Today was a nice relaxing day – just cleaning up around the house and catching up on a few things I’ve been meaning to do. I spoke with my grandfather, who recently turned 94, and he was as feisty as ever. I went over to Ito Yokado and got a grilled chicken breast and made a sandwich here at home.
Around four o’clock I took the train into Akashi and did a little Christmas shopping. It’s strange to shop for Christmas presents here – everyone has lots of Christmas decorations, but buying a lot of presents isn’t really common here. I guess it’s just a celebration of the time of year.
Anyway, I had a blast shopping, and with armloads of extra baggage I hopped the next train to Osaka.
Kuniko was there cooking dinner for us when I arrived, and I got a real treat – homemade oden. Oden is great cold weather food – it’s a tasty broth with lots of different kinds of vegetables and then some fish cake-type things that are floating around. It really is good, although the concept is a bit hard to explain. You eat it with a bit of hot mustard, and Kuniko had bought a couple of beers to go with it.
I got caught up on Japanese TV, and then it was off to bed. Tomorrow is the big trip to Kyoto to see the changing leaves.
