I was bitten by a mosquito the other day. Already! It became very itchy, and I put a cross (I also call it "belly button") in the mosquito bite with my fingernail. My American friend, who saw me doing it, said 'I know it'. I thought that he learnt it in Japan, but he said that people do it in the US too! They do it for the same reason: to take away the itch, because it hurts instead! My friends from England and Germany didn't get what we were talking about. I know it's very silly but I was quite surprised!

Rika Yukimasa's recipe for Almond Tart from Dareka Kuruhi no Menu (in Japanese) is great. C loves it and he always requests that I make it again soon, just after we finish the last pieces. So I was quite proud of that tart, but C baked it yesterday. Oops, now he knows that it doesn't require any skill to bake it! His tart was good, the filling was chewy (do I usually overbake it?), maybe better than mine!

My favourite interior shop TRICO has moved to a new location, changed its name to mYwaY, and opened yesterday. The new shop is in CODAN Shinonome Canal Court, which is one of the new housing development projects in the Tokyo waterfront areas. It is hard to imagine that these areas (Toyosu/Shinonome/Tatsumi) used to be suburban industrial districts. By the way, TRICO's Harajuku branch STOCK BY TRICO is still in the same place.

This is a 100ml bottle of lime juice which I bought in a German supermarket. It's so cute that the product information is on a leaf-shaped piece of paper attached to the bottle. The pale tone of the orange and green colours is also very nice. I just realised that it is best before June 2002! Actually, I remember that it cost just 66 Pfennig (DM 0.66), which is only about ¥45! Very cheap. Prices seem higher since they changed to Euro, so it's probably more expensive now.

As I was cleaning the kitchen, I realised that I had forgotten about my Bodum chopping block. We are both taller than the Japanese Industrial Standard size, so cooking or washing dishes for a long time is quite tough. I had bought this because it makes the worktop 9cm higher, which might make it a bit more comfortable to cook. It was good to use it again after a long time. But with its size of 21x21cm it's not perfect for doing lots of chopping (cabbage for Chinese dumplings, for example).

C came back from his another trip last night. He brought Dried Kiwifruit Slices, Kiwifruit & Feijoa Jam, and Kiwifruit & Chocolate Cookies. It is very obvious that he has been to New Zealand. Many Japanese (including me of course) love well known local food products, so his choice was spot on! C is an omiyage master!

Maison Kayser is one of the best bakeries in Paris, and I bought their bread at the Shinjuku branch in Isetan department store. Their bread is good, especially the simple one rather than the fancy pastries (to me). Everytime I see the word of 'Maison Kayser', I just can't stop thinking of 'Kayser Soze'. It was a great film!

I didn't know that a corn snack called Umai-bo (means 'a delicious stick') has a Natto flavour. It is very unusual flavour for snacks but I had to try it, as a Natto lover! I couldn't taste of Natto, because of the strong Japanese 'Karashi' mustard flavour (we put some mustard to eat natto). But it had a Natto smell! I also had a slimy texture in my mouth, just like eating real natto! What does it make slimy?!

C got me an Apple wireless mouse on my birthday. I've been a powerbook user for six years, and I haven't used a mouse about four years now. After several years of everyday training, I became very good at working with fingers on a trackpad, even no problem with Photoshop and Illustrator. Also I thank for very useful new scrolling technique of iScroll. But I somtimes develop a callus on my thumb or suffer from a muscle pain by using too much trackpad, and I had to borrow C's mouse, so it was a nice present. When I set up my wireless mouse in a system preference panel, I named it 'mozzarella' because of its look. It's beautiful and I love it. But my two fingers miss scrolling down and up, I'm holding a mouse but fingers still try to scroll something...

Today is the birthday of our friend T who is pregnant, and we had a day early birthday party at Las Chicas in Omotesando yesterday. It was meant to be a surprise party but it didn't work, same as last year. I thought that the building is kind of spacey as a restaurant in the middle of Tokyo, and I found out that it used to be a private house owned by African ambassador. They prepared a table for us on the terrace, but it started to rain just before the party! We moved to inside where we could see the terrace... It was a little bit strange to see our drinking friends just after 3pm, I know them only in the night time!

