All the tea in China

I am going to Beijing on Monday to drink lots of tea and eat plenty of Peking duck. Food is always an important part of any holiday for me so I have great expectations for the Peking duck, if it aint good in Peking then there's no hope. Besides eating and drinking I'm going to see the Great Wall and the Forbidden city, I'm mega excited as the Great Wall is something I always thought was so far away and would never be able to visit. I'm leaving Martin to fend for himself for a few days and will need to show him how the rice cooker works before I go as he still doesn't know after a year and a half. There are rumours circulating that he might even do a blog post. Stay tuned.

Spring winds and the "Prum Brossom"

It seems that winter is already over in Hiroshima and that Spring has finally arrived. My friend informed me that the Spring wind came last week, I have no idea what the "Spring wind" is but I love the idea of Winter being blown away! Not that Winter was so bad, it rarely got very cold and we didn't even get any snow this year. One of my favourite things about Spring in Japan is the arrival of plum blossom or "prum brossom" as my friend Ailsa likes to say. Everyone makes such a big deal out of cherry blossom (the national flower) that poor old plum blossom kind of gets forgotten about, I reckon it's vastly underated. It was so beautiful this morning that I tootled off to the nearby gardens to check out the plum blossom. With the soothing tones of the Japanese shimasen being piped through speakers and the trickle of water it was just like walking through a plum blossom wonderland!


I came across this pair of lovebirds in the garden posing for their wedding photographs, what a stunning kimono and her hair is amazing (probably a wig but years ago they actually had to have their hair styled like that and had to rest their heads on a stand while they slept so the style wasn't disturbed!).

Rolling up seaweed

Despite the fact that I've lived in Japan for well over a year I had yet to make my own sushi until Erin hosted a sushi party last night. When I first came to Japan I expected to find little sushi bars with their neverending conveyor belts and counters stacked high with empty plates on every street corner but that wasn't the case. There is way more to Japanese cuisine than sushi and chicken teriyaki than I could ever have imagined and although some of it is an aquired taste I have really enjoyed trying out as many culinary delights as possible in my time here.

Regards the sushi, it was really simple to make, so fresh and tasty and I think it will be making a regular appearance in my bento box when I return to work.

Erin armed with her sushi mat and seaweed and poised to start the demonstration.

I love the look of pure concentration on Orlando's face.

My first attempt at sushi! Spicy tuna rolls, and very tasty they were too.(I'll blame the wonky shot on any alcohol consumed.)

The evening was rounded off by a fun and at times tenuous game of Battle of the Sexes. I really love board games but I tend to get a bit too competitive. Iddya was my partner in competitive crime and we didn't take too well to the boy's smugness. See, don't they look smug?

I met Cheyenne for the first time last night and on introduction he said he knew me from somewhere. It turns out he recoginsed me from my blog! When he met Martin he said there mustn't be many pictures of him on the blog as he didn't recognise him. This made me laugh so I have included a picture of Martin with his very own sushi roll and mysterious hand just to balance things out.

Martin's sushi was also very good although he was a bit heavy handed with the wasabi which gave a few people a bit of a shock and a tingly nose.

You heard it from me first...

You know me always ahead of the gossip. Remember a few posts back I told you how we saw Matthew Perry and Meg Ryan out for dinner in Hawaii well I came across the following article in the news today!

Is Meg Dating Friends Star?
Meg and Matthew sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G...

OK, perhaps we are getting ever so slightly carried away.

But with all the rumours flying around we just can't help ourselves.

The word on the street is that Matthew Perry has been making rather a few trips to Meg Ryan's LA homestead.

And it has been reported that they have also been out for a candlelit dinner for two.

Hmm...

Now, we're big fans of this supposed coupling... as far as we know they're both single and we think they'd be rather cute together.

Sure, we're just old romantics at heart - and so we'll be sure to keep our ears to the ground for any word from the Meg or Matt camps.

Now I really do regret not snapping a picture, I'm sure People magazine would have paid a pretty penny.

Gaijin Invasion

Check out this catchy little tune from "Adam and Joe" about Tokyo. The diving outfits are fantastic and the line "the buildings are kinda tall, the people kinda small and everybody eats a lot of fish" really made me chuckle. If it doesn't make you laugh then at least you'll learn a little Japanese along the way.