"Set Breakfast"

We are happy to know that if you go to a coffee shop before 11am they will give you a free breakfast if you order a coffee.I am not sure what the Japanese word is for it, but we have heard it called 'set breakfast', because the menu is set. It's quite exciting and you really never know what each coffee shop is going to offer. We have heard that this set breakfast only happens in central Japan, and we have heard it happens all over Japan. Not sure which one is true, but as long as you are in this area it is!


Coffee is a bit expensive to compensate for the allegedly free breakfast, about 330 yen (give or take 10 yen) a cup of regular coffee. 330 yen is around $3.50. Now, that's an expensive cup of joe! However, if getting a free breakfast makes it OK to pay the ridiculous price for mediocre coffee. Coffee in Japan so far is not good. But that's ok, they have great green tea and other beverages.

SO, as you might have guessed it, we've been experimenting with different coffee shops. Here's a glimpse into a few places we have gone.

This V.I.P Coffee lounge. It's next to Piago (the grocery store) and very close to work and home. We got a piece of toast with red bean paste, and butter. We also got a salad and a boiled egg. It's quite delicious and so far it has become one of our favorite places to go. Our coffee cost 760 yen for the both of us. It's not bad for all you get. Plus the server is awesome and is always ready to refill our water!

Another place we have been to once was just off the road on our way to church. I am not sure where it is now.Will says it is on route 23.

Karaku Coffee. It was nice we got a pretty good breakfast. The coffee was the best we have had in Japan.

We got two pieces of toast, one had some sort of black seed in it, sesame maybe. We also got flan and egg-salad. I believe this cost was around 800 yen ($8.00) for the two of us, not too bad.......


Komeda Coffe Shop is also very close to school and Piago. It's not bad if you want a little more privacy, and if you like really big restaurants.

I think one visit was enough for us. We got a large piece of toast with jam and an egg. The price was 680 yen ($6.80) for the two of us.

It did have a really cute cup and little creamer....I guess that's a plus?

Will discovered Sent George on a walk one day and insisted that we go try it. It was quite cute and odd all at the same time. We enjoyed the atmosphere, however it was a bit too smoky for my taste.

It was neat because there were a couple of choices on which set breakfast you got. I thought I heard cheese and something about chocolate, so I said yes to that! Will heard butter and went for that.

We got some little pasta salad and an egg. I got a piece of toast with chocolate spread (yum!! what a good choice, it might have been Nutella). Will just got a piece of toast with butter. Also the thing in the bow was some sort of weird slimy gooey souffle. I didn't really eat to much of that but everything else was very delicious. I can't remember the price, I think it was just a bit more than V.I.P Coffee Lounge.

Our weak attempts at learning to write and read Japanese. We practiced this at Sent George.

Will's short lived obsession with Yo-yoing. He bought this yo-yo at Seria the 100 yen shop. For a while he couldn't walk with out it. This is him on the way to the V.I.P Coffee Lounge.

edit: he has informed me that this is not a short lived obsession, he has plans to get back into it once he purchases a new yo-yo. The 100 yen shop yo-yos are not built to last, as he has gone through three yo-yos in a month, and he wants to invest in a better yo-yo.

Our new friend

We wandered past this little produce shop in Gifu, City. This is the owner. She came out to talk to us after I started taking pictures of her vegetables. She was very happy to show us her products.

She even had Will smell the delicious melon, which was 200 yen. (about $2)

It was funny! She also showed us some fresh ginger.

"Very fresh, very delicious. Ginger." That's what I assume she said

Here is the inside of her store. We bought some of these spiced cookie/cracker things. They smell good, like cinnamon and cloves. We almost bought $25 honey. We thought it was $5, but discovered it was much more at the checkout. So, we didn't buy it. She gave us a free tomato as a present. Then we left the shop with cookies in hand and a tomato, when suddenly she ran to give us an apple. She told us to come back. We will, if we can find it again. :)

This shop was located in this very big and bizarre indoor/outdoor mall
It has a wikipedia article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanagase

 We think that the mall is in the downtown area of gifu, and is a covered section of older streets that were too narrow for car traffic, but ok for pedestrian traffic. Then they converted it into a mall. So its very twisting and surprising, with a whole lot of narrow alleyway corridors and very many stores and restaurants. I am not sure we even saw very much of it today. Also, today was a national holiday in Japan, for the Autumn Equinox, so a lot of the stores were closing early. We are going to go back on Saturday and take more pictures.

A bird has gotta eat too!

I

So, yesterday I was out on the balcony getting laundry when I heard a tapping sound. I peered out and there was a large black bird on the roof across from the balcony. It was having a delicious breakfast of what I suspect was rodent. I decided to take pictures!

Yum, nothing like a good rodent to start your day!

This is my lunch, no one better touch it!

Oh yeah, gonna eat some more, num num num num!

This is the view from our balcony. It gives you a good idea of how far away it was. Plus you can see the lovely Japanese homes. What an experience. Next time I hope I'll have a nicer camera, but if I do there won't be a bird enjoying lunch on the roof.

