Before I left my job earlier this year, my beloved team all got together and gave me a bunch of very thoughtful and generous gifts. One of those gifts was a sushi making class in Osaka. (Thank you Ioana, if this post somehow makes its way to you!)

At the time, Japan felt so far away. We were pretty sure we would visit, but we weren’t sure when. A couple of weeks ago I emailed the teacher to finally schedule our class.

We got up and showered and left at 9:30. Millie seems to have developed severe sudden onset separation anxiety, and screamed for us as we were leaving — even though she was staying with my parents. At home she sleeps over with them and literally pushes us out of the door, so this is a new and difficult change for all of us. She apparently cried hysterically for over 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, we took a 30 minute Uber out to west Osaka and had an amazing private class. We learned how to make dashi, the base stock for much of Japanese cooking. We made miso soup, small rolls, a large roll, and a few different nigiris. We learned how to cut everything properly and make the rice.

We shaved bonito flakes using a solid smoked fish.

And learned how to make a traditional Japanese rolled omelet.

And of course at the end we got to eat our delicious work. Cheesy photo of us by the instructor.

This is the type of thing we never would have done if it wasn’t gifted to us, but we had such a fun time. And even as someone who cooks a lot, I learned so much.

From here we walked to the train and took it to Central Osaka to complete a mission: buy Millie’s birthday presents. Her birthday is December 13 but this was probably the last chance we had to shop without her. We got her lots of little things (hair clips, stickers, etc). Then we went to a giant overwhelming electronics store and got her big gift, her first camera.

We returned back to the Airbnb to very tired grandparents. They had offered to take her back to the fun play place in the park, but she refused to leave the apartment all day. Her behavior report was… not great.

We rested for about an hour and then all set off for our second big food activity of the day, a food tour. We enjoyed doing these in China, mostly because it is so nice just to have someone else find the spots and order the food for us.

We met our guide and the other participants on a corner. We shared the tour with a couple from Ottawa who have been in Japan for the last 5 weeks. We were all bundled up for the cold and they were wearing shorts and tshirts. Very Canadian.

We walked around the basement of a department store and got steamed pork buns.

We went to a seafood izakaya and had fresh fish. She ordered us a tempura and didn’t tell us what it was until we all tried it. It was fish testicles. My family managed to make many jokes and we all had a good laugh.

We then had takoyaki and then went to a katsu restaurant. By the time the deep fried stuff was all in front of us, we were very full (except for Millie who ate one bite of bun, and maybe one bite of fried shrimp). We got some yummy mochi fruit and then got an Uber home.