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I think I have been going on about it a bit… but without a doubt, my favourite part about living in Tokyo is the lovely little twisty-turny-hilly mismatched streets.Patrick gets to see a lot of them with all his running about all over the place, so when he has time, he comes to collect me from work and walks me home a different path.

I wish I could just go out and run for two hours, I would get to see all sorts of different things… bad luck for me, I am lazy.

Patrick ran from home yesterday around Shinjuku park, past the national stadiums and twice around the Imperial Palace and then home.  It would take me weeks to get around to seeing so many places. 

He also has a weird ability to easily find his way around the nameless winding streets.  He says it is an asian thing,  he found it hard to navigate our logical grid system in Melbourne that I thought was so straightforward.

Something else I didn’t get around to posting earlier was the photo of the scary-horrible looking dolls in the skill-tester machine near work.  There is another of these near home with the same dolls in that actually had some people interested yesterday… NO idea why.

Any ideas what there are?  Please leave a comment if you have any clue…  Bloody ugly little things they are, red and vaguely poo-shaped, with a baby’s face attached.

Patrick took some photos of his cooking today.  I wish I was there, it looks yum.  Even with the shadows of his mobile phone camera on it….

I got a fright when I entered the staff area this afternoon to find a baby’s stroller blocking the student files. 

I got an even bigger fright when I realised it wasn’t a baby peering out through the mesh at me, but a dog….  It wasn’t even a baby stoller, it was a purpose built dog stroller…

Dogs here are so spoilt…. although sometimes spoilt to a fault…. I am pretty sure this doggy may have preferred not to spend his day in a stroller.

Either way, the accessory shops for dogs are very cute.

This photo shows the French teachers before they got tired of having a dog in their section of the staff room (which is also smaller than the English teachers’ section.)

There was a comedian at the last comedy festival that sang a song about taking canvas bags to the supermarket.  The song got stuck in my head and I couldn’t stop singing it for weeks.

I had recovered, but it has recently come back to me each time we go to our local grocery store.

I will take some photos of it next time, because it is a really nice supermaket, and I haven’t seen any as nice except for in the basement of department stores, which are always too busy anyway.  I started taking some photos today but there were lots of people around, and I hate looking like a tourist all the time.

I think we really have struck it lucky to have such a nice store so close by though.

Anyway….. the reason that the canvas bag song gets stuck in my head each time is that they don’t pack the groceries into bags, they leave them in the basket and send you outside to pack the groceries yourself.

They also always seem to give one bag less than we need, which starts the song in my head about the canvas bags…

Its a strange thing in a city of such good service.  When I bought a few things in the supermarket near my work last week, there were two girls at the checkout, one to pack the groceries into the paper bag, and one to fit a specially designed plastic cover over the top of the bag just in case it rained when I got outside.

I fiddled about with my camera and took a photo of Patrick as he packed the groceries tonight and I didn’t have to pack any, OR carry any home. 

It was also Patrick’s first day as a real chef today as the restaurant opened.  They had a good number of people through, so I think everything went well.  Patrick survived and learnt a few more dishes along the way.  Clever Patrick.

I went to see the restaurant that Patrick has been working at this evening.  Its in a lovely area, all tiny streets and expensive shops. 

He was making Malaysian style Curry Puffs this afternoon, they looked very yummy. Hopefully I get a family discount so I can try some without breaking the bank.

The people he works with are lovely too, very friendly, despite the fact Patrick gets their names wrong all the time.

They will be opening another restaurant in Piccadilly Circus in London in November, so Patrick already has his sights set there.

They open for business tomorrow and within a few weeks Patrick is on his own in the kitchen.  Hopefully by then he will have worked out the difference between a potato and tomato….

The head chef that is training him told me today that Patrick is very good for a first time cook, so  Patrick is enormously proud of himself.

I think he is doing a really good job AND he has promised to make me Malaysian food at home, plus bring me back desserts.

Lucky me!

I also took a video of our apartment with my phone while Patrick was at work and I was bored this afternoon.  Its in the video section of this blog somewhere.  My phone takes suprisingly good video.  I am going to try and remember to video things more often.