Birthday, Kuma Kafe, and International Store

I just turned 25, y'all! And man, I gotta say, the jump from 24 to 25 is a waaaaay bigger slap in the face than 23 to 24, or really any other birthday before. Look, I know I'm still pretty young, but 25 just sounds so much older, right? Oof. Anyway, it was a pretty unique birthday to celebrate it while living out of the country, and I had an awesome night thanks to some wonderful friends. One thing I'd been missing like whoa since I arrived here in June was Thai food. Chicago was full of Thai and Asian fusion restaurants, including a delicious place right across the street from my last Chicago apartment that I ordered about once a week. While Thai food isn't nearly as easy to find in Osaka, I did track down one place with Pad Thai on the menu downtown in the Umeda area called Monsoon. After dinner we headed back toward home to have drinks at a local bar.

Waiting for the train with my new backpack! Thanks, Team Kawaii! (My wonderful cast)

Joshu squeezing himself between some locals on the train

The kitchen was in plain sight of the dining area in the restaurant, which was pretty neat. There were just three cooks working their butts off to feed everyone.

The menu looked great, but when a few of my friends ordered a "cilantro salad" and received a tiny bowl full of cilantro, with nothing else, not even dressing, we were a bit concerned.

Chicken satay was delicious and came with a few vegetables too, though the portion was a little disappointing, as this plate was two orders. Yeah, each order had just one skewer of chicken. Hmph.

Monsoon really redeemed themselves though with the seafood Pad Thai. Oishiiiii.

When we ordered dessert, we let them know it was my birthday (watashi no tanjyobi desu) and they brought this out!

The next morning was Sunday, and I didn't work until the afternoon, so I was able to go to Kuma Kafe's Sunday breaky!

Kuma Kafe is a local spot run by an Aussie and former USJ stuntman Paul. It's a cafe and bar open for lunch/dinner six days a week, but breakfast is only on Sundays.

It's a really popular place to eat and hang out for USJ employees. Once or twice a month they'll also have a live music event.

In my first few weeks here he stayed open late for just a handful of us to have drinks and do some karaoke.

Unlimited OJ, apple juice, coffee, and milk

Start off with a little granola

And then the main course! Love Kuma breakfasts. They also have great sandwiches and pizzas.

My momma was awesome enough to ship over a big box for my birthday! One of the things in it was my tennis racket that I didn't have room to pack. There are a couple other guys who play too, so I'm hoping to play asap!

She got me some socks and a couple bowties, which I'm going to rock once I figure out how to tie them...

Lots of plays to read and some cereal from home as a treat! The cereal options in Japan are quite limited, and anyone who knows me in the US knows how big of a problem that is for me.

Also some napkins with a map of Chicago on them! While I'm loving Japan, I certainly do miss my sweet home Chicago

All these awesome gifts came in a box that was wrapped and put in a bigger box with more wrapping and packing peanuts

Speaking of missing stuff from home, I recently went to check out an international foods store in the Shinsaibashi area

The store was in this huge underground shopping area

Found it!

Grape jam! In Japan they have all the usual flavors you'd find in the states, except instead of grape, blueberry jam is really popular here. I like blueberry, and strawberry and raspberry and all that, but there's something about that combo grape jelly and peanut butter...

Cheddarrrrrrrrr mmmm gimme dat! Been missin' you gurl

Mexican food is also hard to come by here in Japan, as you might expect.

But Jupiter has got me covered! Taco night, anyone?

I didn't get this. I don't know what it is. It was in the drink section by all the juices and sodas, but it's corn? Corn juice? I don't get it. What the eff.

Ra i su  Ku ri su pi i (Rice Krispies! Don't need them for now though, I'm covered on the cereal front, thanks to my mom!)

There are some foods they didn't have that I'm still missing. The biggest thing for me is probably hummus. There's a Turkish buffet in the local mall that sometimes has what they call hummus, but it's kinda chunky and not really doing it for me. I've also been missing Mexican food (I can sort of get some at this store, but what I actually miss is Chipotle, which they definitely don't have here). And Chicago-style pizza, ugggggh, I'm gonna dive face-first into one of those as soon as I'm back, y'all, mark my words. Honestly though, that's all I can think of, so all in all I think I'm doing okay. Don't get me wrong, it's really, really hard, but with all of your support, I'M GONNA MAKE IT, YOU GUYS.

