Words on Sushi

Last night while Varen stayed home to study, I went out for sushi with Loulou and J9-double0blonde. To the new sushi spot, Yi Ping Ju. Now as I've said before, I quite like this place ... the only downside being no sushi-go-round and the 6- or 8-piece portions (so you have to go in a group as far as I'm concerned, because I have NO desire to eat 8 pieces of the same thing! I like variety when it comes to sushi). Sadly last night we were the only table there. And it's a pretty big place. It just makes you wonder, have people not discovered the place? At the moment I'm going because they have a 30% off their sushi special - I assume it's some sort of opening special they're still running. Me, I'm just looking for the best sushi I can get at the cheapest price. Sushi is stupidly expensive, anyone who's made it at home will know. And yes, I guess I could make it at home, the problem with that is quantity, you need to invite over a minimum of 6 people cause sushi is not left-over material.

Anyhoo. So we went and had a fabulous time :) Was nice to just be the girls. The only problem was that the sushi took sooooo long to arrive. Literally we had 3 separate servings. Which was annoying because I like to eat my sushi by alternating mouthfuls (what I mean is not three of the same item in a row). That is a bit annoying. They've been slow in the past, but this was painful. I dunno, might go back there again ... might start trying new sushi places again. Who can say.

Oh, and a quick 2009 Holiday update, before I forget. Madagascar either a) looks like it'll be off the cards altogether :( or b) I'll have to cut out some of what I had in mind. Found out that they have the *most* ridiculous airline system ... In. The. World. So the capital of Madagascar (for those of you who might not know) is Antananarivo. And that's where you fly in from Joburg. So far no biggie, all perfectly as expected. Now I had in mind to visit places on our trip, Sainte Marie (for some whale-watching, scuba diving, snorkeling and a visit to the Pirate cemetary), Nosy Be (for some more island hopping, scuba diving and snorkeling) and Morondava (to visit the Avenue of the Baobabs and possibly even Tsingy de Bemaraha) and of course see Lemurs where ever we could! Now because the roads are apparently so bad, you have to fly everywhere. So I thought, okay fine, I'll fly into Tana (much easier to type & say than Antananarivo) then to Sainte Marie, on to Nosy Be, then to Morondava and then back to Tana before heading home to Joburg. Sounds reasonable, right? Apparently this is COMPLETELY impossible! You can only get to all of these places (and, I gather, everywhere else in Madagascar) by flying from Tana. That's right, I'd have to fly into Tana, out to Sainte Marie, back to Tana, out to Nosy Be, back to Tana, out to Morondava and back to Tana again. Are you insane? That's like saying if you want to fly from Cape Town to Durban, you have to go via Johannesburg. A) it's a *huge* waste of my holiday time since I don't want to really spend a second in their capital city and b) it's awfully expensive. So Madagascar is looking less and less likely. Although I still have some specialist tour operators looking into it for me ... although it's beginning to seem I'll probably have to cut one of the destinations from my visit to make it at all feasible. How annoying. So now I have my fabulous Pentravel Travel Agent, who was so helpful with last year's trip, looking into alternative destinations ... perhaps Borneo ;)