Food and Drink (and Flowers)

So you know those "Japanese" steakhouses in America? The places where you sit around a grill and the chef cooks the food in front of you, flipping the shrimp up into the air and making a volcano out of onions? Those places are awesome.

But I have yet to find one in Japan.

A cool type of restaurant Japan actually has is the yakiniku restaurant. Yakiniku literally means grilled meat, and yakiniku restaurants have circular grills in the middle of the table. Instead of having a chef cook it for you, the waiter brings out a tray of raw meat, and you grill it yourself. It's pretty cool. I went to one on Friday with a bunch of other JETs.

And I've been doing some cooking myself. Check out my rice balls!

They're the first ones I've made that are actually round! I've made them twice before, and both times they came out looking like malformed rice ball mutants. So I'm getting better. (And the green bits are seaweed, if you're wondering. It's really good, I swear.)

And since all this meat and rice makes a person thirsty, let me introduce you to my favorite soda:

For those of you who can't read the label, this is melon cream soda. And yes, I know how gross that sounds, but it's actually delicious! I don't really even like soda, but I love this stuff. If only we could have it in the States...

And on a final note completely unrelated to food, the lilies in my ikebana masterpiece are blooming.
I opened up my curtains so they could get some sunlight. Luckily today isn't rainy.

And that's all for now.

Ja mata~