It's so hot today in Tokyo! C has gone to Fuji rock festival in Niigata in the rain, I wonder if it's hot there too. I didn't feel like cooking with gas, so I just ate sandwiches. I put some grilled red pepper from yesterday, and feta cheese (mozzarella is better for this sandwiches but I didn't have it!) and also some tapenade which I made myself yesterday. My friends told me about tapenade very recently, and I absolutely love it! I had the similar sandwiches yesterday. I had additional grilled aubergine, without feta cheese in it. It was so good!

My sister visited me this afternoon. She brought lots of souvenir from Thai, and also some fresh blueberries. She received blueberries this morning from her friend who is having a vacation in a countryside! I've never had fresh blueberries this much before, because they cost a lot in Japan. I thought about topping them on a custard tart, but I decided to try them just as they are. They were sooo fresh and sooo good! I felt like my eyes became healthier!

Today is our friend Y's birthday. We celebrated last night at Black Lion in Meguro. It's funny that we had her birthday party here last year, too. And we ordered lots of Hoegaarden like last time. It's a bit expensive but I like it! Happy birthday Y!

This morning I remembered that a famous noodle shop called Yakumo (in Japanese) in Nakameguro will close down by the end of July. I thought it might be too late, but luckily today was the last day! I ordered 'Tokusei Wantan Men (Special Wonton Noodles)': chinese noodles with shrimp and meat wontons in hot soup. I enjoyed the meat wontons more than the shrimp ones. A new shop will open on Yamate street some time in August.

The earthquake on Saturday was very strong, and I couldn't help screaming. A few bottles of alcohol fell down from the shelf, but they were thick glass bottles (like our tequila bottle), so they didn't break. But there is a big dent on our wooden floor. The cactus toothpick holder was broken by C last week. Even if C hadn't broken it last week, it would have broken in the earthquake yesterday. I knew that it would break sooner or later.

Today is the second anniversary of LDK so we went to Claska's rooftop "METROMINT LOUNGE" for drinks, it was very nice and chilled out, and a great view. It's a shame that this place is only open for one month. This last year of LDK seems to have gone by much quicker than the first year. I'm so surprised and happy that lots of people visit LDK every day! Thanks!

C and I went to Yakuzen Curry&CAFÉ Ka・Ku・Ra (in Japanese) in Nakameguro. Yakuzen is an ancient Chinese style of medicinal cooking: mushrooms and vegetables are used to treat infections, tumors, stomach ache, dizziness etc. I chose a dish that was half Kakura curry (12 different vegetables and fruits, 27 spices and traditional Chinese medicinal herbs and spices) and half Black Curry (lots of black colour ingredients which helps control active oxygen) with vegetable topping on top of grain rice. (I think it was ¥1,000 for this selection). It was tasty, but we both thought that something was missing, probably because my friends recommended it so I expected too much. Or it's because we went swimming before eating, maybe the portions could have been a bit bigger? They had "sweet", "hot" and "extra hot" versions of each dish. We chose "hot" and wished we had chosen "extra hot". Maybe the food was to subtle for my junk food taste buds?

Like last year, we went to the Bon Odori (traditional dance) festival at Yutenji temple. This year I wore a Yukata (casual Kimono) and I enjoyed dancing, it was fun! After the festival, all the places near Yutenji were packed, so we walked to Naka-Meguro to eat. at JunkAdelic.

Yesterday, I went to Futako-Tamagawa for shopping. There were so many people and lots of babies in their buggies, fighting for Summer sales. I was scared of them and worried that I might feel like them. I went to IDÉE to see the little plates that I saw on museo wataliss. They look nice, and I chose classic Japanese pottery colours; light green, light blue and ivory. I'm looking forward to eat Wo Wen's dumpling (in Japanese) with these plates! I also bought a huge (Ø41cm) plywood tray from MUJI. It was an impulse purchase, I wouldn't buy this if my friend K hadn't been with me. It was very cheap, so it's OK...

I had a great dinner at friends' place tonight. Thanks! Everything was so delicious! My friend prepared a herb-grilled White Croaker (Ishimochi in Japanese). I thought I had never tried White Croaker before, but it seems to be used for kamaboko (fish cake). So I probably tried this fish without knowing it. I bought dessert at Waraku Beniya (in Japanese) in Tamagawa-Takashimaya (in Japanese). It is a traditional Japanese sweet (wagashi) shop produced by Mr Tsujiguchi, the patissier of a very famous cake shop called Mont St. Clair (in Japanese) in Jiyugaoka. The shop assistant smiled and recommended gelée. She said that it was recommended by a celebrity on TV yesterday. So we chose Yuzu-Strawberry, White peach, and Passion Mango. The mango one was very good! The others were too boring.

