Abeno Q, Harukas Abeno and sliced brie for dinner? – Day 43 – Oct 15, 2025

After doubling up yesterday, today was science classes in our humble kitchen. Téa was asking me how to name winds, and I tell you, I never learned this stuff… Or I forgot it already. I know I have forgotten more words in more languages than they’ve ever learned, but I still admire their brains for their seemingly endless capacity.

We were still on the hunt for some clothes for Joe, so after lunch, we headed down to our best closest mall, Abeno Q. It seems like there’s at least three huge malls in different buildings in this one interesection, but we always end up going to this one. On the bus on the way there, Joe suddenly points out the window and says “there’s a Pokémon card vending machine”. I guess he recognizes the Japanese characters now!

We have never actually noticed this photo op before, and neither Téa nor Maylin was in the mood for posing with it, so I just snapped it for the memories.

My nephew is actually flying in from Norway tomorrow, and so on his list of things he wanted to see or do while in Japan, was this building. I had to look up why, and I discovered that it used to be the tallest building in all of Japan! Then we had to look up other tall buildings, and saw that this little guy at 300m is dwarfed by the tallest building, Burj Kalifa in Dubai, which sits at 828m. I cannot imagine another two Abeno Harukas on top of this one!!

Inside the mall today, we met a new security guard:

We went to Uniqlo and picked up some of the basics we were looking for, and of course that wore us completely out! We hunted for a quick snack combined with a table for four (those are harder to find than the snacks!), and finally got to try “cookhouse”. They had lots of different baked goods and hot and cold drinks, so we each chose something yummy to recharge.

We finished our mall visit with a quick trip to the grocery store to get inspiration for dinner, and it worked! We’re all having different dinners tonight, I’ll show and tell below.

First we had to bus and walk home, and on the way, I spotted these cute and creative plants:

What I found at the grocery store, and how it inspired my dinner: I miss my sourdough bread. I miss baking every second day. I miss my KitchenAid and I miss my oven. Below is a picture of the pack of two slices of seeded bread that I saw at the grocery store and said “I’m having THAT for dinner”!

Every day here we have the type of soft and fluffy bread you see to the right, and it comes in packs of 4, 5, 6 or 8 slices. I’ve even seen 10 slices, but the thing is – the amount of bread you get does not change! 4 huge thick slices, or 10 paper thin slices, it’s all cut out of the same size square of bread. So tonight, I bought two precious slices of seeded bread, just for myself.

The reason I said I would have it for dinner, was that I found THIS in the cheese section! Cheese is not an everyday product in Japan, you have to hunt for it, and it might not be all that great. So when I found, imported from France, SLICED brie? Yes you bet I was having seeded bread with slices of brie for dinner!

The fermented butter I didn’t dare buy the first few times I saw it in the store. I am so glad I finally took a chance! It doesn’t have a fermented funk at all, it just tastes like delicious butter, amplified! And yes, in Japan as in Norway, all butter is salted, so you can actually taste it.

No matter how disappointing the sliced brie was, it was a refreshingly different dinner tonight. Coleslaw with deep-roasted sesame dressing, fresh tomatoes and cucumber, and a toasted seed bread with butter and cheese. Not what I would have thought a dinner in Japan would look like, but once in 3 months? I’ll call it ok.

Cousin Kristian comes tomorrow, and everyone’s excited! Time to get some rest, and then go meet him off the train tomorrow!