Friday is Language day, so the girls sat through both their Norwegian and their French studies, before we could have a bit of lunch and head out to explore for the day. Joe’s glasses are done, so we headed to the downtown mall to pick them up. After a 35 minute bus ride to look at the surroundings instead of a 20 minute tunnel ride, we finally arrived downtown.
Joe went off to pick up his glasses and get them adjusted to fit his face, and the girls and I hit Kiddyland up for some extreme cuteness. We browsed until Joe was done, and then we went down to the Muji store. I am so impressed with this store, Maylin’s latest pants are from there, and their housewares and food sections are fun to daydream in! I am so sad that I won’t be able to bring bowls, plates and cups home from Japan, seeing as we still have another 7 months and 5 countries to ALSO fall in love with all the things…
BUT! We did get the girls some fluffy warm vests, as our days are getting colder by the minute. We have three weeks left here (today!!), then we’re heading for two months of hot summer, and right back into cold weather in Hong Kong in February. So we’ll need them again, just after a couple of months in swimwear and flip flops!
Our next stop was the Ghibli store, which gets more and more interesting for each Ghibli movie we watch. While we haven’t watched Spirited Away yet (too dark for their ages, maybe?), the ducks from the movie sure make for cute stuffies! And Téa has a friend who loves all things duck, so we had to take a picture, of course!
Maylin insisted we also browse the Lego store one more time before heading out, so of course we did.
Next it was time for a snack. We headed down into the basement and split a couple of cookies (with a much needed coffee for Joe and matcha latte for me). Just a little bit of extra energy before we keep on walking. Next we were headed up to see a gacha store we had passed the other day, Maylin had a couple of coins left from her birthday that she wanted desperately to get rid of.
It was 3.30pm and we were still hungry, those two cookies between 4 people only just got us a couple of blocks worth of energy. I have a bunch of flags on my Google Maps of places I want to eat or visit or see or shop, and one such flag was right around the corner! Maurice the bouldering coach had recommended a hot pot restaurant nearby, and we decided to have an early dinner.
This was a strange looking building from the outside, with a set of elevators that took us straight up and into the restaurant. It seemed to us that the entire restaurant was getting up to pay right as we were entering, and we soon realized that the clock had tipped 4pm, and the lunch prices are available until 4pm. Oh well. We considered coming back during lunch on a different day, but also realized the price difference was $4 per adult, so we decided to splurge. When we sat down and a friendly server helped us get set up, we also realized that children 6 and under were free, so we saved the extra on Maylin still eating for free!
We ordered the pork and beef all you can eat hot pot experience, and went to the buffet to grab our tofu, veggies and noodles for the hot pot. We had chosen chicken broth and sukiyaki sauce for our two halves of the pot, and they both made delicious food!
With all you can eat hot pot restaurants, you get a time limit. For dinner, this time limit is 100 minutes, lunch is shorter (hence the lower price point, I’m guessing?). We were about half way through, shaking our heads and wondering why we could hear a robot delivering food in all directions but ours, when we realized we have to order our own proteins… We promptly ordered a couple of servings of beef, pork shoulder and pork belly!
We crammed as much beef, pork and chicken meatballs into our last 50 minutes as we possibly could! The girls were soon full, or as Maylin says “my food stomach is full, time for the dessert stomach”! There were two waffle irons and a vat of batter at the buffet, so I made the girls a waffle each, Maylin added cookie bits and Téa added ice cream.
Joe kept ordering pork and beef, and I went for some ice cream with fruits and chocolate syrup. Regretted the syrup, but loved added the canned fruits, memories from my childhood for sure! We waited until the 100th minute for Joe to finish up his hot pot experience, and headed back out into the now dark but early evening.
We took the subway home this evening, and as we started our walk back home, I decided to stick my head into the hair dresser by the station, inquiring if he would cut my hair (I’ve asked many who have declined). Via his translator app, he told me I had to make a reservation in advance, and I agreed to come back for a haircut tomorrow afternoon.
We got home and dropped our stuff, and I headed to the grocery store for some eggs and bread for breakfast. It’s getting harder to shop now that we have such little time left, wondering if we’ll go through another entire bag of rice, and how much dish detergent do we really need? But, luxury complaints for sure. Eggs and bread we’ll always go through!
We started out watching Castle in the Sky, but then Téa ended up talking to my mom on the phone, so we paused the movie and Maylin chose a Minion movie instead. We all went to bed early, tired from another busy day. It won’t be tomorrow, but Sunday looks to be both cold and wet, we may just take a day off to relax at the Airbnb.