First things first... look after your belly!

So, on touchdown in Osaka through to now in Himeji we've had some awesome food... We've done our best to sample as many of the local delicacies as we can, requiring a lot of courage at times! At this stage, Jodi is well ahead on the bravery stakes, sampling sashimi within the first week! She has also found tempura (she is maybe not allergic to prawns!), which is quickly fried food... It can be anything from prawns to vegetables. My favourite tempura (Jono) is the broccoli, because the broccoli has so much goodness in it you'd just believe it was healthy! We have had ton-katsu (fried pork with a bbq (sort of) gravy), awesome!

The okonomyaki in Osaka was outstanding, and because we found the right place (Thanks Tina, Steve and Marie), it cost roughly 100 yen (just over 1 dollar). I ate a whole sweet potato in Osaka as well, just out of a big drum filled with coals... Awesome!

Then there's been ramen, soba and udon noodle dishes... They come in masssive bowls filled with meat and vegetables (sometimes a raw egg! (as well as the noodles)) all swimming in delicious broth! Much of the meat here is fried and fatty, so we try and stay away from it... We have discovered however that lean meat is much cheaper than fatty meat at the supermarket, so good for us! The fish is good fresh, but many Japanese eat a cured fish for lunch. Neither of us have really taken to that!

There is so much more here to try, and we've only just begun... Can't wait to get into it! For those of you coming to visit, practice using chopsticks... And be warned... we have a checklist of local delicacies waiting for you... You can't leave until you've done it all!






Okonamyaki is a trademark dish of Osaka, but on our travels in Hiroshima, Miyajima in particular, we tried this delicacy. It's a cross between an omlette and cabbage pancake filled with cabbage, meat, vegies and noodles. There is a special sauce on top (similar to BBQ sauce) and sprinkled with seaweed (that green stuff). It was delicious. A dish we endeavour to make ourselves at home. I (Jodi) was even given a bottle of the sauce by a teacher on Valentine's Day! Thanks Mr Amano.








Italian food is quite easy to come by in Japan. Here is a Margarita pizza, very tasty and just the right size for one.













NOW FOR DESSERT!!

I really don't know how these Japanese people stay so skinny because the amount of mouth-watering desserts is just amazing.









This piece of cake was given to me (Jodi) as a thank you gift after Sports Day. It was a vanilla sponge, cream and strawberries topped with shaved white chocolate and a chocolate slab. Yum, yum, yum.











This sweet biscuit is also a trademark of Hiroshima. It is a sponge cake on the outside in the shape of a maple leaf and comes in an assortment of cream fillings. This one is chocolate (what else?). We sampled a few over the day. We had warm chocolate and cream biscuits (yum), a cold chocolate biscuit (yum) and even a deep fried tempura cream biscuit (beautiful on a cold night). And this is just the tip of the ice berg!! Stay tuned!...