Recently, we've been doing a lot of laundry, sweating, taking cold showers, and sweating. Honestly, it's not as bad as it sounds (the baby cockroach we discovered in the kitchen last night was adorable!).
We've also been escaping to air conditioned restaurants, like the traditional soba house next door. We'd been passing through the noodle cooked air for months and finally decided to give the place our full attention. Though all menus and signs are in kanji (no katakana whatsoever to the rescue) we gestured to the array of food at our neighboring table and said "sore, onegaishimasu (the never failing "that, please"). We were soon presented with a platter of handmade soba noodles on thick wooden trays and sides of wasabi, radish and peppers, as well as tempura.
The noodles were delicious and our waitress showed us the procedure of taking a small portion into your bowl of hot water and mixing in the side dishes as desired. At the end of the meal, she brought us a large teapot of hot water (that the soba had been cooked in) for us to drink plain in traditional fashion.
In other news, we spent the whole of Sunday and Monday two weekends ago planning our rapidly approaching trip to Thailand! We're spending two days in Bangkok, taking a day trip to the old capital, Ayutthaya, spending about three and a half days in Chiang Mai, and then flying south for island-exploration. We're staying at a nice resort and planning to thoroughly enjoy ourselves. I bought Lonely Planet's guide to Thailand for my Kindle so have been reading all about Thai culture and the places we're visiting. We're beyond excited!
I hope everyone at home is doing well and keeping cool! Have a great week and I'll try to update once more before our trip.
Claire