Firstly, I never realized how popular Nodame Cantabire is in the dorm. Although I don't follow it, I am familiar with both the manga and the drama. Khursten informed me of a limited edition theme cafe in Harajuku. (The limited edition convinced me). Hence, me, Rina, Rina's friend, Kathryn Wong (American) and James (Australian) braved the freezing rain for a "Nodame" experience. The nice thing for fans is that the menu highlights food from the manga and even mentions which volume and page. Another highlight is a replica of Nodame's room from the drama. We decided to order different dishes and took pictures of them. I'll let the pictures show my experience.
Nodame experience
On another note, me and Hanna finally tried the Philippine travel cafe, the first of a line of travel cafes established in Japan to advertise tourism for the theme country. It looked fancy but the food was actually simple. I decided to have a pan de sal sandwich since I wanted to eat halo-halo!!! Yes, I know it is cold, but I still wanted to eat halo-halo. The pan de sal tasted like pan de pugon, which I really liked in Manila. The funny thing is that when you see the halo-halo, the presentation was so simple for a "posh-looking" place! I joked to Hanna that it looked like the ones sold in the sidewalk. haha!
As for food, my host mom gave me a bag of wagashi (Japanese sweets) from Kyoto.
What appealed to me was one where I had to make the wagashi from a set. The steps are as follows:
On a similar note, Kitaoka-sensei gave the class some sweet potato wagashi. It is odd since I don't really eat kamote in the Philippines, but here, especially this fall, I'm like "farting" all the way! haha! (pardon the gross humour)
re: a Stupid Karl adventure, me and Hanna decided to try a congee place in Fujimidori. It looked promising until we entered the restaurant. One of the first things Hanna noticed is that all of the customers (except me) were obasans and obaasans (ladies and old women). Secondly, the restauranteurs(?) are also female. uh-oh! As we were eating, I was laughing at myself thinking I might have entered a "tambayan" for old ladies...hehe! oh well. The congee is good though! I ordered a half order set.
My first Christmas party is with Hanna and Cheska! Which was a comedy of errors throughout the day. We planned to go to Cheska at Saitama and meet at Shintoshin Station. I went ahead, while Hanna accidentally boarded a wrong train. Then, I went out the wrong station (As in I exited the gate and had to pay another fare). When we were close to the station, Cheska forgot her wallet, so had to go back to here place. After all of these mishaps, we ate at a okonokiyaki place! (Influenced by Teppan Shoujo Akane - jdrama). After the meal, we had nice dessert. I had the fruit waffle. Unfortunately, they placed too much cream (which I could eat, but didn't want to)
To continue with the Nodame experience, I bought one of the three available limited edition Nodame Cantabire bentos. (The limited edition, once again attracted me!) This is like Mapo tofu! What surprised me is that it is spicy...very un-Japanese! The essence of all of these food is that they came out of the manga..so to Nodame fans, which volume and page did this come out? haha!
The dorm also had a Christmas party. I was in charge of looking for cheap food (as my task is always in the department before). I was able to buy 150 drumsticks for only 8000 yen (which is cheap here) as opposed to buying two whole chickens from KFC for 5000 yen each! (Crazy prices di ba?) I also found a nice german bakeshop from where we ordered 72 dinner rolls at 80 yen a piece (which is expensive but okay). They even gave me 5 traditional German pastries baked for the Christmas season shaped like people! hehe! Tons of food and games! We also had an exchange gift and I was fortunate to get a box of manju (a dessert, which I forgot to take a picture of! Dang!!!)
Anyway! I think this is about a month's worth! haha! My next post will be what I did for Christmas! To everyone who reads my blog, Merry Christmas!!! 皆さん、メリークリスマス！！！
1 comment:
With regards to the mapo tofu, it's actually Nodame's favorite dish in the Uraken restaurant. Mine (the blonde violinist) no otousan who ran Uraken, a chinese restaurant, likes to cook mapo for Nodame (and variations thereof)...
On the other end, they also sold club sandwich for Nodame as well. This is Chiaki's favorite thing to order in Uraken (even if it's not part of the menu). He also orders I think either a latte or espresso. ^^;;
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