After the work today I went to Yasaka to have dinner with Chie and two of her friends from Konami Sports (Shibayama-san and Furuya-san). After a while Mina-sensei joined us as well. We ate and talked for a few hours and had a great time. Until it was time to go back home. Tomorrow was another day.
   
It’s Friday again and I just packed all my stuff at the office. We are moving to a new floor during the weekend. So today we had to be out of the office by 6 pm. That was perfect for me. I finished packing by 5:30 pm and took the Yamanote-sen to Yurakucho where I met Chie at the Seibu department store.
We walked to Shiodome City Tower where we were having dinner with some ex-collegues of Chie. We went in to an elevator with only 3 buttons, 1, 41, 42. The restaurant we had reserved table at was on the 42nd floor.
Unfortunately we had not a table with a view. But we could sneak a peek after the dinner. Which was really good. We had sashimi. Spare ribs. Shabu-shabu. And many other dishes. And we had a fun time… Again.
   
   
After dinner we walked down to the 41st floor where they had a Mickey Mouse party. I think. There was a guy who had a Mickey Mouse over his breast pocket. Probably some Christmas party of some big company. From the 41st floor we took the elevator down. Again our ears were popping, just as they did on the way up. You would think it would take a while to travel 42 floors but I believe that we were in the elevator less than a minute. So I guess the elevator is quite fast.
A really busy day today. We went to Shinjuku to attend a cooking class arranged by Tokyo Gas. This is Chie’s and my 3rd cooking class together. They are quite fun. Usually it is CHie, me and about 30 women. Most of them are very impressed that I can cut, for instance, a cucomber without chopping of my fingers. Under such circomstances it is easy to impress.
   
   
We cooked a Christmas dinner today. Green salad, chicken cream stew pie, Belgian clam soup, caramelized apple with vanilla ice cream. We were 6 people in our cooking group including Chie and me. And I can honestly say that I was not the worst at cooking in the group. The apples were the best, even though a pinch of cinamon would have made all the difference.
After the cooking class Chie and I continued to a hotel nearby. Isetan department store had a family sales there. I bought some underwear for half price or so. And a pair of warm socks.
We continued to Isetan department store in Shinjuku. Zig-zagging between all the people. It was crazy. We got tired just because of all the people. And then we had to walk for a few hours too. Between all the places we visited.
At 8 we were arriving in Ebisu and we were just too tired to cook. So we went to Red Pepper instead. We had Ceasar salad, dry tomatoes, olives in herbs and olive oil, tuna carspacio, lasanga, and grilled pork. We finished with pear sorbet, chestnut ice cream, and a chocolate cake. Yummy!
After the office today I met Chie in Naka-meguro. From there we walked to the Jojoen yaki-niku restaurant not far from the Konami Sports. We were celebrating Chie’s birthday and she decided to have yaki-niku at Jojoen.
And what a good choice it was. The food was great. The meat almost melting in the mouth. And garlic cooked in oil so that it was crispy on the outside and soft and sweet on the inside. It was really tasty. But tomorrow people at the office will probably take a detaour rather that come near any of us.
   
It was 2 months since we last met with Club Leo. So it was about time when we met today in Shinagawa to watch the Get Smart movie at the Shinagawa Prince Cinema. It was a quite funny movie about an analyst becoming a secret agent. We laughed a lot.
And continued to laugh during the whole evening. At Uokin we had something to eat between our laugh attacks. Mainly fish of different sort. Sashimi: iwashi, shima-saba, umazora, tako, kaki, and kujira to mention a few. We also had tai boiled in sweet soya souce.
   
Although Chie and I did not eat any kujira. Not because I don’t like it. I’ve tried it once just to try it and it tastes quite good but it is an endangered species so I really don’t want to eat because of that. Yes, it is whale. And unfortunately it was included in the set menu of sashimi that we ordered.You can see it to the right in a glass bowl.
It is funny though with the kanji for whale/kujira (鯨). It is the combination of fish (éš) and capital (京), the latter the same as the last kanji in Tokyo (æ±äº¬ = east capital). So the capital of fish is the whale… How wrong they were! It’s not a fish it’s a mammal.
Once we finished out dinner we continued by foot to Pescaderia in Ginza. We wanted to end the evening with something sweet. Chie had grappa, cheese and caramell and milke tea ice cream. I had gato chocolate cake and tea. Ryo-san had white wine and tiramisu. Non-san had coffee and apple pie with vanilla ice.
And then Ryo-san spent the rest of the evening in the bathroom. She is on a wait loosing program currently and have lost 22 kg since she started. Probably being on the weight loss diagram and not beeing familiar with a body 22 kg lighter made the alcohol hit her a little bit too hard. Fortunately she got well before we had to leave.