I've lately discovered a tasty dish called Nishin Soba which is normal soba (buckwheat noodles, whatever those are) with a particular kind of fish, nishin, on top.

Looking it up, I see that nishin is herring (whatever that is).

It's all together in a hot or cold soup. (I prefer hot, even in summer.) The way the fish is grilled and prepared for the noodles is, well, I don't know how to describe it other than "super yummy".

Anyway, the picture here is of a store-bought package of the fish we had at home. I thought [...]

During a trip this morning to Nanzenji (the Nanzen Temple, in Kyoto), I came across this sight:

The sign says "To all dog lovers: we humbly refuse dog poop and pee."

There were some nice photos as well:

You can see the mini-story on my A Visit to Nanzen Temple page.

This afternoon we all went to the Kintetsu Department Store at Kyoto Station to get some winter clothes for Anthony at Baby Gap, do some book shopping, and have dinner (the top-floor "Mirano-Tei", a pseudo-Italian restaurant which looks fairly dubious, had excellent spaghetti at a reasonable price).

We had a wonderful time, but I was dismayed to hear Christmas music already. Sigh. I was even more dismayed to find that I sort of enjoyed it. (The problem, of course, is that within a week I'll be totally sick of it, thereby turning me into a sourpuss Scrooge by [...]
View full post »

I love coffee, but it's hard to find a good cup, especially decaf. Particularly since I can't have a lot of caffeine, we don't drink enough coffee to make a coffee-maker worthwhile. So, what's one to do for a good cup of coffee at home?

Luckily, once while visiting an office, I was served a cup of coffee so tasty that I had to ask its source. It turned out to be a Brooks single-serving "drip-pack coffee". As the image on the right (which I stole from their web site) shows, these are small packs [...]