Today, Shiretoko Peninsula in eastern Hokkaido was declared a World Heritage Site. Shiretoko is famous for its wildlife, including Japanese brown bears (Higuma), Hokkaido fox (Kita-Kitsune) and Ezo deer (Ezo-Shika). And also endangered species like Steller's Sea Eagles (Owashi), Blakiston's Fish Owls (Shima-Fukuro), Black Woodpeckers (Kuma-Gera) etc. It sounds amazing that we can see all these animals in the wild. I read that the floating ice brings many different kinds of plankton to the area, so there is a very unusual and rare food chain, apparently. I feel like I want to do nature watching in Shiretoko this summer. I'm probably not the only one with this idea after watching the beatiful scenery on the TV news.

The image of Shiretoko was taken from here. Thanks!

My sister gave us some Mango pudding called Gohoubi Rich Mango Purin (Your Rich Mango Pudding Reward). It was seriously very rich! It contains lots of fresh cream, so it was more like Crème Bavaroise than pudding. It was very tasty but I prefer eating mango itself. I like eating dried mango soaked in yoghurt overnight. Eating fresh mango is nice too, but not ¥100 canned mango. They don't have any flavour.

Last Saturday my sister, mother and I went to a farm to pick some edamame (soybeans). My sister and her husband are one of the owners of the edamame farm. They have only 15m length of ridge, and they don't work to maintain the farm, but they can pick edamame anytime. Unfortunately this year's edamame seemed smaller than 2 years ago, but it was tasty. The farm was huge and there was a Japanese leek farm on the left. This nice scenery is located just 30 minutes from Tokyo by train.

It's been a while since musical batons were passing around. It seemed like everybody received one and I was relieved that I hadn't received one. But McCOCK from Silly Shally BLOG chose me finally! I used to listen to rock music a lot when I was younger, but these days C is my DJ and I listen to what he chooses. Anyway, here you go! (the photo: today's dinner 'Thai Green Curry' cooked by C)

On the next day that I stayed at my sister's place, I cycled to Zopf (in Japanese), which is known as one of the best bakeries in the Kanto area. It was only 8am! I usually wake up around 9:30am, but my sister said there might be a queue if we leave late, so I tried my best. But the bakery opens at 6:30 am, and their cafe on the top floor opens at 7am, so I wasn't that early. I was thinking of the kids song which goes like "the people who wake up the earliest in the morning are the bakers".

Yesterday was my sister's birthday. My sister, my mom and I went to Ginza for shopping, and we had lunch at Wako. We had lots of food and wine, and continued shopping after. It wasn't my birthday, but mom also bought a kimono belt ('obi') and a bracelet for me. Lucky! Mom and I went to my sister's place to stay overnight.

When I was tidying my room this morning, I found a waterproof disposable Ultra Sports camera (we call this 'Snap Kids' in Japan). We took some underwater photos in Okinawa in 2003, but we forgot about developing it! I've only been using my digital camera these days, so I had to think about where to develope the film. I found a really cheap developer near the station in the end.

Last night, in the rain, my friend brought a durian to our place. She was given it by her friend and I had told her that I really want to try it, it worked!. I knew that durians have a strong stinky smell, but I had no idea how to eat them. I researched them on the internet and found scary information like '...died from eating too much durian' and '...lethal combination of durian and alcohol'. I called some other friends to come around and we decided to try the dangerous fruit. I wore my durian T-shirt for the occasion.

The outdoor swimming pool at the Meguro Citizen Center has opened on July 1st. Yesterday wasn't that hot, but C and I went there to go swimming. The water is much clearer than at our gym and the pool is 50m long. Very refreshing! After swimming, we had lunch at combine by Meguro River. We wanted to eat a bit more, but they had only light snacks. But we liked the place.

Venus Williams beat Maria Sharapova, and she made it to the finals of Wimbledon. Hurray! She is so beautiful and cute, and strong of course! I'm really looking forward to watch the final tonight. NHK broadcasts Wimbledon from 1am Japan time, so I go to bed around 4am these days. I wake up quite late, so I sleep long enough, but I still feel very tired. I guess human beings should get up with the sun!

I'm hooked on Wo Wen's recipe books, especially Wo Wen no Oishii yo! Uchino Gohan, it's the greatest. (Thanks for the recommendation, M!) All the recipes are simple, easy, lots of vegetables, and very homey. Also, her combinations of ingredients are very creative, some of them sound a bit weird, but I was satisfied every time after I followed her recipe. Today, I cooked 'Chicken wing with Hijiki seaweed and Wakame seaweed Curry' from her book. I've never seen curry with seaweed, but it was very nice. I guess Hijiki seaweed doesn't look very attractive (the Wakame seaweed had softened and disappeared) but it tasted good and is very healthy. The curry had the full scent of the sea! Summer is almost here!