Day 08

First full day at Grandparents'

    It was weird waking up and not hearing kids running around.  It was rather quite.  When I made it downstairs, both my grandparents greeted me with "Ohayou" (Good Morning) and naturally, I responded with "Ohayougozaimasu" (a  more polite form).  My grandmother instinctively get up from her chair to prepare me a warm breakfast.  My grandfather grabbed a DVD that was resting on the TV stand and handed it to me.  "You like this, don't you?  It's for you" he said-- in Japanese.  It was a DVD that he recorded from the TV of a show that I really like where people present a skit they made based on a selected theme in hopes of having the best one-- Winners get a cash prize and trophy.  What makes this show fun is the wide age range of contestants and the different ways people interpret the theme.

    For breakfast, my grandmother prepared me some onion & potato miso soup, white rice, mushroom mabo harusame (one of my favorites), and an assortment of other (optional) side dishes.  The mabo harusame comes in a packet, but my grandmother can never "just serve as is"; She always has to do something more to it to make it her own-- in this case, mushrooms and green onions.

    After the delicious breakfast, I gave my grandmother a drawing/painting I did of my sister and I (poorly captured above).  My grandmother was very surprised... a happy surprise.  Seeing her smile made me happy.  She held it against her chest to hug it and thanked me for it.  Some minutes later she ran upstairs and came back with a box.  When she opened it up, I found that it was full of papers-- all of which had been drawn on.  Over the years, she's been collecting scribbles and drawings from all of her grandchildren.  I was slightly surprised to see how many she had collected.  Slightly embarrassing, but all very sweet that she has all of these.  It's fun to see the growth of my artwork over the years. 

    The two of us had spent so much time talking and going through artwork that it became lunch time.  My grandmother made hiyashi chyuuka-- a cold summer noodle dish with a vinegar base flavor-- another one of my favorites. My grandmother added black and white sesame seeds, cucumbers, tomatoes, red ginger, shredded seaweed, and eggs to the noodles.  Truly delicious!

    For dinner, we needed to get ingredients from the store, so my grandmother and I walked there together.  As soon as we turned out of her cul-de-sac, Grandma asked me if I remember how to get to the store.  When I responded with "yes", she told me to lead the way!

    From their house, there are about 3 routes to take to get there.  The way I chose is the "middle" way as far as distance goes.  We spotted a few sparrows along the way-- I couldn't resist snapping a few pictures of them.  I really do enjoy these small birds.

    From the store, we purchased some (more) Pokemon Bread for me along with apple juice (100% apple juice!), and miscellaneous ingredients.  Yum yum!!  My grandmother was surprised to see that Pokemon Bread still exists.  I was surprised she hadn't seen a commercial for it with how often the TV is on (mostly because my grandfather watches it as a hobby?).

    Dinner was marvelous.  Rich salmon, beef & potato koroke, rice, apple juice & tea, along with all of the side dishes~!  The salmon was GORGEOUS.  Beautiful orange color with white lines of freshness.  MMMMmm!!  The best!  Simple yet delicious, mouth-watering dinner!  Just looking at the picture of the salmon makes my mouth water ( ; v ; )  It was sooooo tasty!  Unless you freshly caught the salmon in the US yourself, it's nothing as amazing as this.

    OH!  I almost forgot!  My grandmother purchased chopsticks, rice bowl, and miso bowl for me!  They didn't have any Pokemon miso bowls, but they did have chopsticks and rice bowl~!  They both might be small, but I'm just happy to have them.  Grandma says I'm silly, but I've been in love with Pokemon for such a long time now~.  She always laughs at me when I take pictures of otaku things or food.  (^ _ ~ )