It was a nice relaxing weekend for me and a tough working weekend for Kuniko. She was out of bed and off to work early on Saturday morning. I spent the day at home doing laundry, cleaning, studying, and generally getting the house organized.
When Kuniko got home around four o’clock, we had just about an hour for her to relax before heading to her parents house for dinner. Dinner was delicious, as usual – hand-wrapped sushi rolls, and gyoza on the side. Kuniko’s dad came in later – he’s busy out on the farm. He gave us lots of farm products to bring back home – strawberries, lots of onions, a head a cabbage – it was a big haul.
Sunday we got to sleep in just a bit, and then Kuniko was off to a Rotary Club meeting for some of the international students that they are sponsoring. Since one of Kuniko’s students was invited, Kuniko had to go, too.
While she was gone I spent the day studying and squeezed in a game or two of MarioKart on the DS. In the evening I went into Kobe to meet up with Kuniko after her meeting to have dinner.
On the way there, on the JR platform in Akashi, there was a guy in a really nice suit slumped over on the bench asleep. As I got closer I noticed a giant puddle of puke on the ground around him – I guess he drank too much. He was a mess, and it was interesting to watch the people around him and their reactions. Sometimes I see the odd puddle of vomit while walking around in the mornings, but this was the first time I saw the birth of one in public.
I met up with Kuniko near the Hankyu train station in Sannomiya, and from there we headed to the restaurant to check it out. It was a Thai restaurant that I had heard good things about, and I had made reservations earlier because I had also heard that it was a popular but small place. We got there a little early, and they turned us away, saying that we would have to come back right at the reservation time. We walked around a little bit and came back, our stomachs audibly growling.
The place was packed, and we actually shared our table with another couple across from us, with a wooden screen giving us privacy. In Japan I’ve shared tables with strangers before – that’s no big deal. The screen was there to afford us a little privacy, but you had to worry about maybe your foot or leg hitting the people across the way. Interesting.
We ordered a few things and were really pleased overall. We had fried garlic and pepper shrimp, and a fried pork dish covered with onions and spices. The shrimp had a really amazing sauce that we couldn’t get enough of, and the pork dish was nice and spicy – it had us sweating. We also ordered pineapple fried rice, and it was served in half of a pineapple. It was a little too greasy for us, but it was still delicious. For drinks we had juice, and I had a coconut juice that was just awesome.
We did just a little bit of shopping after dinner, and then headed home. We blended up lots of fruits and yogurts to take care of the strawberries we got from Kuniko’s folks. We also got into a bad situation with Tetris – we promised not to go to bed until one of us defeated the computer. It took almost 40 minutes to get that accomplished, but finally Kuniko did it. We went to bed exhausted – which is a bad way to go to sleep on a Sunday night.
