Afternoon fun...

I went to this really yummy Chinese restaurant for my birthday lunch a couple months back...the food was so good that I have been meaning to take Tim there. So today, we went to 'Chinese Restaurant' (that's the name of the restaurant)!

The restaurant is located in Moore City, a nine-story shopping plaza/restaurant row. Moore City is tucked behind the Yokosuka-Chuo train station but it's a big building and Tim was surprised to see all the shops and restaurants...(this was his first trip).

When Tim and I sat down for lunch (sans kids!!) they brought us fresh iced tea and an English menu (that's always a plus!). I knew what I wanted to order; I was going to have the exact same thing I ordered during my birthday lunch: Benitora fried rice and pan-fried dumplings. Tim ordered the seafood lunch set and shared my dumplings and fried rice.

The nice thing we've noticed about dining in Japan is that the food comes out pretty quickly. Just minutes after we got our soup, our meal arrived. And we were so hungry, so there was little talking and a lot of eating!

After lunch, we went to a store called Uni-Glo. It is basically an upscale Old Navy but with lower prices. Sounds good to me!! I picked up a couple sweater/pant fleece outfits for Rowen and Arjun since it has been getting so cold here! Tim also bought some split-toe socks that had a heat-tech quality to keep his feet toastly warm this winter!

The last place we visited was the best!! Saikaya Shopping Plaza :) (To get an idea of what Japanese dept. stores are like, read this post.)

We actually went to the basement of Saikaya...not to any stores. We'd heard about the Saikaya basement A LOT and didn't know what the fuss was about. But NOW we know!! It was unbelievable! Imagine a gourmet food court in the States BUT with all Japanese food, plus florists and an amazing bakery called Pomadore. Of course we picked up dinner for that evening! I got a bento box with rice, one meatball, some egg, and two pieces of shrimp. Tim got an unagi (eel) bento box and I picked up lots of strawberries and fried rice for the kiddos :)

While shopping in Saikaya and probably looking quite confused on what to get...(that still hasn't ended even though we've been here almost 5 months!)...this older woman started helping me and was speaking very good English. It turns out that used to work on the naval base. She was the Chapel babysitter during church services for 35 years!! She only recently stopped working 5 years ago...
Anyway, we chatted for a bit and she showed me some other food booths and helped me purchase some other items. She was so nice and what an unexpected but welcome surprise to meet a Japanese person that spoke conversational English!!