Monthly Archives: October 2008

National Holiday

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It was especially nice to wake up in the morning today and realize that you did not have to go to the office. National holiday in Japan.

At 9 am Coco was pickeup by his beauty salon to get a shampoo and a haircut. The rest of us stayed at home relaxing, enjoying the silence without Coco and missing him at the same time.

By 12 pm Chie and I got in the car to pick Coco up at the beauty salon. He was really happy to see us… Well most of all he was happy to see Chie. For some reason, well I can kind of understand it, he loves Chie more than anything. And everytime she is leaving him, even if just to go to the bathroom, he get anxious and want to go looking for her.

Coco and Chie

Once back home again we took Coco for a 40 minutes walk. And then we had to go back to Tokyo.

In the evening we re-packed our things for next weekends trip to San Franscisco. Shimura-san cannot make it to the game so we will not have a tail gate party, and thus do not need to bring so many things. After re-packing we went to Rosai. An Indian restaurant not far from the apartment. It was nice food.

Coco Running Loose

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When I woke up in the morning Coco woke up too and scrambled up to my face to say good morning. At least I think that was what his licks in my face ment.To thank him for the good morning licks I took him for a 40 minutes walk. The weather was nice and I only had a t-shirt, jeans and flip-flops on. In October!

Later that day Chie and I took Coco in the car and went to a baseball field. We parked the car behind the field and let Coco loose to run around on the dirt road and on the fields behind the baseball ground. He seemed to enjoy it a lot.

Coco    Coco

In the night we had shabu-shabu for the first time since I came back to Japan. Yummy! And Coco was more or less exhausted from all the walking and running and playing. He was sitting on his favorite spot on the shoulder of his favorite chair.

Coco and Johan

Playing with Coco in Tokorozawa

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Another long weekend with Monday being a national holiday in Japan. We spent most of it in Tokorozawa playing with Coco. Both inside and outside. We arrived on Saturday after a 2 hours drive from Tokyo on some back roads to Tokorozawa. It seemed like most of Tokyo was on the expressway in a traffic jam.

Arriving in Tokorozawa we had tea and some Japanese sweets before I took Coco on a long walk. Just shortly after Coco and I came back from our walk we all went to Musashi for dinner. It was great as allways.

In the evening Coco slept in my bed at my feet.

Dinner at Koimo in Shimbashi

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After work I went to Yorakucho station with the Yamanote-sen to meet Chie. Actually, we met at a crossing just outside of the Estnation close to Bic Camera. From there we walked to the Hello Kitty store to have short look before continuing almost all the way to Shimbashi station before finding the Koimo restaurant.

Okoshi-san and Ito-san were already waiting for us when we arrived. After a while Ishikawa-san joined us. We talked, ate, and had a very fun time before we had to return home.

ECOM at Koimo    ECOM at Koimo

On our way to the Shimbashi station some old Japanese gentleman joined us. His legs were a bit unsteady (probably too much sake in one of them). He started talking to us and once he heard that I was from Sweden he started to ramble on about Gustaf Adolf and how bad it was that he was dead. I am not a master of history but I think that particular Swedish king has been dead for quite a while.

Hokkaido Festival

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Saturday morning and we wake up quite early. We are going to Yoyogi park not far from the Harajuku station. So after leaving some shirts at the dry cleaning shop Chie and I walk to Ebisu station to get on the JR Yamanote-sen to Harajuku station. From there it was a few minutes walk to the Hokkaido festival.

Already at 10:45 am it was a lot of people there. Eating. Drinking. And enjoying the good weather (27 degrees celcius). The festival was a kind of PR for the Hokkaido island. so mainly the food was typical Hokkaido food.

Hokkaido festival in Yoyogi

Our first stop was at the Kani (crab) food stand. We had yaki-gani (grilled crab) and miso-kani (miso soup with crab). And sat down in the sun. Enjoying good food, nice weather and great company.

Chie eating kani (crab)    Chie eating kani (crab)

When we finished our crab meal we continued to have a miso-ramen (noodles in spicy miso soup). We found a place that was a little bit more in shadow and I sat down while Chie bought the ramen. It was tasty as was the crab.

Chie bringing miso-ramen    Chie eating miso-ramen

When we had finished the miso-ramen we were totally full. The only thing that we could eat was a vanilla ice cream for dessert. And we decided to walk to Shibuya. On our way to Shibuya we took a small detour outside the Yoyogi park. There were a lot of people setting up flee market stands and many were rigging their music equipment. There were at least 4 different groups with a 20 meters gap rigging their equipment. And 1 girl with a guitar already singing. I can just imagine the noise as the different groups try to be louder than each other to be heard.

Madoca in Yoyogi park

In Shibuya we stopped at the Tokyu Hands store to buy some paint. I am painting a wall in the kitchen blue. A very small enhancement that may be the first of many that we have discussed.