Weekend Adventures

Friday was Dave's last day, well at least he was there in the morning for a few hours before catching the bus on base up to the airport. It has almost become a joke that when ever someone leaves or is out of the office all the problems come up and work on Friday wasn't full of problems but it did have its full share of meetings, questions, which lead to more questions and a lot of running around. When the day was over I had to admit I was very ready to do nothing this weekend. But I did make a run by the grocery store, to attempt cooking in my hotel room for the first time. Shopping here is always way fun. There are so many rondom things I have just never seen before in the store and if it wasn't for the people looking at me funny there would be more photos of food up on my blog. But I had a recipe from off the web in mind and so with some improvising I ended up roughly with the ingredients and a whole bunch of snacks that I didn't need also. 

Cooking is always relaxing for me. Not sure why it is for me, but I am glad to have the capability here. The dish tasted something close to food I have here, but I wouldn't call it Japanese cooking yet. I did start a collection of Japanese food, both that I cook and also those that I find out and around town. You can see the photos here. 

Having such a full work day I wasn't very energized to get going early on Saturday. So after talking with my wonderful fiance and father I took the train up to Yokohama. It is the bigger city north of here and thought that with the day as nice as it was and looking at a week of rain ahead of me I didn't want to waste the whole day inside. 

Yokohama was booming with people. I was attempting to get to Queen's Plaza where Landmark Tower is located. I had forgotten that there was one extra train I needed to take so after much wandering around in the main Yokohama train station (which is bigger than most malls in the US, filled with stores like Louis Viton and Gucci, yeah in train station?) I did find my way to subway and ended up where I had planned. I didn't mind the wandering and with limited maps it was kind of a safe little challenge to me in getting around all alone. I wandered through the area for maybe 3 or 4 hours, some of the photos are uploaded here, some very similar to ones of the past. 

With all my long and filled days, Sunday was nice to just relax. The church service here in Yokosuka was great, and after service I grabbed a meal at a bento place. Essentially it is like a fast food restaurant that fixes common Japanese meals to go. I picked up a menu too because I pass the place going home from church every Sunday and for about 300 to 700 yen the prices are really good. Maybe a nice little Sunday tradition to pick up lunch from there. The evening was relaxing, more cooking up what I had bought at the store before it goes bad and reading while I listened to the rain fall outside my hotel room.