Furusato Nozei

Furusato Nozei from 2020

Look at the beautiful marbling on this matsusaka beef!

The beef was so fatty that it fills you up quickly. We made sukiyaki with this beef and they were super tender!!! It is really worth it to get beef because so far, the quality has been really good. Also, unlike fruits, which you sometimes have to wait a few months for. With beef, they get delivered immediately.

This here was one of or furusato nozei from 2020.

Lol, the beef was so fancy that it even came with a certificate!

This second one here is eel.

Eel is expensive in Japan and is considered a premium food.

This is my first time getting eel too and while it was good. I think I prefer to eat it in a restaurant.

Here is how I prepared the eel, Himatsubushi style, with some egg slices below the eel.

 

Shikinomori Park, Kanagawa

Visiting the Shikinomori Park for the first time.

It is early summer and the weather was still cooling.

It was also nice to be out after a long time to walk around the park with friends, with our masks on of course.

Along the way to the park from Nakayama Station, there were some beautiful hydrangeas.

It was nice to see he hydrangeas because I missed sakura in 2020 due to the state of emergency in Tokyo and decided that I will not go out to join the crowds for sakura.

There were surprisingly many families in this park. There is a big slide there for kids and many came to picnic.

After that, we walked back to near the station to grab dinner.

There, we found a Chinese restaurant that looked interesting.

The food was also decent. It was nice to be able to have some of the food that we haven't had in a long time.

Before heading home, we dropped by the Muji store near the statin and got ourselves some Malaysian curry and rendang. That rendang is so expensive for its' size. As it is different from the kind of dry rendang that I had hoped it would be, I will not be getting it again.

 

Chiba trip with my colleagues

My colleague planned a road trip to Chiba for the 5 of us.

We took the Aqualine and stopped by Uminohotaru on the way.

It was my first time there. The Aqualine provides a shortcut from Kanagawa to Chiba. Part of the road is 'underwater', in a tunnel.

The view from Uminohataru is nice. It is a pretty big PA, there are some restaurants there and many outdoor area for enjoying the good weather and the view.

We decided to grab gelato from a store there as we rested and talked about the current affairs in the company.

Our first actual meal in Chiba is this all you can eat seafood place - Maruhama (海鮮浜焼き まるはま). Nearby is the Minamitei Kanaya Shop (見波亭 金谷本店), which famous for baumkuchen. Y bought some pudding from this place for us to have for breakfast the next day.

There is a variety of raw seafood for grilling and some cooked food, including curry rice.

This is grill is tiny, but sufficient because we have 2 grills for the 5 of us. I'm super happy that they have prawns there and I can have all the grilled prawns that I want!

Us, posing for pictures mid meal.

After lunch, we went to the michi no eki - "Hota Elementary School" Tourist Attraction 道の駅「保田小学校」

There are many stalls there, selling food, plants and produce. Produce here are really cheap and I am so tempted to buy them but we will be spending the night and I will be taking the train home the next day so I refrained from getting any.

We stopped by this kakigori shop to cool off as the weather was getting warm.

After that, we stopped by a drug store and a supermarket to get stuff for dinner.

At the drug store, I saw masks being sold at exorbitant prices, 2480yen for a box! Prices for masks skyrocketed because it wasn't available for so long and when they did return, they were so expensive.

We checked into 展望温泉付きコンドミニアムホテル グランビュー岩井 (Grandview Iwai).

Website: http://www.grandview-iwai.com/

From this wall which is filled with signatures from Japanese artists, I am guessing that they filmed Hanazakari no Kimitachi e here.

The view here is great as the beach is only a short walk away. I think this place must be popular during summer.

The is the land view side.

As I forgot my toothbrush, we had to go to a nearby convenient store to get it and along the way, I spotted some white hydrangeas!

The sunset at the sea view.

Later that evening, we 'prepared' dinner. Most of the items were store bought, we only needed to cook the fish and ramen. We also prepped the seaweed and cut up the melon.

This place is great because it came with this big kitchen and provided all these utensils.

I bought 2 packs of potato chips for us to snack on at night. One is the asari (clam) butter and a lobster flavoured one.

Both were interesting and yummy!

After dinner, we played some jenga and card games.

4 of us slept in the Japanese room + living room.

The next morning, we checked out and went to Mukoyama tunnel ( 素掘り二段トンネル), to check out the famous two-story tunnel.

We should probably have taken a picture further in, because you can't see the double tunnel from here.

This is how it looks like.

And another one, up close.

We had brunch at a nearby French restaurant called La France (ラ・フランス).

The food here is surprisingly good. This first picture here is the salad that came with our lunch set.

3 of us ordered the roast beef and one is the grilled chicken.

And one plate of spaghetti.

After that, A drove us back to Tokyo where we took the trains back home.

A and I transferred at Shibuya and were surprised to see so many people at work at the tracks!

This was a nice trip, which was also a farewell trip for a colleague who was leaving. A nice getaway after a long stay home period.