Typhoon take two

The typhoon hit today. Although it has hit hard in the western and southern parts of Japan, my area has gotten away lightly. We had high winds, a lot of rain and some electricity outages to contend with. I did see some lightening and luckily my electricity stayed on but my lights flickered menacingly at me when I was looking calm about it.

So...what's happened this week?

I made my first ever meal in my flat - it turned out pretty delicious if I do say so myself.

{Please ignore the mess in this photo - it had been a long day!}

Thanks to a suggestion by Amy at the supermarket, I got this amazing crushed garlic in a bottle which I have put in all my cooking since trying it in my first ever dish. I made shrimp, which I've never cooked before with green beans and peppers. I also used my rice cooker for the first time, which although produced rice, did also produce a lovely looking goop which bubbled up through the steam hole. I am pleased to say that I have found that I was putting too much water in, and this issue is now resolved in any rice cooking foray's I've had since my first meal!

Most of the week I have been trying to orient myself and catch up on everything. I had lots of chores to take care of, errands to run and general tidying to do. I feel like I'm almost there now. My room is feeling a lot more 'me' which is nice. Pictures to follow once I've finally finished putting stuff away.

After a long week, I met the other ALT girls in my area for dinner on Friday evening after work. They found this awesome looking Izakaya but when we arrived, they were booked til 8pm and it had just gone 6pm when we got there. Too hungry to wait, we wandered over to another place nearby. It was nice to unwind a bit after such a long week. Having finished dinner, which was good but missing a grilled salmon we ordered, we decided that to fill the salmon shaped hole - we needed desserts!

{Not sure if this sign was for the restaurant or the cafe but it was just too cute not feature!}

We ambled around and found a little cafe selling deserts, and I had a delicious Japanese cheesecake which had a raspberry compote and a drink came with it too.

We chatted late into the evening and eventually went our separate ways - except Amy who I gave a lift back to her place. I was the first guest and was suitably jealous as the apartment feels like a small house! It has it's own staircase up to the flat, and there are a few shelves in the hallway at the bottom so it does feel more like a house and when you reach the flat, it's really quite spacious. Amy gave me some cups and mugs and something far more interesting! She had a set of cups and plates which had been given to her and she'd tried her best to leave them behind but they had followed her. Now they will be given a temporary home with me. I will look after them but at some point in the future, when Amy least suspects it, they will return!

{These are too amazing to use, so they are currently displayed like this in my kitchen}

Saturday and Sunday passed far too quickly for my liking and with bad weather forecast, our swimming trip had to be cancelled but I'm already working on my next plans! 

I mainly just chilled out a little instead and got some food shopping in but I did get this little fella : 

{He's yet to be named - suggestions welcome}

So that brings me to where I started this post - typhoon. As I'm typing, the rain and wind has picked up again and there has been some definite thunder but I think the worst has already passed. I'm hoping, weather permitting, that Sunday will be a very busy and adventure filled day - the plans at the moment involve watching archery down in the castle grounds, then nipping to an island part way around the lake for a late lunch and finally going to watch the Torii gate get illuminated on the opposite shore of the lake. Bring it on!