Afternoon Tea

How many of you have had afternoon tea with your landlord or landlady? Not many, I would imagine, unless you were sleeping with them, and hell, that's your business. In Japan, however, it seems par for the course once you've done your one year stint in one of their properties and not trashed the place.

At least it is with our landlord.

Matt and I were invited to the elusive Tanabe-san's house on Saturday afternoon, where we were plied full of 'Fujiya' patisserie (don't even start me), coffee and sandwiches, all immaculately presented. We had a lovely conversation (she being a lovely and very switched-on woman), all in Japanese, and things were going so well until she brought out her Harry Belafonte collection. OK. I had intimated that perhaps my mother really really liked Harry Belafonte and all of a sudden I was her new best friend.

Considering she's our landlord, I figure that's probably not a bad thing...