Japanese noodles

So on Friday I went out with my senior class. Will also came along. I don't have too many pictures of this lovely day, but I'll do my best to tell you about it. First, I'll tell you about this class. It's a group of four women. They are somewhere in their 50-60s. They are fantastic! Their English is very limited, but they sure do have a wonderful time using what they do know. Last week in class we were talking about our favorite food. They told me about Japanese noodles. They were shocked when they learned I hadn't had them yet. So, they decided they wanted to take Will and I out the following week for lunch. So, we met them on Friday September 10 at 12:00 pm. We rode with two of the students to meet the other two ladies at "Mifuku" a traditional Japanese noodle restaurant.

To the right is a bowl of Japanese noodles. In the back corner is a plate of tempura, which is basically fried deliciousness. The tempura was 1 eggplant, 1 butternut squash, 1 large shrimp and some cute green leaf. You take this ground up daikon, which is Asian radish and put it in the middle bowl. I am not sure what that sauce was, but you dip your tempura in it. Behind the noodles, there is a block of tofu with green onions and soy sauce, it was surprisingly delicious. Then there was plain rice in which you put the Japanese pickles into. The little plate next to the sauce was the pickles.

Here's a different angle of the food.

Now for some bad photography.....oh well :( I pretty much just grabbed the camera out of my purse and snapped the picture with out looking.

Hiromi, Hitoko, and Noriko not pictured is Shegeiko.

It was time to go. Hitomi didn't eat all her tempura, Will was secretly wishing he could have eaten it. 

This is where we sat to eat. On the floor, it was quite lovely. 

Since Will's 3:00 class was canceled, they decided to take us out for coffee. We then went to Framboise, the same place we got our cake for our 1 year anniversary. There are two parts to this shop. One is the bakery (where we went went) the second is a cafe in a separate building where the serve drinks and food. We had coffee and cake. I had strawberry cake and Will had peach cake. It was really amazing. We really enjoyed it. Sorry, no pictures :(

After this they took us back to school and I had class with them. Will sat in with me, because they just wanted to chat. We learned one interesting thing about Japan, apparently they are in to knowing your blood type. This has to do with some sort of horoscope thing. Will is O- and I don't know what I am. They were so shocked I didn't know. I guess I should find out. But, apparently blood type matters for your personality and what blood type your mate should be. So, just the same idea as the zodiac thing, but with blood.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_types_in_Japanese_culture

Well they left at 10 to 3, because Will was yawning and we were all stuffed with food. We ran home to get a few things ready for the rest of the day.

Ramen!

On Wednesday My first class is at 3:00 and William's first class is at 4:20. Starting next week he will go to the kindergarten school at 12. So, his day will be very long.  I have a break from 6:30-8:45. Will finishes at 6:30, so we like to grab something to eat.

William came later so he brought the camera. On the way in he was greeted by one of my junior high students. His name is Katsutoshi.

Katsutoshi is the one doing the peace sign. The other one is his friend.

A little about Katsutoshi....Well, he's a very funny kid....how can you not like him...just look at his picture. Although he is the source of problems in JH class. He likes to talk the entire class in Japanese. When I first started teaching the two tables were facing each other so that they could look and talk to each other and ignore their fabulous teacher, which is me. I need attention, lol. Also last week he thought it would be funny to hide my pens in a game while my back was turned writing on the board. I thought I was going crazy.....but the next day when I pulled the game out there were both of my pens.....I knew they were up to no good, lol.

After all of that, I decided that I should change the placement of the desk as well as have Will come into my class. It's fortunate that he is available when that class takes place. We learned in our Oxford Seminars class from our wonderful teacher, Laura, that desk placement and seat assignments can be crucial for a good classroom. Turns out that moving the tables and assigning seat were a HUGE help. Also Will was able to give a little extra attention to the student who needs it the most. He also likes Queen and video games.

Now back to the point of this blog. We decided to go to ramen for dinner. Ramen is a noodle soup that is not very much like very cheap packets of dried noodles you get in America. Obviously that's where the noodle packets gets the name, ramen. It is very delicious and has vegetables and meat. We had a big bill and we were afraid it might too be to big for the ramen shop to change it. So we decided to go to Seria the 100 yen shop which is like the Japanese Dollar Tree.

It's so wonderful, i love that place!

Will's been into yo-yoing since he found a yo-yo at school. Yesterday he broke the yo-yo while trying to "walk the dog". So, we decided to buy him a new yo-yo and also a little rug for the bathroom.

yay! a red rug....ps I look crazy!

On the way to ramen there is a restaurant called Big Boy which is American....It's really funny that it's here.

You can't really tell but on the inside of the shop it says "hamburg" instead of hamburger.

Now here's the Ramen shop. I don't know what it's called.

yay for ramen!

Here we are in the shop.

I am so ashamed that I am doing a peace sign. Boo!

I love this picture you can see the guy in the background firing up our ramen!! oh yeah. We were the only ones in there at this time :)

They give us a pitcher of water. how nice!

By the way you take your shoes off and sit on the floor. It's very nice and relaxing. We are sitting on traditional tatami .

Our meal is served. We both had soy ramen. It's the best ever. I wish I was eating some more right now!! It's very filling and the bowls are huge! It only cost us ¥1300 (less than $15) for the two us....no tipping in Japan and no tax!!!!