Weather, food & shopping

I'm going to answer some questions that have come my way.  Tokyo is experiencing a colder than normal winter.  We've had several days of snow flurries and one day with a 2 inch snowfall.  On your news in the US you probably heard about the heavy amount of snow that Japan is getting.  You have to go quite north and west of Tokyo to see that. 

Tokyo is very diverse with their restaurants.  We have had a wide variety including Japanese, Chinese, Italian, British, and American.  Their are McD's here, although we have not gone.  Subway, Fridays, Outback, and Hooters can also be found.  Our plans are not to try those unless we get a craving.  I personally can't think of a time that I craved going to Hooters.  :)  One Friday evening we did have a craving for pizza and asked at our front desk for someone to deliver.  He pulls out the menu for Pizza Hut!  So we had Pizza Hut deliver us a $40.00 pizza!  Pizza will not be a weekly item on our menu!

 Most of the restaurants have a specific lunch menu that they offer for an average cost of 1000 yen which is equal to about $13.00.  Some restaurants have an English menu if you ask for it.  We do a lot of picture looking and pointing.  So far we have not had anything too outrageous.  We did have an appetizer that had cold potatoes and something else in it, but we couldn't quite figure it out.  Finally, one waiter spelled it out for us...SQUID.  Oh!  But it was very good.  Our routine is that I cook during the week and on Sat. and Sun. we explore a new place to eat.  Since lunch prices are more reasonable than dinner, we combine the two.

We have found our closest food market.  Some of you have heard the story of our one hour search for this market and then find out it is about a 6 minute walk from our apartment!  Streets are not marked with nice street signs.  The market is called Hanamasa which means meat market.  Besides meat, there are many other products.  Bill's boss's husband, Dave, has a car and has taken me to Costco (yes, just like home!) and the international market, Nissin.  Grocery prices are high in Tokyo.  On average 3-4 times higher.  But as budget minded as I am, I did find a good cheap wine!  400 yen which is about $5.00.