Long overdue for a mylife update! Here we are way back in the middle of September when a bunch of us headed down to Izu (once again) to give summer a rousing send off (hard to believe it was only a few months ago). Participants this time around were of Jason (skimboarding), UK Mike (digging a hole), Maho (playing with kids), A friend of Maho's (whose name escapes me now, sorry!) and Wendy (top right in red).
We drove down under threat of a typhoon hitting any minute, but just like last time, the whole (long) weekend was pretty much sunny, warm and perfect. Days were spent chilling on the beach, bodyboarding, hanging out at this great little beach cafe (albeit with really slow service) and doing the onsen thing in the evening. UK Mike ended up being the star of the whole beach when he took out his shovel and spent the day trying to dig the greatest hole ever dug. Read more about that on Mike's site here.

Welcome to Lawry's!

Living in Japan for a long time, you often get a craving for Western food. But sometimes junky hamburgers or cheap steaks just don't cut it. There will come a time when you want good Western food. That's when you head to Lawry's for prime rib. I was thinking I wouldn't dress up much but it's a good thing I did, this place is high class! 100 foot ceilings, plush velvet seats, low lighting and a relaxing atmosphere, perfect for romantic dates, people with lots of money (not me), and when you've had enough of normal crowded and noisy Tokyo restaurants (me). The service was polite and attentive to a fault. At the reception area they had at least 5 staff members waiting to usher you to your seat, all bowing and treating you like royalty. Lawry's specializes in prime rib and they didn't disapoint. You can choose from 5 cut sizes. I chose the fourth largest which was brontosaurus sized and barely managed to finish it. The dinner also comes with salad, mashed potatoes and yorkshire pudding, all of which was fantastic. How much? Well let's just say it'll be a once a year kind of thing.

Kumi's mom often sends us boxes of food, and a while back we got a huge box full of Japanese pears, 16 of them no less. While they are delicious to eat raw, each one is the size of a large grapefruit, and after 8 or 10, you tend to wish there was some other way to eat them. Well there is! Using my intellect I reasoned that pears, while not apples, look and taste somewhat similar so why not make an apple pie using pears instead of apples!? I turned on my oven, brought my cooking skills to bear and in no time at all I had whipped up a pear pie to put pies everywhere in the world to shame. I had hoped to use at least 2 pears in my pie, but such is the size of these pears that one was enough to fill it! Speaking of baking, my sister recently opened her own cake shop in Canada. You think I'm good? Well check out some of her designs!