At the Daidokoro Umaimon restaurant
Düsseldorf 2021
August 2021
Brachter Wald - Crete
Düsseldorf 2021
Itinerary
On August 1, on Sunday, after 2 months away, we returned home to Düsseldorf. It was evening, and we decided to go for a walk around our neighborhood.
For a very long time, for more than a year already, we had wanted to visit the Japanese restaurant Daidokoro Umaimon, a 10-minute walk from our home. This little restaurant was highly praised by some of my colleagues, and it also has good reviews on Google Maps. And so we decided that the time had come — we didn’t really have much for dinner anyway, so off we went!
We ordered ramen soup and Chinese-Japanese dumplings called gyoza. The dumplings were very tasty, with chicken filling. As for the soup, honestly, it’s an acquired taste. Very salty. This little restaurant is always full of people, many come and buy food to take away — that’s still a bit foreign to me. You can try something like that once for variety, but for me to actually crave this kind of food, I guess I’d either have to be born Japanese or somehow grow into it, get used to this kind of food….
Ramen Soup
We went to get the first Covid vaccination (Pfizer).
Finally bought a painting for the bedroom; we’d wanted to hang something there for decoration for a long time.
Trying out where to hang the painting
I baked my first Panettone in my life, and my dough “rose” for almost two days. You can’t tell from the photo how delicious it is :) I need to keep practicing, this is faaaaar from perfect. But for a first attempt, I’m very pleased with myself :)
My first Panettone
Two boxes arrived from Ikea, we ordered a table lamp for the dresser, a blanket for Volchiy, and lots and lots of frames. I want to make a composition of frames on the wall instead of the Pulp Fiction poster we bought a year and a half ago. For some reason, I suddenly stopped liking the poster.
Dobryshko from IKEA
On Saturday, August 14, it was warm and sunny, and we went to the forest. We walked a little deeper into the woods and found a wonderful clearing among the trees with thick green grass. We lay on a blanket with our eyes closed; I just listened to the silence. I wanted to freeze in that moment, here among the trees, not to run anywhere, not to rush, just to enjoy who I am. Then we took out our traditional picnic food set — bread, mozzarella, meat, lettuce leaves. It always seemed to me that food in nature acquires some special flavor….
A fairytale clearing in the forest
After eating, we still didn’t feel like going anywhere. We sat among the trees a little longer and then slowly walked toward the parking lot.
During the week, I baked a capital cake. We drank tea with it on the balcony.
Capital Cake
I found black-and-white pictures on the internet (some were in color, and I made them black and white myself). I ordered the pictures printed online with delivery. Then Volchiy hung the photo frames according to my idea. I really like how it turned out :)
My composition of photos in black frames
On Friday, August 20, we flew to Crete! Hooray, the long-awaited vacation!
Before the trip, Volchiy was figuring out the automatic watering system, bought almost a year ago.
Testing the automatic watering system before leaving
Magical Crete
I wrote a separate diary about our journey around Crete.