Jingisukan... By Any Other Name... Not.

17th October, 2006 - After a quiet day, and some considerable anticipation, T-chan's family head off to one of the local Jingisukan restaurants. Only to find that it wasn't open. Ok... deep breaths. It's not the end of the world. Not nearly.

Anyhow - after a lot of brain-wracking, we came up with an alternative that was all the way towards the city centre. It was a small shop and a bit pricey - but we were all hanging out for some yummy BBQ mutton.

As an aside - we're still busily trying to find our own recipe... and if it wasn't for us also stressing out about our son's 3rd birthday party and the rapidly approaching departure of T-chan and L-kun then I'd likely have torn the house down looking for it.

In the mean-time... back to the story. The shop had a couple of rooms... but given that it was a tuesday we were the only customers. Not a good feeling in any eating place. The meal was... basic. It wasn't "bad" as such... just ordinary. Anyhow - the shop is called Yoshitsune in Chuoku.

We had our fill - and although our stomachs were full, our hearts were not... this was not good Jingisukan. We all felt somewhat disappointed. Expectation can be a mood spoiler when it's not met. Especially after about an hour of running around getting here. My glass was definitely more than half empty...

The only one of us that wasn't disappointed (or at least not because of the BBQ) was T-chan, who would have given anything at that time to have been able to taste even so-so Jingisukan. Over the last few days her feeling in the morning had definitely taken a turn for the worse. Morning sickness. What a brilliant idea Nature. At times like these I feel very happy to be a man. Then again - I most probably feel that way most of the time.

We had started having some pretty serious discussions around this time. We had already booked over two weeks in Kansai (due to start in few days), and we'd spent the better part of the last 3 months planning meticulously. Pregnancy has a way of changing things, and it's not always easy to anticipate in advance. T-chan knew how much my heart had been put into the Kansai trip - but we both knew how hard this would be.

Quietly her family and friends were a little worried about us running around doing heavy duty touristy stuff with T-chan starting to feel the effects of her pregnancy. Not to mention the fact that the first trimester is the most dangerous in terms of miscarriage. We had lots of thinking to do ahead of us... and that included coming up with lists of hospitals in Kyoto - just in case.