Last weekend was an action-packed one. Friday night we went to see the latest James Bond movie, Saturday night was another wild party with the neighbors, and then Sunday we walked all the way to Akashi and had a great experience in a tiny Japanese restaurant.
I shouldn’t be surprised that our party with the neighbors got a little out of hand. We always seem to let loose with the Yamaji’s and Fukumi’s. We drank plenty of wine, Mr. Yamaji finished half a bottle of bourbon on his own, and there were some really interesting conversations. We all exchanged Christmas presents, and that has become kind of a tradition among us. It was great fun, and I wasn’t feeling too bad the next day. The food seemed to be a hit, and now we have a lot of extra Tabasco sauce that we’ll need to use up.
Sunday we walked to Akashi for a couple of purposes – shopping for Christmas, mailing a package, and having lunch. After mailing the package we walked around the station area to look for a place to eat. Since there is a lot of construction going on in front of Akashi station, the restaurant that were displaced have a temporary building set up where they can continue business. We walked into a place that was really traditional Japanese. The counter was filled with older guys drinking sake and talking in loud voices, there was a lot of seafood on the menu as well as kushi-katsu and yakitori. A real blue-collar type place.
We ordered a mix a different items and some beers, and just soaked in the atmosphere. We noticed that the people next to us had ordered a big plate of fish, and it looked really good. We found it on the menu and Kuniko ordered kamayaki. ‘Kama’ means the neck of the fish, a bony area just below the mouth. We chose yellowtail for our fish, and the cook picked up a big chunk of raw fish meat and took it over to the grill. He salted it up and cooked it while we waited in anticipation. There is a lot of oil in the skin and around the edges of the cut of fish, and it all turned nice and brown and crispy. I was impressed when it arrived – it looked great! We tore it apart with our chopsticks, and it was so delicious. It felt like we’ve been missing out all this time, since we don’t usually order fish like this. Lesson learned!
After lunch while still buzzing from the lunch beers we faced Toys R Us and the crowds of kids and families shopping there for the holidays. It was pretty packed but we had an unusually fun time looking through the toys. We picked out a few things that might be good for family when we head to my hometown for Christmas. Hopefully the language barrier won’t be a problem.
In the evening after returning home we worked on planning for our trip at the end of March to Singapore – we’ll see if we can actually get to our intended destination this time!
