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I thought this dish looked pretty tasty on first sight.Until I noticed the magazine it was in.

Patrick has been obsessed with dogs recently, busily researching the pet business in Tokyo before we get back to Hefei. He found the Tokyo Pet Club magazine in a store last week, and that is where I saw the cake above.

The magazine includes recipes for pampered pets.

I can understand cooking up some meat and veggies for pooch, but the cake above just looks too much effort.

We went to stay at the Roppongi Hyatt last night.

Patrick won the room in a 10k competition a month or so ago. What a nice break it was!

The room was only on the 5th floor, so there wasn’t much view to speak of, but the room itself was such a luxury after our little shoebox apartment.

We love our little apartment and are more than happy here, but it is funny the things we appreciate after living here for half a year.

It was so exciting to have an armchair to sit in. WITH a footrest.

The bathroom was the size of our living/bedroom, with an enormous rain shower. How nice it is to have a big bathroom… or one at all really, as ours is basically just a shower cubicle.

We spent all our time sitting on the lovely big bed that was covered in squishy pillows and completely free of poky springs watching TV in English. Ahhh. This is the life.

Finally, we left our laptops at home. I think I should start enforcing one laptop free day a week from now on.

The only thing that prevented us from moving in permanently was the lack of a kitchen. All we need now is a kitchen…

I have been planning to take Patrick to Shimokitazawa for cake and coffee one afternoon, as he hasn’t seen it yet, and I think it’s worth a visit.I checked Google quickly to see if we could take an express or not, and somehow accidentally came across a website about Gotokuji Temple.

I wasn’t aware earlier, but apparently the lovely little beconing cat that can be seen in Asian restaurants and businesses all over the world, originated in Setagaya ward in Tokyo, just a few stops down the line from our apartment.

The story goes that a feudal lord had been sheltering from rain under a large pine tree outside a small monastery. As he was waiting for the rain to subside, a cat beckoned to him from the doorway of the monastery with his paw.

Just after the lord entered the building, a bolt of lightning struck the tree he had been sheltering under; his life had been saved by the cat.

The lord then decided to make the monastery the family temple of the Ii family, and built a large new temple building. The story spread among the local towns and soon the cat became a well known lucky charm, attracting many visitors to the temple.

I had always known the cat to be beckoning wealth and money, so I am not sure how and at what point it morphed into a cash-cat from a luck-cat…

Temples and cats are two of my favourite things, so it was nice to see them all in the one place. The weather was dreary and drizzly, but it made the temple all the more enjoyable as it seemed to make everything greener.After wandering about for quite a while trying to find the place, and then taking the tram (Tram in Tokyo!) the wrong way for a stop, we ran out of time for coffee in cake in Shimokitazawa… there is always next time.

Patrick has been calling every dog breeder in China trying to find the perfect dog for us when we get to China.He has become the world expert on Chow Chows, which are very cute dogs… just kind of large and hairy-ish.

I have fallen in love with little red toy poodles while in Tokyo, they are absolutely everywhere. Little red toy poodles and pugs. Pugs are just so adorable with their eyes that boggle out and look in different directions at the same time and all their snorting.

Patrick thinks pugs look they have just been off for a days work in the mines with their sooty faces and feet. Now he has said that I think they are even cuter.

I want a little dog. I love the way their back legs walk just a little faster than their front legs until they are walking almost sideways, either that or they just bounce along all four legs off the ground at once.

I want a little dog, because if I had a little dog, I could buy him a little yukata from d.o.g web.

We went to Odaiba today as we only had a few hours after getting up late and messing about at home for too long.The weather is really rainy season weather at the moment, so it was dull and grey all afternoon. It made it feel that we were in Shanghai already.

The place itself is a little tacky, but its a nice change for an afternoon to be able to smell the sea and sit at an outdoor cafe for lunch. The sound of people strolling by on the wooden decking as we drank our coffee made me a little homesick, especially as the coffee was pretty average.

Patrick enjoyed a seafood pasta dish, that wasn’t quite Renzo’s Docklands standard, but it wasn’t so far off.

We found the lovliest store though, full of wooden and glass trinkets and toys. I spent 30 minutes or so squealing at all the little glass creatures and trying to choose one to take home while Patrick patiently hung about holding my basket.

Eventually I chose for myself a smiling cat, a little pig sitting on a set of scales and breaking them, a bunny for Patrick and a few little Japanese figures to take home for Tracy. (Who hopefully wasn’t expecting a surprise… sorry Tracy!)

I wish I could have taken them all. The little fat piggly will sit in our kitchen in Hefei and remind me that I’m going to have to fit into Chinese wedding dresses soon, and inspire me to get back to my pre-quitting smoking size.