Tea, Coffee, Sake

Posted on 2009/01/03 16:43:59 (January 2009).

[Friday 2nd January]
We headed out into the centre of London once more this afternoon. Following yesterday's rather unsuccessful shopping expedition, today was a marked improvement - pretty much everything was open.

Our first port of call was to buy a few basics like tea and coffee - given the current economic downturn I am duly being quite frugal, and sticking to the supermarket's own brand for these kinds of thing. I find Fortnum and Mason's own brands of tea and coffee to be quite acceptable in this regard.

We then headed to our stalwart Japanese food emporium Rice Wine Shop to buy the mochi we had failed so spectacularly to find the day before. Whilst in Rice Wine (which, we noted, has got some new fridges) we also bought, funnily enough, some rice wine, and a couple of other of the usual things we tend to buy there like tofu and kimchi.

There then followed a bit more shopping, including a visit to Liberty where Chie found a swimming costume in the sale, before we decided to go and have a quick wander around the British Museum. Having recently visited Tintern Abbey, I'd wanted to see this picture by everyone's famous middle-of-the-painting-neglecting-artist Mr. J.M.W Turner, but alas it isn't out on display. We asked at the information desk and apparently it seldom is.

So instead we went to see the Clocks and Watches exhibition, which was quite interesting, and then went on a futile search in the Indian collections for a cow. Chie wanted a picture of one to send as New Year cards to Japan, 2009 being the year of the cow and all.

It's great that the museums in London are free, it means you can just pop in for 20 minutes or so without feeling under pressure to see the whole thing.

After that bit of culture we wended our way back to the flat, and once there enjoyed a very nice cup of Fortnum and Mason's "PicKadilly (sic) Blend" coffee. It was probably designed more as a filter coffee, but it worked surprisingly well in our little stove top espresso maker - none of the usual hint of sourness we get when we put regular espresso coffee in it, but whilst it was perhaps a little more mellow it was still very respectable indeed - really flavoursome, very smooth, very rich.

Had Japanese food for dinner, a sort of belated New Year's day meal for Chie - with those all important mochi (served in a simple and elegant soup with delicately carved carrot, lotus root and koyadofu) plus a few other things.

After dinner we decided to watch Sen to Chihiro (known in the West as Spirited Away). I have the DVD and whilst I have already seen it two or three times it has been a while, and it is such a tremendous visual feast I was more than happy to watch it again.

Miyazaki is simply great, although I had to miss Sen to Chihiro because I was away on a business trip, so I am looking to get it on DVD sooner or later...

Posted by Lox at 2009/01/08 11:09:00.

In my opinion Sen to Chihiro is the best of all the Miyazaki / Ghibli films, and I have seen quite a lot of them... but I guess other people wouldn't agree.

Posted by John at 2009/01/11 00:05:10.

Post a comment