27/02/2011

Today, we started out with a trip to...you guessed it--Mister Donuts!  I've made the transition to calling it Misdo, the Japanese term of endearment for the yummy donut shop ;)  This Misdo was located in a tiny neighborhood just a couple of train stops away from our hotel.  And, they had a bigger variety of donuts...I tried a sakura donut.  Sakura is cherry blossom, and since Girls' Day is coming up, sakura is very popular.  It has a really nice sweet & floral taste...I really liked it :)  We explored the neighborhood for awhile, checking out the grocery store, convenience store and candy store before we hopped back on our train to start our day. 

We spent some time in a Japanese fabric store today.  I really wanted to buy some fabric here to make a quilt for our bed next month, but we didn't see anything I had in mind.  This fabric store was really wild, not at all organized like American ones, which is a little surprising since this country wrote the book on order and organization.  It was fun to look though, before we moved on to a stationery store. 

In the evening, we went to Naoko's (Naoto's younger sister) house for dinner.  Naoko lives in a neighborhood of Tokyo.  Once we got off the train, we met Naoto's other sister, Noriko, in a grocery store and she showed us the way to Naoko's.  It was fun to walk the little side streets and see the houses and little mom & pop neighborhood restaurants. 

Naoko made us a feast of pork cutlet, chicken, macaroni salad, tofu & avocado salad (with salmon roe) and she ordered sushi that was so fresh & tasty!  I was stuffed!  Naoko's house is two stories, but very tiny.  The first floor consisted of a tiny entryway & hall, a bathroom and the main room--kitchen/living/dining room.  It was quite the crowded sight with all of us--Naoko, (her boyfriend) Satoshi, (her sons) Ren & Rin, Noriko and her son, Hiroki, Naoto & me all sitting on the floor around a big table eating and drinking and talking and (Naoto) translating.