Japantown

So my friend, Iris, and I went to Japantown today to do some shopping and have lunch. We both had quite a hard time getting up this morning so we ended up getting there late, but we were lucky and got a parking spot on Geary so things were good. We went inside a little supermarket and decided to go back later when we're about to go home since there's lots of refrigerated foods that we wanted to get.

And then, since both of us hadn't eaten yet, we stopped in at Mifune's and had soba & udon. I got tempura soba and it was so good. The croquettes were good too *__* Iris and I shared a hot sake and tried some shochu, but we both weren't fond of the shochu so that was the only thing we really didn't touch much throughout the meal -- in my opinion, it tastes like watered down tequilla. Anyway, it was really early in the day for too much alcohol so we both ended up passing on the glass of shochu, but we finished the hot sake though ^__^ For me, it took a lot of effort to finish the sake 'cause by the time we had half a jar left, we were both so stuffed from food that it was difficult to handle any more solids or liquids in the body. Also, my body was still trying to detox from Friday night when we went to a local bar in town and got a little too smashed for our own goods =_=; so I didn't want to drink too much today. Hot sake is good though *__*

After lunch, both of us were sleepy 'cause the amount of food they give us is incredible =_= We walked around and stopped in this store called Amiko that sells the cutest shirts and purses. Iris and I couldn't resist and bought a bag each. We visited just about every store in the building that Kinokuniya's in and also headed downstairs to the manga department. I bought "Kinou Nani ga Tabeta?" by Yoshinaga Fumi (volumes 1 & 2) and Junjyo Romantica 11 by Nakamura Shungiku (yes, I read yaoi, get over it if it bothers you XP). The yaoi section's all the way in the back and there's both English and Japanese. I tend to just buy the Japanese volumes since I'm pretty up-to-date on the stories and English versions take longer plus are overly-priced. I usually wait a year to buy some series since the prices usually drop online for the English versions. I wanted to buy more, but I really need to be economical and not buy so much stuff.

We wanted to get crepes today, but lunch filled us up so much that the sweet smell of creme and crepe just made us queasy and we had to move away from the shop. Next time we go, we'll stop in the crepe shop for lunch is what we decided... though Iris really wanted Taiyaki and the shop that sells them closes earlier than the crepe shop, so maybe we should do Taiyaki shop for lunch and crepe for dessert?? Well... we'll figure it out eventually.

There's a great Korean BBQ place on Geary Blvd that we went to last week (or was it the week before?) and they serve so much food that it's insane. We shared two entrees and got all these extra side dishes and the total was only around $30 so we both paid like $15. Today, we had alcohol so that's why our bill at Mifune was higher, but food in the Japantown area is really nice. We still have another block or so in Japantown to explore and tons of shops left to eat at lol ^__^ Since I love my manga, I'll be Kinokuniya's newest regular lol ^__^; Well... I would go there more often if it were more convenient.

After shopping at Kinokuniya and running away from the crepe shop upstairs, we crossed the skybridge over to another crepe shop where they have bubble tea so we took a break and had some before going off to the Japanese supermarket to buy groceries. We kind of went nuts there and we got lots of stuff. I bought some ponzu sauce, togarashi bonito furikake (and it's so good), melon pan, a bottle of green tea ('cause I was kind of thirsty at the time), a box of bonito stock for making miso soup, a creamy crab & a veggie croquette set, men's pocky, a bag of veggie chips, and strawberry daifuku. Iris got some miso, wakame, soba, and some other things. We both got our share of stuff for cooking together and I kind of just added to my collection of cooking ingredients ^__^;

We made miso soup Saturday night since I had miso and she had some miso mix. I went over to the grocery store across from where I live to pick up a brick of soft tofu and buy some more eggs so we could make it tastier XD~ She brought over the rest of her French green beans, which had to go soon, and I cooked those with some beef soup that I drained out of a Progresso can (it's the roast beef type, I ate the meat & veggies earlier that day with rice without the soup since I use the broth for cooking sometimes), and I also made some rice so we ate at my place.

Later, Iris was watching an ice-cream special on the travel channel so we started craving ice-cream and walked back over across the street to buy some Ben & Jerry's FroYo. I got the cherry garcia since I love cherries and she got the half-baked kind. It was a nice little dinner and it was pretty chill since we were both kind of detoxing from the night before. We were originally going to go to Japantown on Saturday, but we were both so drained that we elected to go Sunday instead. Well, the weekend was fun and I think we'll be getting less of them as April 15 comes creeping by so we can only enjoy them while we can.