HAPPY BIRTHDAY HUNNY!!!

You are now 13!!! Teenager Alert!!

She is beautiful and very sweet.

so are the cakes in front!

work of art!

We are going back to UK tomorrow!

A Happy New Year!!

This is first time in 14years to do new year celebration in Japan for me, and first time ever for Hunny and Viz! This is The proper celebration for new year to me, clean everywhere in the house to welcome good spirits and prepare food on new years eve.

And new year starts with greeting and announcements of new year's resolutions and children get their new year money. Then we pore eachother "Otoso" spiced sake drunk in celebration of the New year.

Otoso at the back, black beans, fish eggs and small dried fish cooked in a sauce at the front.

As our little Viz couldn`t wait to put his hands on Otoso, new year resolutions were skiped.

Happy new year, Viz!



"Osechi" New year foods in a three-tired box.
some fish, prawn, various root vegetables.Each foods have meaning to bring good luck.

In the afternoon,we went to the shrine for the first visits of the year.

It was quite busy, there was a long queue to the main shrine.

A little shrine on the side. There were few of them, each one is dedicated for different gods.

"Omikuji" a written fortune. After it was drown and read, it was tied on.

The place selling Omikuji and other good luck charms and decorations.

Our dinner for the evening.

The same thing from the morning plus roast beef and sashimi of various fish.





Hunny`s favorite sashimi..... cyu-toro which is quite fatty part of tuna.

ahhhh.... yum!









Viz found something taste extremely good!

ummmmmmm...... too yummy for words!

My dad took us to the fish wholesale market where he used to work.

The morning of markets starts early..... or these days it's 24hours work as they do auctions in even midnight.

We left home at 3 o'clock in Taxi as there are no trains running.

4 o'clock in the morning...... that's the clock says....

Inside of the market is full of styrofoam boxes.






I don`t know the name of this fish but not pretty,,,
Their faces are bit crocodilish??







A puffer, a globefish!
They have deadly poison in their guts, so only licensed people are allowed to dismantle.

and they got such strong jaws, you mustn't put your finger near it! they will bite your finger off!





And this is what we came for.

Tuna!

They get auctioned around 4 o'clock, so we needed to come here so early.




now the auction started!
They do use strange voice and language, and things go really speedy.

It didn`t take long at all to get sold all the Tuna which were in several lines.



This vehicle was used a lot in the market. It had a big round handle on top of round tank... which has an engine in it.

And there were also many bicycles and a scooters too. it`s quite big inside.

The guy was dismantling a big fish. tuna?

Other auction was on. There were only few women working there.

We saw fish were being transferred to the big tank from the truck.

We walked around greeting those people who knows my dad and saw lot more different fish.

But unfortunately,they had a stormy weather so they didn`t have fish as much as they normaly have.



Office opens around half past seven. so we had a little rest till people who my dad wanted to see come into the work.......

we got warmed up ....so~ sleepy.....



After the rest and meeting office people, we went to do some shopping.

There was lots of distributors there who just bought fish frm whole sale, and we were able to buy some from there.

Back at home.......

Viz's choice for Grandma..... A lobster still alive!






We bought some clams but we had this in a bag instead....

An octopus tentacles with big suckers on it.

It was about a meter length!




and this.....

sea cucumber..... I think it`s called so in English.

We call it "namako"
It has kind of crunchy texture with salty flavoure


We bought some more dried fish, sea urchin etc.


This is our meal for that night.

grilled lotous root, small clams steamed with Sake, boiled and sliced octopus, sushi with tuna,

boiled lobster, cooked pumpkin, sea urchine, burdoc root salad, miso soup.


Hunny trying some sea urchine.

She spat it out in next moment!

Happy Christmas!

We're feeling a lack of Xmas mood here...

To bring our Xmas spirits up, we went to Osaka for the Xmas shopping and light ups!

In front of one of the building, we saw the first nice Xmas deco in this city! It had a running train in side as well.

After shopping in the huge crowd of people we were tired and hungry.

must be the time for dinner!

We went to Tonkatsu(fried pork cutlet restaurant) and this is what I had.The set of fried pork cutlet and vegi mix with rice,cabbege,and miso soup.

Viz is grinding up sesami in a little bowl for sauce.

His meal was set with pork and prawn!

After we finished our meal, we went for Xmas lights walk.
We came to this street called "Mido-suji".
Roadside trees were covered with so many lights!


It looked beautifu...!
We walked for about 20minutes in the lights. They started this illumination a few years ago to bring more people to Osaka.

And along the street, there were few light up objects too.

A ginkgo leaf,

Wave

There were few more pretty one too.

After a long walk, we got to the another spot of Xmas lights.

This place had food stalls too..... of course we had to eat something!

(we had sausages and some crapes with backwheet flour)

and then we walked around to see more lights.

These are some of the photos.

Peter rabbits in a wood

a dressed up snowman

penguin family


A wall picture changes colour.

And beautiful one!

A horse-drawn carriage!

Merry Christmas to you all! XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

A Cabaret Universe!

A cabaret in Japan is where men go to have a drink being entertained by hostes-girls, and this one is biggest in its size in Osaka.

There was a pole dance show I wanted to watch, so I had a night out in a big city on my own!

An hour and fifteen minutes later with my hand written map in hand, I was there.

And it was so gorgeously naff!!

With so many bright lights, door men in black suits, hostes girls in pretty dresses waiting in a line , anouncements of arrival of new custamers and table numbers with microphone and the pattern on the sofas...

It was like the place we used to see on TV....!

Looking towards entrance from my seat. Loads of chandeliers in entrance hall.

A Huge stage/dance floor. A little stage with steps in a middle is a moving stage and it comes out when it gets used! After the show, they had a Karaoke, and when a man goes on a stage, two girls go with him and have to crap there hands next to him!

A plate of food which was set with a bottle of beer. It was drink as much as you like, and seemed to open one bottle of beer for each person. The waiter brings it out and opened it with out asking. It`s a big bottle, I only had a half small glass, such a waste. but these sweets doesn`t go with beer.. must be for girls.

After the first show, my pole teacher(this was her show) intruduced me to the girs(not the working ones! other custmer came to watch her show!) so I can have company.

And we were hungly......

We asked for some food and waiter said he will bring something out.......

He brought lots of tiny dishes of foods... all wraped in clingfilm! It wasn`t enough for three of us so we asked more food, and he brought out - same stuff but twice as much, all still in clingfilm! We sat there with more than 20 small dishes in front of us unwrapping each one.....

The show was WoW! Some sexy, but more funny... it was really good.

lovely Shu-sensei.

My phone battery went dead...!!! buu!