HokuHoku

This week has been pretty insane- I'm not sure I've even had time to breathe or eat most days! Today is officially "hump day" I'm half way to my week off- and I'm really going to be needing it.

We had originally planned to go out for Tat's Birthday on Thursday- but I was crazy with work and she ended up babysitting for her sister, so we re-arranged for Friday.

(It's just as well really, Thursday was truly bonkers. I had stayed an hour after work to run a STEM activity with my colleague Abdul- we did screaming jelly babies and the sugar snake - I was ready to call it a night as I had a meeting with some charitable trusts to secure a place on research program with them, but as we'd finished early he decided to have some extra explosions- they were brilliant- but it's very difficult to hold a sensible business meeting when your room is full of purple smoke and your desk is covered in the remains of jelly babies you've been blowing up for the last hour- They did email me back today and say how lovely it was to be "in the thick of it" and that their suit jackets still smelled "like candy floss"- After all that I just wanted to go home and sleep... or cry)

Today I stayed late to make smoke bombs. That completed, I picked Tats up and we headed back to mine for a quick cuppa before going out for dinner.

We went to hokuhoku japanese restaurant which is about 8 minutes walk from my front door- and I never even knew it was there!

Tats is really up there on all things japanese- she studied japanese language and culture at uni in London- so whilst we were waiting for dinner I made her translate all the posters on the walls. One of them said they sold squid balls. They did not.

Still a very cool looking poster.

Tats had a Katsu dish and pronounced it to be excellent - she's travelled round japan before so I'll trust her judgement.

I had yakisoba with chicken and cabbage, and I ordered a side plate of japanese dumplings (Gyoza) because I've never had them before.

Both were really yummy.

The portions were so generous that I didn't even have room for a wasabi and chocolate brownie- but I really wanted to try it!

We went for a walk round the park after dinner to try and de-foodbaby. It didn't work brilliantly but the park looks pretty amazing at the moment with all the trees changing colour!