This is the forth winter since we've come to Japan. We were always wondering if we should buy an oil filled radiator around this time of the year, and we finally bought one. Maybe it was because C caught a cold, the nice radiator from De'Longhi (which was a little bit over the budget) became a discontinued model and all other models are very ugly round shape, I found radiator from MUJI was quite reasonable price and it was also 10%OFF from the original price during 23 Nov - 4 Dec (need to be an internet member) and finally mum visits our place very soon. Come to think of it, when she stayed with us two years ago, I bought a hot carpet because she suggested me! All people who I know from the cold cities in Japan hate winter in Tokyo. They live in a perfectly warm house with central heating radiators. But not many people have them in Tokyo.

On Sunday afternoon, we went to Roppongi Hills to meet up our friends, who haven't seen for a while. We had coffee at the cafe, but I didn't realised that it was Rojak (in Japanese) by IDÉE. I felt the atmosphere was bit different from the one in Aoyama. One of our friend ordered hot herb tea, and it came with a wine glass. It looked cool, but it was too hot to drink from!

The other day I bought a new flavour of 'pino' ice cream (in Japanese), chestnut flavour. When I opened it, I found a distorted star shaped pino inside! I've never seen it before, so I was a bit happy to take a photo, but the probability of having a star shaped pino is 13.333333% (in Japanese). It doesn't sound very unusual! I realised that I quite like the flavour in light brown colour, such as chestnut, almonds, coffee and soybean powder etc. I think the best pino is the one with almond chocolate which is only in a multipack pino.

Yesterday, I realised that it was the day of the Tori (Rooster) in Chinese calendar, so I went to Ootori Shrine, where the torinoichi fair was held in Meguro, to return the old kumade (lucky charm) from last year. I went there quite early, so it wasn't packed and also there were lots of school kids, mothers, and young children. It was a nice atmosphere.

On Sunday afternoon it was beautiful weather, so we packed some food and drink and cycled to Komazawa Olympic Park. But when we arrived there, the sun was gone and it was very cold! We saw many colourful girls outside of the indoor playing field, it was the 5th All Japan Cheerdance Competition. We went to inside to have a look, but it cost ¥2,300 to get in and they didn't allow anyone to take photos inside. Boo!

Last night, The Naked Chef came to me. I always thought that Jamie Oliver was a little bit annoying so I never dared to try his recipe. But C prepared a nice dinner for us using one of his recipes.

Yesterday, I got woken up by a phone call from dad. I didn't know that he was in Tokyo! He asked me if I had time for lunch and I invited him to come to our flat. We went to a Chinese restaurant near our place. He still had a bit of time before his flight, so I took him to a temple called Daienji (in Japanese) in Meguro. We wanted to see the buddha statue, which is an "important cultural asset", but it wasn't shown to the public. We can see it only during New Year's time and on a few other occasions every year. The temple is quite small compared to Yutenji temple near our place! It was too cold to walk around, even though the Japanese maple leaves are still green, maybe dad brought the cold from Hokkaido. I was in my bare feet in the flat until last week, but I need socks and sheepskin slippers. I also need a hot carpet very soon.

When we wanted to have a good-bye dinner with our friends (this was also about two weeks ago!), we came across a nice-looking restaurant called INDIGO (in Japanese) near the hotel where our friends were staying. It looked French or Italian but it was California cuisine. Their food was great. I ate much too much!

We finally went to the Mexican restaurant La Casita (in Japanese) in Daikanyama, which was recommended by M. When I cooked Mexican food at home this spring, I used a recipe book (in Japanese) by the chef of this restaurant. It change my knowledge of Mexican food, tasty!

As I wrote yesterday, our friends came to Tokyo from London via Kyoto. They brought nice foods from London and Kyoto, thank you! I had asked for Ajari-mochi which is a great Kyoto specialty: a mochi based cake with sweet red bean filling. I especially love the outside. I haven't had this for more than five years.

It has been two weeks already since my good college friends and short-time flatmates from London were visiting Tokyo, so we enjoyed a very long Saturday night. We started with dinner at an izakaya from 9pm and we drank and sung until after 7am! I had to cancel my appointment on the next day. Doh!

I received a big box of HacNine (in Japanese) apples from home. HacNine are not very sweet apples, but compared to the ones from two years ago, this year's apples are sweet enough. It's sad that they use styrofoam as padding, not straw anymore.

After walking around the Yanaka area, we said goodbye to piyo. and her boyfriend. Then Kakako's old friend Linda joined us and we went to play billiards. I got some advice from nodoca, he used to play a lot about 10 years ago. We all enjoyed 9 ball, it was fun!

The Sapporo blogger Kakako from Shin Nichijo-teki Henteko Catalogue was visiting Tokyo. She invited me to an offline meeting, so I woke up very early and we met up in the Nippori area. The weather was super fine, the forecast had been completely wrong! What a nice day! The members were McCOCK and nodoca (they visit LDK), as well as pine, piyo. and her boyfriend, whose names I've seen on Kakako's blog. It was my first time to meet them.

Our friends from Europe left Tokyo. It was so nice and I felt sad that they had left, but my friend from the neighbourhood offered us many sanma again! It was good timing! It was nice to cook at home after a long break. Last year, I made sanma sashimi, but our friend suggested Sanma Rice, so I tried to make it. I had never eaten Sanme Rice before, but it was nice. The fattiness and bitterness of sanma go well with with ginger. We spent lots of time having nice food and drinks with our old mates, so I will make new entries about that later.