On Monday, N and I took the Odakyu Railway Romance Car to Hakone. We could have checked the time table to see when the newest VSE (Vault Super Express) Romance Car was running, but I was sleeping for the whole journey, both ways! It didn't really matter that our Romance Car was the old model.

I wonder what happened to the weather. These days it's been quite chilly in Tokyo. The weather during Golden Week was also not so good. This is just like being in London (sorry)! I don't mind it so much because I prefer winter to summer anyway. But my coriander might need more sun. I just checked my coriander and I was surprised to see how much it has grown! Actually it has been 21 days already since I planted the seeds, and I have to thin out the seedlings very very soon, maybe tomorrow, but not today. Sorry coriander! (The main picture shows my coriander on the 11th day)

Yesterday was the last day in Tokyo for our friend N. I took C and N to my recent favourite bar Ebisu 18-ban. Our friend A joined us and we moved to our local izakaya. We wanted to go home early but it was 3 am when we got home! As usual! Today I felt a little bit hangover... I think N is arriving at London Heathrow Airport soon.

I've heard that the Chinese Home Cooking Restaurant Saika in our neibourhood is very good. And finally we had a chance to go there. It is a very small restaurant which has only four tables, and it's always super busy, but we didn't need to wait this time! Lucky! Everything we had was very good. I seriously want to try all their menu one by one!

Yesterday, after we went to a home party at our friend's flat, birthday boy N said he wanted to eat Sushi, so we went to Nakameguro to eat Sushi. But he liked An-Kimo (monkfish liver) with Ponzu (citrus sauce) the most, rather than Sushi! For his birthday, I got him a necktie and pre-ordered Macaroons from Pierre Hermé.

My birthday was on the 6th of May and N's birthday was on 7th, so our friend A kindly organised a birthday party for us. It was such a bad weather, but twenty friends gathered at AALAWI (in Japanese) in Ebisu for us! Thanks! It sounds a little bit strange but since I turned thirty, it always takes me a while to figure out how old I am. I'm very happy about the birthday party, but the fact that we have lots of great friends makes me even more happy! I love you everyone! And thanks for all the presents too!

We went to El Dorado again. My favourite beer, Bohemia, was sold out, so I had Dos Equis instead. The owner recommended Tecate, which is served in a can with a slice of lemon and some salt. I like the design of the can, but it's too easy to drink, I prefer a stronger taste. Our table football skills are still terrible, but I was happy when the owner told me that I have some talent.

We had a picnic near Tamagawa-dai park. It was a little bit windy but very nice hot, summery weather, and we had the first Pimm's No.1 of this year. I cooked and brought Chinese sweet and sour cucumber pickles shaped like a snake, but they were too sweet! Oops! But the Zuke Katsuo (marinated bonito) Sushi turned out to be quite nice. And I have to try to make the Spinach Quiche dough a bit thinner next time.

Our friend N from London took me to Nakano Broadway in Nakano. I haven't been to Nakano for ages but it seemed like nothing has changed. Many places on the Chuou line have a unique atmosphere which I can't really explain with words, but it's very interesting.

On Sunday, I went to a flea market at Togo Shrine. It had a nice and peaceful atmosphere after walking in Harajuku, which was super crowded because of Golden Week. There were mainly Japanese antiques, such as old kimono and furniture, and also some film posters from the Showa era. I was surprised to see that almost all customers were non-Japanese people. It seemed like the sellers were used to have foreigners as customers, so they used a bit of English to tell the prices. After 2pm they started to clear their shops, so it's better to visit earlier.

We went to El Dorado, a Colombian ＆ South American Restaurant that we discovered the other day. I really enjoyed the Mexican beer called Bohemia, Brochetas de Pollo 'skewered chicken with onion' and their homemade chilli sauce. The salsa music and the great dance of the Colombian owner made me almost forgot that we were in Tokyo. I think we found a nice place to have a drink for the coming hot summer season.