今日はお友達ご夫婦とインド料理のレストランで夕食をご一緒しました。香港時代からのお友達なので、２０年以上のお付き合いになります。ご夫婦が良く行かれる Emsworth にある「Spice Village」。以前もここでご一緒しました。
We had dinner with friends at an Indian restaurant today. We’ve known them since Hong Kong days, so probably about 20 years. The restaurant we went to was “Spice Village” in Emsworth, which is near where they live and a place we’d been to before.
ここは照明が特殊な色で、パープルとオレンジなどが混ざっていて写真はどれもすごい色になっていました。編集でましにはなりましたが、少し変な色合いなのはそんな理由です。
The lighting in this restaurant is very strange, some purple with orange etc, so all the photos looked very purple. Editing made them look a bit better, but they still look a little strange for this reason.
Balti Shobuz Murgh Tikka というチキンのカレーは全員が好きなので２つオーダーしたのですが、１つはほとんど残してしまったので１つで良かったです。
We ordered 2 Balti Shobuz Murgh Tikka because we all like it but almost all of one was left so we really only needed one.
バターチキン。
Butter Chicken.
名前を忘れてしまいましたが、もう１つもチキンカレー。
I forgot the name of this but we ordered one more chicken curry.
茄子のカレーですが、カレーというより薄味の炒め物。
Aubergine curry – very lightly seasoned, very lightly spiced.
オクラのカレーですが、カレーというよりオクラの薄味の炒め物。
Okra curry, like aubergine one, very lightly seasoned and very lightly spiced.
写真を撮り忘れましたが、サモサも１オーダー（小さなのが２つで、わたしと夫がいただきました）し、ナン２つ、ライス２つをシェアーし、ビールを１パイント２杯、と半パイントを２杯。１組４０ポンド弱（６６００円）ずつだったと思います。
I forgot to take a photo but we ordered one portion of samosas, which were 2 very small ones. My husband and I had them. We also ordered 2 naan, 2 rice, 2 pints of beer and 2 1/2 pints and I think we paid a little less than £40 per couple (including tips).
毎回、テレビドラマのことや旅行先のことなど話題に欠きませんが、今日の大きな話題は２つ。１つは、「東京バイス」というドラマ。１９９０年代、日本の大学に通い大手の新聞社に就職したアメリカ人の実体験をヒントにした、フィクションドラマで、渡辺謙さんが出演しています。とても面白く見ました、お勧め。ただ、わたしたちはまだ続きがあると思って見ていたのですが、昨日見たのが最終回だったと発覚（笑）。終わりらしい終わりではなかったので気づかなかったのです。シーズン２も撮影すると公式に発表されています。
暴力団が関係するドラマなので見ていて「楽しい」というのは違っているのですが、そのストーリーとは別に夫にとってもわたしにとっても「懐かしい」と感じる場面が多く、そういう意味でもとても楽しめました。
When we see them we chat a lot about TV programmes, travel, etc but today mainly 2 topics. One was “Tokyo Vice”, which is 8 episodes of a drama based in Tokyo in the 1990s. Apparently it’s hinted by experiences of the first American man to work for a major Japanese newspaper company in Tokyo after he graduated from a Tokyo university, but it is somewhat fictionalised. Ken Watanabe, a well-known Japanese actor, in one of the cast. We enjoyed watching this drama but we didn’t realise we had watched the last episode yesterday until we talked to our friends! The ending wasn’t very obviously an end. We guess this was because they were planning to film the 2nd series, which they have now officially announced.
The story is related to the yakuza (gangster) world so it sounds wrong to say we really enjoyed watching it but as I am Japanese and my husband also lived in Japan for many years, we often felt nostalgic seeing certain scenes, so as well as being interested in the story itself we really enjoyed experiencing the atmospheres and visuals of Japan.
もう１つは、ロイヤル・シェイクスピアによる「となりのトトロ」。「My Neighbour Totoro って知ってる？と言われトウトロという発音もありさっぱり分からず、しばらく話を聞いてやっと「あぁ！となりのトトロね！」とわかりました。見てみたい！と思ってチェックしてみましたが、とても人気らしくて売り切れています。今日、明日はいくつか席があるようなのでロンドンに住んでいれば行けるのですが。アニメの「となりのトトロ」はもちろん存在は知っていますが実際に見たことはないので、一度見てみようと思います。
Another topic of conversation was a play “My Neighbour Totoro” performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company. When they asked if I knew “My Neighbour Totoro” I didn’t realise what they were talking about partly because in Japanese it’s called “Tonari no Totoro”, and partly because Totoro is pronounced differently – and because I wasn’t expecting it to be a Japanese word. A few minutes after they started explaining what it was, it suddenly occurred to me that they were talking about “Tonari no Totoro”. It sounds fascinating and I would love to go and watch it but all the tickets are sold out. Such a shame we didn’t know anything about it when the tickets were available. There seem to be a few tickets available for today and tomorrow so I guess there would be some cancellations now and again, if we lived in London we could just go on the day but it’s not that easy when we live in the countryside. Although I of course know of Totoro, I’d never actually watched the animation, so I think I’d like to watch the original animation sometime soon.
と、そんなこんなでおしゃべりも楽しく、お料理も美味しくいただき、「楽しいクリスマスを！」と言ってお別れしました。もう、今の時期に会うお友達と今年中に会える可能性は少ないので（みなさん、お忙しくなる）、お別れのご挨拶は楽しいクリスマスを！」になります。
So we had lovely chats and enjoyed the meal and parted saying “Have a lovely Christmas!”. Everyone is getting busy this time of year so it’s not likely that we would see them before Christmas now, so it’ll probably next year when we see them next.