Let's be real though, the foods I miss are nothing compared to the family and friends! I got to skype with a whole bunch of family all at once this morning, as they were together to celebrate the birthday of another family member too, and man was it nice to see all those lovely faces! And anyone knows the best part of having a birthday post-2007 is seeing all the Facebook wall posts you get all day. It was super special to know that, even if just for a few seconds, all these loved ones are thinking about me from the other side of the world. I wish everyone I knew back home could also be in Japan with me, but instead I'll just have to do a better job of keeping in touch online. If you wanna skype or google hangout or something, please let me know friends! If you're reading this, I probably miss you and want to know what you've been up to! Thanks for reading and thanks for all the birthday wishes errbody. Go eat some hummus for me!

Nara and Kobe

This week on my days off I decided to check out two different nearby cities, Nara to the east and Kobe to the west. Both were close enough for easy day trips without much planning ahead required. On Tuesday we went to Nara, known primarily for the wild deer that are basically everywhere.

At the train station

We were told we'd find the deer in the park, but even before we reached the park we saw them walking around

They seemed friendly...but looks can be deceiving

There were little booths selling some sort of crackers for 150 yen a bunch to feed to the deer. The deer were smart and hung around close to the booths so they could pounce on the tourist idiots like us as soon we bought crackers. I had this vision in my head of the deer slowly and gently approaching as I fed them out of my palm, but instead a whole herd of them immediately began to surround and chase me, even nipping me in the butt a couple times if I wasn't feeding them as quickly as they wanted. This picture is of Jordyn literally running away from them after throwing the rest of her crackers to the ground in a panic. From buying the crackers, it took all of sixty seconds for us to ditch all our food and get the eff away from these vicious monsters.

BUT THEY LOOK SO CUTE

Ahhh so cute, okay all is forgiven

They were actually everywhere

We made our way up a path toward the Todaiji Temple

This was just the main gate, an impressive structure by itself

Mostly because of these huge, awesome wood statues

This is the Great Buddha Hall. It was enormous and beautiful. However there was an entrance fee to go inside, and we weren't really feeling that, so we just admired it from afar. Maybe next time.

Tomato-flavored shaved ice? Oh, Japan. What even even.

We then went to check out more of the sights in the park

A sign warning about the deer's violent tendencies. Didn't see this until it was too late.

The paths were lined with these beautiful old stone posts with paper lanterns inside

Josh stopped to buy some water at a place that also sold deer food, and when he turned around BOOM guess who's there

This woman was drying some traditional Japanese calligraphy she just paid to have done at the shrine

Throw in a coin, ring the bell, then put hands together and bow. I think that's how it went, though I might be missing more steps/bows

Josh bought a small wish candle to light and set in a little box near the shrine

On the way back to the Nara train station we stopped for some late lunch in the town's small shopping district, which looked like Shinsaibashi Jr.

Baby Face Planet's

$25 of ice cream

At the train station these monks were humming and handing out little things that turned out to be bandaids. Go figure.

We caught a glorious sunset on the train home

The next day Jordyn and I headed back on the train, this time to Kobe

We didn't actually take this train, but it looked cool

We originally wanted to go to a beach but realized that day that it was way farther away than we thought, so we brought our swimsuits and towels to Kobe and took the path on the right of this map up to Nunobiki Falls, hoping we'd be able to take a dip and lie out by the waterfall for a while.

The first small waterfall wasn't accessible, but it was pretty. We stayed hopeful about the larger waterfall that was bit farther into the forest

Aw, shucks. Again, it was gorgeous, but not quite what we had in mind for our beach day.

Instead we headed to the bottom of the mountain to take the ropeway up the herb gardens

At the top there was a cute, oddly German-themed area with food and shops

Fresh herbs for sale

The gardens also had a bee colony and had honey for sale

The nicer restaurant was closed but we were able to eat at this little food stand

"What a so tasty!"

At that point we were pretty tired and headed back home to Osaka. I certainly didn't see all there was to see in either Nara or Kobe, but both days were fun and relaxing and gave me a good sense of each of the cities.

One of the convenience stores close to home actually sells Blue Moon by the bottle! Japanese beers like Asahi, Kirin, and Sapporo don't reeeeally do it for me, so I was so relieved to find these! Including tax they're a little over 350 yen a bottle. Not great compared to buying a six pack at home but a good deal compared to getting a pint at a restaurant, so I'll take it!

This week in Odd Japanese Flavors of Western Snacks: Mango Ritz Bitz Sandwiches! The first one or two bites were like "Whaaaa?!?" but then I was into them. Would recommend!