One afternoon last weekend, C and I went to a cool, traditional but modern, Japanese sweets cafe called HIGASHIYA SABO (in Japanese) in Nakameguro. It is not a very big space but there were no other customers, so we could relax. Usually C doesn't care about green tea at all, but he seemed very satisfied with his 'shin-cha' new season tea, which was prepared in front of us. I asked the guy working at the cafe about seasonal sweets. He brought about ten differnt kinds of sweets in two layered, thin wooden boxes and explained each one in Japanese and English. I chose 'Kuro-mitarashi' and C chose 'Matcha Blancmange'. They used expensive Koicha mathca for blancmange, it gave a very strong, good green tea flavour. The cafe opens until two in the morning, so I want to try some alcohol next time.

The other day the postman knocked on the door in the early morning. He had a nice little packet for me from Ogasawara police station. It was the fleece jacket C forgot on a bench by the beach in the very last moments of our Ogasawara island holiday. After we came back to Tokyo I phoned Ogasawara police station and talked to the person from the lost and found. He was very nice and told me that I shouldn't be so disappointed because it will be probably found, and that he would send it cash-on-delivery to me. A few days later I received a phone call from him, he had found it! It's nice to think that the jacket also went on a twenty five and a half hour journey on the boat that leaves only once a week, just like what we did. Thank you Ogasawara police station for your kind help, thank you Ogasawara Tourism Association for finding the jacket. We love Ogawasara!

Finally comments work again!

I wanted to order a dozen of large pretzels (brezels) from Peltier (in Japanese) Akasaka, but when I called the shop they told me that they don't make the larger size anymore. I was quite disappointed about it because the small one is kind of too crispy for me, but then they said I can order the large pretzel, double the size of the small one. Great! I took the pretzels to a German friend's birthday party and they were good! Pretzel is nice to eat like this, and put some butter or fresh sausage.

The rainy season will start soon in Tokyo, so I have to do KOROMOGAE 'a seasonal change of clothing' for our wardrobe. When the weather is sunny and dry, it's a chance to wash and air winter clothes and bedding. I feel like I go through and try to clear my wardrobe very often, but it's always overloaded. I finally decided to buy futon asshuku bukuro 'the vacuum storage bags' (in Japanese) even though I always thought this is a silly idea; fill a plastic bag with a duvet and suck the air inside a bag with a hoover to make a duvet loses its volume. But I realised my huge king size duvet needs to be vacuumed.

On the TV ads, the convenience store MINISTOP's new Apple Mango Parfait looked quite good. MINISTOP has a good reputation for their soft creams, but I never had a chance to try them. I checked their site to find the store closest to me. It was just behind our station - I had completely forgotten about it! Anyway, this mango parfait was good. It was simply made with soft cream, diced mango fruit and mango sauce, no whipping cream or shaved ice, I liked it (the mango sauce can be just a little bit less sweet for me).

I went to the Setagaya police station in Sangenjaya to renew my driving licence. I always get a 'gold driving licence card' because I am a good driver with a clean driving record. Well that's what they think, actually I just haven't driven for years and years! The new card has an IC chip inside, so it seems slightly thicker than the old one.