It was already a few years ago that our friend from Germany brought this Kamillentee (camomile tea). I don't really drink any herbal tea, so this was only for our guests. But I tried one the other day and I enjoyed it a lot. I don't know if my taste has changed, or if this camomile tea is different from others. I've been drinking a lot of it and now I have only two bags left.

I received the red Mario hat from club nintendo. This is a Nintendo DS carrying pouch, but it seems OK with my DS Lite too. The fabric is quite hard, and very good quality.

From 8-13 November, there was a France fair at Isetan Shinjuku departmentstore. As part of the fair, there was a talk by Sébastien Bouillet from Lyon. I heard that only forty people could attend, so I was a little bit worried, but I managed to get a ticket. When I entered the seminar room, I was the first person to arrive. Was I too excited?!

I found a nice set of four plates at a recycle shop in our neighbourhood. I thought I wouldn't pay more than ¥200 for a plate, but it was ¥200 for four plates! I immediately bought them (actually I didn't have any cash with me, so my friend paid ¥200! Sorry I forgot to pay you back!).

For the last couple of years I have been dreaming about macaroons from Ladurée Paris (there is a branch in London too), and I finally had a chance to try them the other days. I don't know how to thank our friends! Unfortunately macaroons don't last very long, and it seemed like we ate them after the best before date. So I still don't know the real Ladurée, but I enjoyed especially Fruite rouges and Framboise. They didn't surprise me, like Pierre Hermé does with his amazing combination of flavours, but they had very simple and good confiture. I also love the packaging. I'm not into girly stuff at all, but I kept looking at the zebra, the butterfly and the other boxes. They are so cute!

My friends brought sun dried horse mackerels (aji no himono) from Ajiro, a fishing village in Atami in Shizuoka. Making good sun dried fish require good fish (of course), good salt, good water, beautiful sunlight, and a nice sea breeze. It seems like this fish had everything. The fish was soft and quite meaty, just opposite from the one we can get in a supermarket. I enjoyed this fish with miso soup and rice (and natto) for lunch. I used to think this is an old people's menu and I couldn't have any appetite, but these days I really enjoy this kind of very very Japanese dishes.

Last month a friend from Germany stayed with us and brought some Kuemmerling for us. It's a tiny 20ml size bottle, the design is classic and cool, and of course the bottle is made of glass (I don't like the miniature bottles that are made of plastic these days). As our friend suggested, I used the bottle as a vase after drinking it. He also told us about the numbers on the bottom of each bottle: when people drink Kuemmerling at a bar, whoever has the lowest number has to buy the next round. It means that everyone has to drink at least two of these 35% alcohol bottles.

In the previous entry about Kimchi, I mentioned that Tokyo was getting cold, but I was wrong. It's getting warm, no socks again. I was a little bit worried that it might be too warm to keep the Kimchi on our balcony and next day I saw that the plastic bag around the Kimchi bottle had lot of liquid in it, even though the lid was still closed. We shouldn't have used bottles from a ¥100 shop, they looked air-tight, but they weren't. I'm thinking to order a Korean stainless steel Kimchi container or a similar Japanese one. I don't know which is better, but I will probably choose the genuine Korean boxes. It feels right.