{Hamaya Soba}

Last night we decided to go eat some yummy Japanese food again. We can't get enough of the food or the culture. We went and ate at a little restaurant next to the sea wall. It was recommended to shane by a Japanese lady who works at the clinic. It is called HAMAYA SOBA. We each got our owns Soba and we also got some Jushi Rice, which this lady recommended as well. The jushi rice was a little different than fried rice. It had little pork pieces in it and some seaweed, among a few other things. The soba was the yummiest part of the meal. Yummy soba noodles with little thin strips of egg, little bits of rib, topped with green onion. It was REALLY tasty. The boys loved it. AND Jaydon couldn't get enough of the rice. He ate a whole bowl full.

Look at the picture above...do you see those little chairs all lined up that are in the left of the picture, next to gavin's elbow? Those are the kids booster seats. Those are the same booster seats in every restaurant that we have been to here. The cups that they give for drinks are very tiny. You can drink it in one drink. Our meal was a good price for all five of us. It was about 2200 yen, which is about $25.00. Not bad. That's good for some of the places around here. We haven't been to some of the more pricey places yet...where you can easily spend $50 a person. Shane and I went to a place called COCO CURRY about a week ago. All the meals have curry in them. Real traditional curry is SPICY. The curry we buy at the store isn't spicy. Anyway, you tell them HOW HOT you want your meal to be. You can either get a curry meal that isn't spicy or you tell them you want the HOTNESS to be either a 1 or all the way up to a 10. Apparently a FIVE is HOT HOT HOT. Shane got a three and that was HOT enough he said. He wouldn't have gotten any hotter. His eyes were watery and it was clearing his nostrils. I got a ONE and it was plenty hot for me. I don't like my food very spicy at all. It was REALLY good food. Apparently if you want a TEN there is a medical disclaimer next to it...a WARNING. :) I would die if i ate a ten. ANYWAY, back to this post.

In this picture below, do you see that yellow stuff in Jaydon's noodles? At first we didn't know what it was. They gave it to us with our meal in a little separate bowl. So we figured we added it to our soup or rice. We did and it tasted good. BUT shane asked them what it is and they told us it is pickled radish and you actually eat it alone AFTER you eat your meal. Shane liked it, but it had a weird taste that i couldn't figure out...almost a bitter taste, but a little different.

*Not sure what is going on with Jaydon's eye.

And this fun little sign was in front of the restaurant. We thought this was a fun idea.

And here you can see Gavin and on the other side is his friend who he has to take care of over the weekend. It is an octopus...in japanese they call it "tako"...sounds just like taco. The name of his Tako is "Ollie". It's the pet of his 1st grade class and gavin had to take him home and journal about the things that he and Ollie did over the weekend. It's a fun idea and he has been having fun taking care of Ollie.

On another note....Tanner loves when i make his sandwiches into sushi rolls. He tells me they taste SOOOOO good when i make them into sushi rolls. It's fun new idea for lunch.