Looks like a wonderful way to celebrate a birthday! 😃 Your boyfriend looks like a big man, too, judging from the pic of his walking back from the drink bar! 😮 Those cakes look heavenly! 😋
You had to cook your own food on that little hotplate thing? Wouldn't that take away some of the fun of dining out, if you're still cooking? 😳 I would be so lost if I ever visited Japan! There seems to be so many differences in basic culture as well as language. And even the foods there are so mysterious to me... for instance, you mentioned dango, which I had to look up. Wikipedia says:
"Dango is a Japanese dumpling made from rice flour mixed with uruchi rice flour and glutinous rice flour."
Okay, "rice flour" is easy, it's dried rice that is ground to a powdery consistency, like flour. But then there is also uruchi rice flour and glutinous rice flour. If I remember correctly, "glutinous" rice is "sticky" rice like is used for making sushi rolls because the rice kernels clump together well. But I have no clue what "uruchi" rice might be and why it must be mixed with glutinous rice flour for making dango. One can't make dango from glutinous rice, alone? I could probably spend an hour or two digging through a "rabbit hole" of research on all of this before I begin to understand it all. And then, I would only understand this one dish, dango, and nothing more. And then there is "calpis" which was mentioned at the drink bar, which I've never heard of... there would be so very much to learn in order to survive in Japan! 😱
So, you have my respect for diving into this culture so thoroughly and thriving as well as you're doing! Of course, there might be some similarities with the culture of your homeland, moreso than I would have. But still, I have respect for you, lady! And thank you for sharing all of this culture & food & life with us! 😊
He's tall 😍
The cakes were so yummy and so sweet so it was kinda hard for me to finish them. 😅
Sukiyaki is meant to be cooked on our own. The staff was just showing us how it works, but we already know how. I think every home in Japan enjoys sukiyaki. Good for the cold weather. It's kinda easy to do, as long as you have the sauce. You can just put whatever vegetables you like in the boiling sauce and the thin meat. Once it's cooked, you dip it in a raw egg that's beaten then eat it with rice. 😅
There are so many foods in Japan that I am not sure how to cook yet, or even don't know what's it made of. Dango I'm sure is made of flour but I don't know which flour. 😅 If you go to the grocery, there's so many kinds and I'm not even a great cook myself to properly understand them all. 😅
Calpis is a drink, it's kinda milky. I don't really drink it because it tastes weird to me. 😂 There are so many things I was also culture-shocked when I first arrived here, and maybe til now, I'm still trying to get to know a lot of stuff. It's fun to learn about Japanese culture so I really like it here. 😉
I think I would also have fun learning about other cultures when I'm in a different place.