Three Day Weekend!!

Yes, at the moment it is a three-day holiday here in sweaty Japan.  Today Dede and I took off to Nagoya for some Chinese and shopping. He ended up buying yet another lens for his camera, and well, I just got a meal. I'm pretty sure we spent over two hours at the camera store so I didn't get to look at very much :(

Other than that there hasn't been any else new! So take a look at some photos from the past month or so.

I had been craving some sweet wine, which is surprisingly hard to find here. So I ordered some Brown Brothers Zibibbo online! It's from a Japanese store, so I figure I could find it instore...somewhere. But no such luck yet ;)

I may live in what's technically called a 'city', but there are still little rice-paddies surrounding my house. It's wonderful! I love watching the older people planting and tending to their rice (as I haven't seen any young people at it yet!)

Quite a while ago I got a coupon from McDonald's for a free pack of small fries, which I tried to redeem at one point. The woman looked confused when I handed her the coupon and asked for the rest of my order, but at the time I didn't worry. When I got home I realised she charged me for the fries! So I sent an email through the McDonald's website...what I got was the manager of the store calling me and apologising profusely. He offered to send me the money in the mail, and a day later I got it, along with this letter! It is written in very polite Japanese. I don't know whether to take it as genuinely sorry or some kind of dig at me because it was only 210 yen (about $2.50AU). When I got the phone call I did feel very bad for complaining about something so minuscule. His voice did sound very genuine so I hope so!!

One month ago it was our friend Suzuka's birthday, and she wanted to spend it with us so we met up in Nagoya for an afternoon. We decided on a Chinese restaurant which ended up being quite expensive, however Dede had just been paid so he paid for the entire thing.

We decided to share everything we had ordered, and this is the Mabo-Doufu. It. Was. Amazing. Best Mabo-Doufu I have ever had, and I LOVE this dish.

I can't remember what this dish was (Chinese restaurants in Japan tend to have their menus in English as well which is really nice, considering Chinese only uses kanji), which is really unfortunate because it's what I ordered. I'm pretty sure it was pork, and man, if I had known it would be so yummy I wouldn't have shared at all! The flavours and herbs were fantastic.

Suzuka is so darn photogenic! Look at me :( I hate my hair right now. I want my fringe back but I'm going to wait until my hair grows longer again. Months later I am still regretting cutting my hair. Oh, and the wine! It was awesome too. Dry, but not too much. We ended up getting quite tipsy by the end on just one bottle between the three of us. We were all very hungry before eating, I think that's why.

A little bit of crispy chicken, simple soup and fried rice. My favourite was definitely what I talked about above though.

Yummiest drink ever. A Strawberry Chuhai, and it tasted exactly like fresh strawberries. I think I had three...

Another day...and I have no idea where this is. It's Dede's photo so maybe I wasn't even there. Just thought it was really pretty.

At Gifu Castle.

Dede's sister and her boyfriend came over to Japan for a holiday and we got to see them for one night. We took them to the Aeon Mall for dinner, and it was Chinese once again. I also got Mabo-Doufu this time but it wasn't fantastic.

Outside my house a week or so ago. So pretty!

Last weekend Dede and I travelled to Gifu City to see the third biggest Buddha in Japan. It was pretty impressive, I sat directly in front of it for about ten minutes. It was great to see, even though I have already seen the biggest (but that was a long time ago now...)

Where the Buddha is housed.

After the Buddha we went to coffee chain (cafe perhaps?) called Komeda; I've seen it everywhere but never thought to go inside. It was a hot day so we decided to get some shaved ice and a drink. Dede ordered the mini and I got the regular size. Regular size in Japan tends to be what I would call mini-mini, so I figured it would be the same here. Nope. You can't really tell from this photo, but my shaved ice was HUGE! It was a struggle to eat it. Not only that, I forgot that I had ordered ice-cream for my iced chocolate, and ordered extra for the ice too! A little bit too much on the sweet-side for me.

After a long, long time I finally got motivated to take some photos of my apartment. I had been planning to do this ever since moving in, so I'm happy I've finally done it. This is what my LeoPalace looks like:

In the living room there is a simple table which can fold down and make more room if you need it. On this particular day I was studying Japanese quite hard, but on a normal day it looks just as messy! It turns into a junk table whether I want it to or not.

The other side of the living room...which is also the bedroom! There is a lot of storage space under the bed which is where all our suitcases and snowboards are living at the moment. The bed is a single though, so as it's getting hotter it's not very comfortable.

I finally bought myself some indoor slippers to use on the wooden floors; I'm tired of getting footprints on it and having to wipe them off by hand. But it's so hot now that I keep forgetting to wear them anyway!!

  

There's a nice amount of wardrobe space too, but no shelves, so I'm using my suitcase at the moment. It's also good that we both get our own wardrobe too.

My teen tiny kitchen. It is incredibly hard to cook here but I make do.

There isn't very much space for kitchen supplies so I try and stick it all here.

And my small fridge. It's usually very full.

Bathroom...I don't know why this photo is turned. The original is not this way and this stupid blog keeps uploading it this way. I hate it when things aren't perfect!

These turned pictures make me really mad...

And last of all I have an intercom!! I can see who is outside, and I can talk to them through it! It's great!

Such a big post. I'll have to update regularly again so that the next posts are not so long! See you soon.