Kelly Azuma

Had a nice weekend. Saturday while Yasu was at work I got into our bedroom and cleaned it up. Yasu has a tendency to just undress where he is standing and walk out of the clothes leaving them on the floor. So if I don’t pick them up, which I haven’t lately, we end up tripping over his clothes!!

I tidied up our room and bought some vases and some real looking fake flowers to go on our bedside tables, lit some scented candles and rearranged the furniture. I tackled our walk-in-robe and rearranged that, hung up all the clothes and stuff, so now it looks nice. When Yasu came home I lit the candles and took him in and he reckons it looks like a hotel room. I have been making a big effort to keep it nice and tidy, so it will stay looking like that! It’s hard though, with Yasu being so messy.

On Sunday we met a Japanese friend, Yuki, for lunch in the city. She has been here for 1.5 years on a working holiday visa and is now moving up north, and then to Melbourne to study. We farewelled her with a lunch at Miss Maud, and then found out that today is her birthday! So it was a kind of double celebration. Miss Mauds is a Swedish Pastry House and they have a “Viking” all you can eat restaurant and hotel. The food was delicious but the desserts, OMG!! They were divine. I had shuu puffs and princess cake, chocolate torte, lemon tarts, pavlova, lemon torte, fruit…ohhh yummy. Yasu wants to go back for HIS birthday in August.

Afterwards we wandered out, we were all sooo full, and I was almost in pain because my stomach was full to capacity. We took a walk to visit another Japanese friend we knew who was working at a Thai restaurant, who couldn’t make it to the lunch today.

This morning I got a message from another Japanese friend and she is coming over for dinner tonight, she has a daughter, who Yasu loves playing with, so it should be fun!! Wow, we are having a busy social life these days. haha :)

Oh, as an aside, I stopped in at Utopia today and got some cream cheese pan, man are these yummy!! They are always so popular, and I got the last 2! The cream cheese goes all the way to the bottom, the taste is like cheesecake, and the pan is so soft and fresh. Mmm.

Today I woke up early and decided to go into the city. Yasu dropped me off at the station and I caught the train in, it takes about 45 minutes.

Firstly I went to the Nick Cave Exhibition at the WA Museum. I had been wanting to go, and as I was footloose and fancy free, I decided to.
It was a great look at one of my favourite musicians, and there were quite alot of personal trinkets of his, and even a bespoke suit made for him in London. Lots of his notes, artwork, and even his office! Also lots of videos of interviews, video’s, and framed photographs. I spent a good hour in there wandering around and reading, the exhibition itself was quite big.

Afterwards I went to some of the Japanese supa’s and picked up some groceries including some Hamburg Sauce for the hamburgers I made for dinner.

I also dropped by a store called Utopia, which makes Japanese pan and cakes. This store is very much the same as a Japanese panya, and there was all kinds of pan, currypan, sausagepan, to matchapan, melonpan, anpan, cheesepan etc. I bought Yasu a cream cheese pan for $2, and a bag of 6 matcha anpan for $3. The prices in Utopia are pretty much on par with the prices I spent on pan at Obihiro station. All this time it’s been there and I didn’t know. I have a feeling I will be a regular customer.

After mincing around the city for a while, I had had enough so I got on the train and came home. I caught a bus to our house, and when I got home, Yasu was in bed. He’s just gotten over his flu so I don’t blame him. The weather wasn’t all that good either, mostly overcast, so a great day for snuggling.

I made us a cup of tea and we had the pan for afternoon tea. Yasu devoured his cream cheese pan stating it was the best he had ever had. It was actually quite large for the price, about 15cm diameter. Yasu also had two matcha anpans, and I had one, so there are three left for tomorrow.

We were watching Softbank Hawks take on Chunichi Dragons, and surprisingly Softbank won by 4. So that was good. I’m pretty used to seeing CD beat the pants off every other team. After baseball was over, I made dinner, and the Teriyaki hamburg sauce was loved by both of us. Very nice. Made by a brand called Ebara.

So that was my saturday pretty much. A very nice day. :)