Today Chad woke me up with a cup of coffee, and I just hung out in bed reading and enjoying it until my tummy started to grumble. After a walnut pancake breakfast, I spent the morning writing letters and preparing little packages, tidying up, and watching videos for one of my coursera classes, Know Thyself. When it started raining, we decided to take a nap. A two.hour.nap.

As if the morning wasn’t enjoyable enough, when we woke up it had stopped raining so I went for a four and a half mile walk around Kobe. (Chad played futsal.) It was quite a bit colder today than yesterday, but I saw lots of delightful little things that kept me going. For example, I saw:

Little macaroon gardens…

Chocolates shaped like other sweets…

And pretty cups!

Also, I bought:

Butaman, (or pork stuffed-buns), from my favorite nikkuman shop, 551 Horai (one for me, and one for Chad)…

Pretty notebooks for my coursera classes…

Lemon Poppy Seed bread to have with green smoothies for breakfast tomorrow…

And after meeting up with Chad, wine and chocolate for after dinner tonight!

We are trying a Belgian chocolate from France called Côte d’Or, which means Golden Hillside (according to Wikipedia, anyway!). We chose milk chocolate hazelnut, and I will definitely keep you posted on the flavor once we try it!

We’ve arrived home for the evening now, and have plans to eat grilled salmon with rice, tsukemono, or pickled veggies, and miso soup for dinner. (That makes up for the chocolate, right?) Then, we’ll enjoy our treat while watching a movie. Doesn’t get much better than that!