori had said earlier that she likes exploring new places by herself because no one else is the world is seeing what you're seeing, so its really special to you! That's kind of how I felt being among these towering trees just by myself.

The path ended at a clearing where there were a few houses. Most were traditional Japanese style home, but one was a huge log cabin. It was three stories tall and had palm trees lining its property. It looked a little out of place next to the others

When I came back from my adventure, Lori and I picked these lovely flowers (they're everywhere, but I just can't get over how pink and pretty they are!) off the ground and decided to pose with them. Mike loves his new camera and took lots of pictures with us and these flowers on his camera, but I had him take a couple for me too!