In Spain, it seems like people know how to eat tomatoes, not only fighting with tomatoes! I already wrote about a tomato dish 'Gazpacho' the other day, and today I write about a delicious Catalan tomato dish called Pan con tomate. It is very easy and tasty: Toast the bread. Rub fresh garlic over the bread. Cut ripped tomato in half and rub tomato over the bread until the bread is covered with tomato. Sprinkle with bit of salt, drizzle with olive oil. Some restaurants serve bread and tomato separately, then we have to do it ourselves. We enjoyed this dish and I tried four times in four days! I wondered what do we do about squashed tomatoes after we used, actually I thought about eating them, and our friend told us they just go to bins. I guess there are too many tomatoes in the country!

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We had lots of nice food in Barcelona, Gazpacho was one of the dishes we really enjoyed. A few days ago I got a recipe for Gazpacho from our Spanish friend, so we tried to make it. It was already two in the morning when we thought about having Gazpacho for brunch the next day, but his recipe (actually his mom's) recommends letting the soup mixture rest in the fridge for five hours. We couldn't give up tasty Gazpacho, so we chopped vegetables sleepy-eyed in the middle of night! Next day, we put them in a blender, then through a strainer, then we tried to season it just like the one we had at an organic restaurant in Barcelona... and it worked! It was very tasty!

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Our friends picked us up at Barcelona Airport and took us to a restaurant called La Paradeta. This was a very very nice place, I loved it! By the entrance of the restaurant, lots of fresh fish and shellfish were on display, similar to a market. We chose what and how much to eat and how we wanted them to prepare it (boil, grill, fry). After paying the bill, we received a receipt with a number and waited at the table. When our number was called, we picked up our seafood from the counter... it would have been impossible without our Barcelona friends. I want to thank them again, Muchisimas Gracias!

I love German bread and German sausages. They are so tasty! I think many Japanese don't know that there are lots of different kinds of great German breads and sausages besides dark rye bread with sour dough and Frankfurter. I'm sure Japanese people will get very excited when they see many bread and sausages in Germany, just like I do every time!

I'm back home! It was quite a hectic trip, I stayed one night at Frankfurt, one night at Köln, four nights at Bellaterra (Barcelona) and four nights at London. Yesterday, I slept almost 11 hours on the plane, I slept like a log for an hour on Narita Express (almost the whole journey), and I had eight hours sleep after I had a can of beer at home. So I woke up at 9am this morning, and I have no jet lag at all. Great! But I can't believe how much I slept.

I'm off for two weeks holiday! Last night I was too busy to prepare lots of things, and I didn't go to bed in the end. I still have some time before my flight, but I'm scared to sleep now. All TV channels show only about Princess Kiko gave birth, so I went for swimming and enjoyed sauna too. I'm sure I will have a good sleep on the plane. I just need to try not to sleep on the train, or at the airport!

Yesterday there was an Intensity 3 earthquake, but I didn't realised that because I was cycling! Today is disaster prevention day in Japan (the great Kanto earthquake struck 83 years ago), so there was a disaster prevention exhibition held at Shinjuku station last week. I didn't really care much about the exhibition, but I stop walking because of the firefighter's voice. He kept shouting 'does anyone wants to try this?' 'you don't need to wait for it!' I wondered what he was talking about, and I looked back at him. There was a special car which we can experience the worst earthquake 'Intensity 7'. And I decided to go in the car!