Food shopping, spaghetti dinner and a trip to the arcade!

Last Monday I realised my fridge was looking rather empty - I had up until then been living off bentos, ramen and rice bought at a ピカソ (Picaso store) - and decided a trip to the supermarket was in order.

A very sad looking fridge

I went to a Santoku supermarket - which I was later informed to be a rather expensive supermarket - to buy some groceries. Although I really didn't know what kind of things I should buy I knew vegetables were a must!

Unfortunately vegetables were rather expensive but nonetheless I ended up buying some broccoli, Japanese spring onions and a mix bag of carrots, potatoes and an onion. The Japanese spring onions were quite different from English ones. They were much thinner and had a very strong smell. My fridge still smells of them! The mix bag of veg is quite useful if you are thinking of making a curry. I had already bought stew blocks so this veg bag was just what I needed!

As I had been eating a lot of ramen I wanted to buy something to pad out any future bowls of ramen so I bought some eggs, the spring onions and some narutomaki. Narutomaki is a kind of processed fish cake, it is round with frilly edges and a pink swirl in the middle.

I also bought some tofu from the reduced section, cereal, instant yakisoba and some cheese gyoza.

Shopping haul!!!

After my shopping trip my fridge started to look a bit less depressing!

A much happier looking fridge - note the veg section!

After shopping there was a university meet up to try some Japanese restaurants and then go to an arcade.

There were so many of us so we were split up into groups as there was no way we were going to all fit into one restaurant - we filled up the square in front of Takadanobaba station!

Our group went to a spaghetti restaurant. There was quite a variety of spaghetti dishes from more classic flavours to dishes that incorporated Japanese flavours like nori (seaweed) and mentaiko (fish roe).

My dish

For my dish I went for the 4 cheese carbonara, although I like to cook it myself it just looked so yummy, and I was not disappointed!

Amy's dish

Amy decided on a more Japanese-style dish which had mentaiko and nori on top!

Both of our meals came with some soup which was also pretty yummy! Overall the meal was pretty delicious and the portions were large so no grumbling stomachs after!

After the meal we headed off to a nearby arcade where we played a drumming game, Dance Dance Revolution (Amy's first time playing!) and some UFO catchers! But those UFO catcher games are such a scam! Most (if not all) are rigged! We saw that only some toys are actually movable and even if you get one to drop onto the hole (as I did) there are toys tied town to hang over the edges so nothing can fall past it and you don't get your prize!!!! I came back to find that the toy I potentially could have won had been placed back in its original position!!! However despite all this someone in our group managed to win something from one of the other machines!! Everyone was so impressed.

At the arcade there were also purikura machines (photo machines) so Amy and I decided to have a go. We chose the New York and Paris machine - they had quite a few others to choose from.

Here was the result:

I think the large eyes really look creepy!!

Japanese purikura machines have lots of features not only can you add writing, backgrounds and stamps but the pictures can make your eyes larger and you can add makeup and change your hair colour. I will try to cover purikura machines in more detail in another post!


We had to leave soon after taking the photos as the arcade was closing. We all said goodbye and then made our way back to our dormitories.

It was another busy day but we had lots of fun and I was glad I had some time to stock up my fridge!

See you later!