Once Upon a Tanbo

One and a half hours left until I can get out of work. Today is one of the special Pizza Hut days where if you do “take out” you actually get the pizza for half off. Thus a large pizza for Ryohei and I to split is only about 1500 yen… wow that’s actually considerable to a price you could get back home. To bad its only a once a month thing… or actually maybe it’s a good thing since I can see myself being yelled at by a multitude of Japanese pregnancy doctors for gaining the “prescribed” 7-10 pregnancy kg on pizza alone.

The downside to the pizza is that its about a 20 minute walk from my office and then another 10 minutes to the station. And THEN another 25 minute train ride + 10 minute walk home. In the current cold snap I’m probably going to have pizza slice shaped icicles instead of the real thing. Oh well, nothing my microwave can’t help with.

Anyways the real meaning this post is not to rave about reasonably priced pizza, but to talk about the weekend I had with Nay and Naoki! Although I don’t doubt that readers of both of blogs will probably be getting the same story twice!! Anyways – without further ado my retelling of the weekend. Oh and being the lazy bum I am – no pics from me. Nay had her camera though and got a lot of nice ones so hopefully she’ll upload a few when she gets the time and you can enjoy my bloated face and 1st trimester pudge for yourselfs.

Friday – N&N drove up from Shizuoka and after a few trying to coordinate efforts to meet up, we ended up in my apartment. Yay! It had been raining horribly the whole morning but by nighttime it was clear and we decided to visit the Kobe Luminarie that night. Ryohei had an eye appointment and was already down in the city but due to some unfortunate gaps in information he ended up waiting at the station for us for about 20 minutes and was (quite) pissed off with me. Not really much I could do though! So we hurried off to pacify the man-baby with some okonomiyaki from his favorite shop. Actually we had a bit of a wait, but finally the 4 of us were at a table eating yummy Kansai delicacies. I even think Naoki took about a 5 minute video of them making the okonomiyaki. After that we went to Lumiarie. It wasn’t as crowded as I was led to believe and was very pretty but really only worth about a 10-15 minute view before getting back to warmth became the more important thing. After arriving home we had an early night (most nights are early nights for me now considering I can barely keep my eyes open past 10)

Saturday – Ryohei was off to work in the morning. *la sigh* Anyways I had heard about a German Christmas Festival up in Osaka from a friend who unfortunately couldn’t go because her daughter was sick, but we decided to go up anyways. I am FINALLY in the Christmas spirit!! It was a lot of fun – in particular the German food, german potatoes, German sausages… etc. Totally yummy and worth the “ouch” factor of the price… It was really fun but FREEZING cold. I had luckily stuffed my gloves in the pockets of my coat when I went out but Nay and Naoki didn’t have any. Poor things… anyways I think the festival would have been more enjoyable if we weren’t feeling like we were turning into yukidaruma.

Anyways after a stop in the big yodobashi camera – we headed back home and bought ingredients for our “family nabe” aka the dish that we pretty much serve guests anytime they come over. Well – actually I mean I – since Ryohei was still working until past 7. Anyways we had the nabe and then the miso rice porrage from the broth and then tried to have some sort of entertainment. I obviously need to learn a few lessons in entertaining as Ryohei and I are the boring types who just lounge around on the computer/tv in our free time. I think its time to start “investing” in some boardgames like “Life” and “Scrabble.”
Oh – also we got a mini showering of gifts from both Nay and Lulu who send me up an adorable toy and outfit for babes. Nay got us our first baby toys – ever!! Woo hoo!! Now I have a rattle… that according to the cover will silence and make even the most ornery baby start cooing at a shake.

Sunday – This was the first time the four of us really got to hang out! (Thanks Ryoheis job) And we decided to do “doraibu” since Naoki had brought the car and both of us really enjoy going out as well, but living in the big city we don’t need a car. After a bit of deliberation we headed out to Awaji Island, the island which connects Honshu and Shikoku. It only took us about 30 minutes to get to the island and Nay and Naoki had never been to Shikoku before, so we decided what the heck and decided to drive to the first town accessible on Tokushima to “get lunch.” Ahh yes, the joys of having a car. So we drove for about an hour and a half in total and ended up in Shikoku at a little ramen place. Which was actually good!! I think I have professed a couple times on this blog my distaste for ramen. It usually leaves me feeling pretty sick – but this was pretty good! Not very oily and yummy broth. Very impressive. Ryohei marveled that I actually ate the whole thing.

Anyways we had plans to meet up with my friend Cassie and her daughter and husband in Sannomiya at 5. So we high tailed in back and made pretty decent time. After a bit of “trying to park the car in the big city” drama, we found a reasonably priced/spaced place and met up. After a quick trip to the Starbucks where Cassies daughter starstruck not only us but pretty much the entire area we were sitting in, we headed up to an omelet rice place to have dinner. Anyways it was a fun evening – the boys ended up on one side listening to Cassie’s husband explain the pain and hassles of registering births, fathering, etc etc…
And we talked about fun girly stuff like pregnancy, going home for births, and epidurials not working….

All and all a great night!

Anyways after that we all parted ways and despite almost nodding off into my Hokkaido Cheese Potato Omelet Rice a billion times I still managed not being able to fall asleep until past midnight. So now I am here at my desk… although with only about an hour or so to wait until I make my march through the cold streets of Kobe in order to acquire a pizza!