Weak End.

Nothing much too exciting happened this weekend.

I want to start this blog off by asking anyone in Rockford an urgent question. It has come to my attention that Leonardi's Steakhouse is no longer Leonardi's Steakhouse, but has become some kind of "Bar & Grill" (as if there aren't enough of those in Rockford already). While the fate of Leonardi's always seemed sealed in my opinion, due to the lack of customers there all the time, tell me it isn't so. Can someone confirm if they are still serving delicious, garlic-infested skirt steak with heaps of mashed potatoes? If they dropped this from the menu, consider my returning to Rockford an impossibility.

That's a joke of course.

Anyways, Friday, little ol' Manami came to Tsuchiura, we hit up a brand new izakaya and ate some standard izakaya fare like okonmiyaki with cheese and mochi (yum), some yakiniku, fried chicken bones, tako wasabi (slimy, raw, spicy, and so delicious), a potato augratin thing, and maybe a couple other items. All this accompanied with two massive beers and I was a happy camper. It's cool when new places open in Japan because they place beautiful flowers all over the business, and it smells good everywhere and is nice to look at.

Saturday, we ate at a Kyushu ramen restaurant that was good and about 5 minutes walk from my house. Kyushu is the region with cities such as Fukuoka, and the ramen is prepared in a different way. I think it's more miso-based and a bit more oily. It was pretty good, but nothing on my sweet genkotsu ninniku ramen. We then walked god knows how long to find a park in Tsuchiura I had never been to before. It's on Lake Kasumigaura, the 2nd biggest lake in Japan, and features a massive windmill. It was nice. The weather has been beautiful here all weekend.

I watched Suicide Club last night for the first time since I came to Japan this summer. I was dumbfounded at how much I understood without having to read the subtitles compared to the last time I watched it. It was a satisfying feeling, biatch.

Today, beautiful day, so I rode my bike to Tsukuba and ate sukiyaki. It was good, the beef was a fine quality. Now I'm gonna study some more.

So is anyone sending me cereal? Let me know, because I will gratefully receive.

Don't you feel better about yourself after reading this whole blog that was fairly pointless and talked almost completely about food?

Sorry, next weekend should be more exciting. It's a 3 day weekend, and I plan on raging Shinjuku hard. Peace.