On the cusp of brilliance

It seems Newton was right - for every meal we've diligently cooked recently, there was an equal and opposite blowout this week. I counted four dinners and five lunches out out of seven and I'm not in the least bit remorseful about any of them (although my wallet seems to be losing as much weight as I'm gaining). At least now when someone asks what I did in Japan, I'll be able to give them a genuine account of all the amazing food and drink, rather than mumbling something about tupperware and leftovers.

The naughtiness began on Tuesday night with our first trip of an inexplicable four or so to Oji Park, one stop away from us on the train and normally of no interest whatsoever. This time however, they had advertised a lightup in the zoo of all the cherry blossoms, which we hadn't seen by night before. Unfortunately, once we met Mel there we realised we had shown up on the wrong night, so we instead contented ourselves by walking around the park chatting away. We also found a gym that you can use for 3 bucks as well, so that's good I guess. It was still worth it for the food - we headed out to the local Chinese food franchise to indulge my disgusting craving for mayonnaise prawns (10x better than they sound) and sweet and sour pork.

Wednesday night we had awkwardly scheduled a dance lesson in Oji Park that meant either hanging around in town for ages or going home, turning around and coming straight back out again; it was time for another meal out. This time it was chicken and pork schnitzels stuffed with cheese and spinach, leaving us with plenty of energy to fumble our way through our first foxtrot lesson. Lisa has decided we need to dance at the wedding and has taken on the admirable task of trying to educate me thus. I spent most of the evening tying my legs up in a granny knot but hopefully I'll be a bit less of a disaster at our next one tonight.

Japan: Everyone everywhere, all the time

Thursday night, having double checked the date, we went out for our second attempt at the cherry blossoms and this time we weren't disappointed. We had a quick Gusto dinner out and headed to the zoo, where they had cordoned off a path with legions of orange stick men directing everyone along the route. The sakura seem to be in full bloom now and although the floodlighting drained a lot of the colour out of them, they were still very pretty. We occasionally had to touch a few of them to make sure they weren't made of paper, such was the paleness and postcard-perfection.

Pleased as punch

Friday night we met Andy out and had a long overdue catchup; he thoroughly recommends India but says that toilet paper must be kept on hand at all times. In case we didn't believe him, he spent the better part of the evening telling us "poo stories" as part of a very strange but amusing timeline of his holiday. He was in a Bollywood photoshoot, among other things, and still managed to actually save money by taking the trip. We ate and drank handsomely at our favourite shabu-shabu restaurant and I managed to douse him with scalding hot broth when I dumped the noodles into the pot. Fortunately he seems to still be speaking to me.

Saturday, after a quick lunch at KFC, we headed out to our last cherry blossom viewing of the season in Akashi. After a spell I was sent on a donut and coffee run back to the station where I met Len, who said he could swear I had lost weight; somehow I doubt it. We headed back to the tarp, nattered away with people and munched away - despite having very little to do with cherry blossoms it was very pleasant, if a little uneventful.

But only a little

Saturday night and Sunday we vowed to stay out of trouble and apart from a momentary lapse to head out for a piece of cake and a coffee, we did well. Japan does a great job with service in places like coffee shops, I've noticed - china cups and little silver spoons and food that actually looks like it does in the photo. In a general sense, everything's nicely presented and served with much more care than you'd expect from a frowning Perth person in a waist apron. Having said that, when you get a bit sick of the Japanese "flavour" and crave something different, there really isn't much that can be done about it. The food and drink here is a bit like having every single kind of one food - quiche, for example - at your fingertips. It's lovely for a while, beautifully made and with a great range of options but eventually you just want something that's not quiche. We're not quite at that stage yet but I don't think it's too long before we're ending every sentence with "but god I miss steak".

We're over the peak now and fast descending toward Spring amusements - on Saturday we're heading to a "ninja village" to dress up and throw pointy things at people. I'm sure this will kick off an express trip to the end of the year, when we'll suddenly realise it's December and have to think hard to work out where it all went. We can only hope the answer makes us smile.