Our mates Claire and Ollie arrived yesterday from Tokyo, so naturally we all went out to party.

First, we all went to yakiniku (grilled meat) restaurant that I'd never been to before. It's a really nice little place in the very traditional Kokaibashi market. The food was great and reasonably priced; but the very best thing of all was that we got to see a tanuki really close up:



It seems that the restaurant staff leave scraps of food in the grassy area behind the joint, and the tanuki come in the evening to eat it. We were lucky enough to be seated right by the window so we got a great view.

The tanuki we saw was a lactating female, which was even better - every now and then she left with a piece of food, which we assume she was taking back to the nest :) She really was adorable - her dog-like, black and white face really reminded me of one of my dogs back home.

That really made my night! But, even though I would've been content to sit in the restaurant and tanuki-watch all night, eventually we left and took Ollie and Claire to Jeff's. Which was, of course, very fun.

Japanese of the Day: 魑魅魍魎 - chimimoryou - Evil spirits of rivers and mountains