Thursday, April 28, 2011

I've been here too long!

There have been a couple of time recently when I have found myself thinking that I have been living here far too long. The first was when I was at the tax office the other day and spent close to 2 hours waiting for them to make a zillion phone calls confirming different things, finding the correct forms to use etc. When I first arrived in Japan this would have driven me crazy, but the other day I sat there, smiled, chatted about the weather, the neighourhood and the world in general, listened in on some other people's tax problems, cleaned the gunk out from under my fingernails and smiled, bowed and apologised for putting them to so much trouble when they finally got it all done.
The second time was when I found myself with the uncontrollable urge to go and buy a hotplate for making octopus balls and getting excited when we started pumping out the octopus balls...... Of course our octopus balls also include asparagus, sausage, cheese, kimuchi, shrimps, parsley and whatever else I can find in the fridge. We also put banana, strawberries and chocolate in some and smothered them in golden syrup for dessert... not very Japanese, but very delicious! I had some more photos but somehow they have been deleted from the camera. I guess you will all just have to come and experience it for yourselves...

4 comments:

  1. Your takoyaki (and everything-else-you-can-find-in-the-fridge-yaki) sound delicious.
    Way back when I was an exchange student (we're talking early 80s here), one of my host families, knowing of my love for takoyaki, gave me one of those hotplates and the fancy skewery thing for turning them, and you know, I have never used it. I think it sat in my parents' house for most of the rest of the 80s and a good part of the 90s, and only came back to me when I came home in 97. It lives with me now, but we've never managed to actually get it out and use it, even for pancake mix, which I hear is really yummy if you put banana or strawberry or chunks of chocolate in. Note to self, get out the takoyaki-ki and use it!

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  2. That sounds YUM! We have been debating getting one of those yaki things. We even got so far as nearly ordering it from Amazon (the cheapest place we saw one.) I might have to go and open that page again!!

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  3. I know you've been there too long when you put sparkly butterflies etc onto your photos - hehe! I am extremely hungry, and the thought of octopus balls right now sounds amazing...I will have to plan another trip to Japan soon so i can try them out!!

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  4. I like that you put your own spin on takoyaki. Veggies, and even making dessert ones too. I'm starting to get takoyaki maker envy here too. : )

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