Maihama ~ Day 15

Yesterday I visited my friend Hideo and his wife in Maihama (next to Tokyo Disney Resort XD). Hideo fetched me at the station and we drove together in his car to his house. He lives in a really nice area and was quite an experience to sit in an japanese car (I always thought he was drivin on the wrong lane^^').

His house looks also very nice. There his wife Mihiko was just waiting for us. She was nice and can speak very good german. That's why she was happy to have someone to talk to in german.

Beforehand I have told Hideo what I would like to that day and everything was prepared for me: Mihiko had everything ready for a little Ikebana lesson, everything for making lunch and Hideo had the plans where to go shopping kithcne ware and food I'd like to buy in Japan.

So we started with Ikebana. It isn't that easy because the arragnement follows special rules. It was really interesting and Mihiko also wrote down the important pieces of information for me (in german!).

our flower arrangement (Ikebana)

After that we started to prepare lunch. Mhiko chose three meals (I was wondering who should eat all that). We made: Chirashizushi, Nikuzyaga and Okonomiyaki. I also got the recipes in german X3

It was so great, Mihiko is quite skillful! And everything tasted so good, I have to make them at home for sure! Chirashizushi is a kind of rice meals. Of course it's made with zushi rice and then you add things you like. Important is that you use ingredients with different colours so that the meals looks colourful. We had peapods (green), crab meat (rose) and tamagoyaki (yellow). Of course there were also some spices and sesame in it, too.

Nikuzyaga is a kind of japanese goulash, it's made with beef and potatoes. I loved it.

The self-made okonomiyaki was also really great! I hope my own made ones will be better next time.

(maybe I blog the recipes when I'm back home)

For dinner Mihiko had bought some jelly-thing. It was very sweet.

 

lunch (from left above to right below): Nikuzyaga, Chirashizushi, Okonomiyaki, Jelly

After a little chatting Hideo drove us to a big center where you can bought daily life things (f.e. everything for bathroom, kitchen, for pets, lamps and stuff like that). There I got a tamagoyaki-pan and new vessels for my bento boxes.

Next stop was a nice 100円-shop. It looked very different from the usual ones (it was very tidy, wide and clean). There I got some more stuff for bento (cutlery set and sandwich maker) and arm covers and stockings. Last stop was a normal supermarket (which you don't find in the busy inner towns). That was so nice. There I bought foods which I don't get in Germany so easily: okonomiyaki sauce (so delicious!), japanese mayonaise and katsuoboshi (filmy, dry fish pieces).

stuff for bento

katsuoboshi, mayonaise, okonomiyaki sauces

So I can say I shopped enough things (but I didn't get my wanted bento box U.U). For dinner we went to the shopping center near the Maihama station which is designed in a disney-like way, so it was very cute. They took me to a sushi-restaurant. It was really hard to choose something there. But it was great to taste real japanese sushi and was really very delicious! (in the end I chose tamago-nigiri, nigiri with a kind of eel and super-california sushi)

Super-California Sushi / Nigiri-Sushi

Before we drove back home we were walking around a bit trough the center, I liked it very much (and it was quite good after eating so much). Back home Mihkio prepared some Nashi (pears) and Matcha tea. A real good dessert! We talked a bit about our future holiday plans and we all hope to see eath other again.

Finally Hideo brought me back to the station from where I head back to hotel...

I really hope to see them again (maybe next year X3).