Break from Breakfast and Japanese TV

We're back in Akuradanchi for a three day hiatus before another two days in the wilds of Hyogo Prefecture.  It's fun to sleep in new beds and eat fancy Japanese hotel breakfasts, but I'm looking forward to sleeping with my soft pillows and eating my yogurt tomorrow morning.  I also enjoyed some incredible Japanese television.  I watched part of the sumo tournament with the benefit of English announcers, close-ups and play backs and gained a new appreciation of the sport, especially the size of its competitors.  Later in the evening before going to sleep I spent a small amount of time watching a show about the joy of riding escalators in airports around the world, Harry Potter dubbed in Japanese, and a game show with a 73-year-old woman dressed in leather doing a pole dance.  None of these held my interest.  It wasn't until I fell upon Pitagora Suichi (PythagoraSwitch) that I became entranced.  The fact that this children's educational program was airing on Saturday night at 10pm would suggest a broader audience, one that is secretly in love with its addictive mix of gears, camera tricks and Rube Goldberg machines. It spoke to the child in me that missed the crayon factory of Mr.Rogers and episodes of 321 Contact.  Eventually I exercised self control and turned it off to go to sleep.

And now, for few days I will have to take a break from Pitagora Suichi, Japanese buffet breakfasts and convenient store food, and the sound of recorders and melodicas playing My Grandfather's Clock.  In a few days, we'll be back on the road, enjoying Hyogo at large.

Breakfast #1 (from top left, clockwise): rice porridge, miso soup, salmon, tamago roll, seaweed and egg salad, broccoli, potato salad, fruit with yogurt (including lichi), bread pudding

view from Breakfast #1

Breakfast #2:  (on the perimeter from left to right) a light seafood soup, rice with pickled vegetables, plum tangled seaweed tea; (on plate from upper left clockwise) sea bream, tamago roll, egg and seaweed salad, seaweed salad of a different sort, tofu and egg, and soft tofu with yuzu (citrus) sesame sauce.