Nagasicki

Through no fault of my own, I've made it through the short working week and hit the shore of holidays on the other side. Like clockwork, my immune system switched off as soon as the Friday public holiday hit, leaving me with a gnarly cough and runny nose just in time for our trip away. I'm sure I won't be alone when I say bloody arsing shit.

Fortunately the lurgy has had no impact on my appetite or avarice - we spent Friday doing three days' worth of shopping in one and stayed out for dinner despite firm plans to be good. Lisa bought a new Mac and a handbag ("just for going away," she assures me) and we raided Uniqlo's entire supply of t-shirts. We're also experts on water heaters and cooktops now, so when we find ourselves out of debt again we can plunge back into the hole and deck out our kitchen with the last bells and whistles we can think of.

After this, the weekend was declared an emergency "no spendy weekendy" and we were mostly good, doing lots of cooking at home and trying not to spend thousands of dollars on anything. However, the second Monday hit it was off to grab some Kobe beef, which was a nice bookend to the (brief) frugality.

Teppanyaki: serious business

I had actually forgotten how nice it is - from the gleaming surfaces of all the steel grills to the serious-looking chefs in their white hats, it's a dining experience in the least wanky way I can imagine. It turns out you can have an upmarket meal out without a hand-clasping "server" drizzling all your food in olive oil and superlatives.

Seconds later, 10 times this much meat

The beef itself is absolutely melt in your mouth, buttery and delicious - it's got all the meatiness of steak without being tough at all. It's served with garlic chips, salt, pepper and wasabi (of all things), all of which go amazingly well. I don't think you'd want it all the time - a little bit goes a very long way - but it really is exceptionally good. I tried to surreptitiously take photos throughout the meal and held a waitress hostage at the end to ask some questions for my other blog, but hopefully didn't make too much of a pest of myself.

Beef botherers: do not serve

We thought we'd walk out hungry but it turns out the lunch courses are colossal - we would have rolled home for want of a downward slope. Fortunately we're just about all packed for our trip so we're free to spend the rest of the afternoon splayed across the couch like so much steak on a grill (but less lean). We then spend 2 nights in Nagasaki and 1 in Hiroshima, arriving back just in time for the weekend. No plans, no worries, just a big pile of books and a camera. It's a hard job but somebody's gotta do it.