Whirlwind Tour in Korea / 韓国弾丸旅行

Well almost two years ago.......
My friend and I went to Korea over the weekend
Flew to Korea late at night on Friday and came back to Japan late at night on Sunday

Main event was to eat darkhanmari.

It's really simple but the soup is really rich

Restaurant staffs cut the chicken just amazingly.
To be honest, I'm not a big fan of chicken haha
but this was nice.
When I went there, it was snowing but this hot pot made me warm.

Address: 서울특별시 종로구 종로5가 265-22

It was bit tricky to find a spot since the road is very narrow so the taxi cannot bring us in fron of the shop.
There was no specific sign to locate this restaurant
well since I don't read Korean
My suggestion is just go forward even if you feel bit worried haha

This is extra pic

I found my favourite kinder chocolate in korea!

I cannot buy them in Japan.... such a shame!

I don't think kinder people look my blog but please come to Japan!!!!!!

オイシックス/Oisix

「献立を考えるのをやめた理由」

その言葉に惹かれて試したOisix

必要な分の材料が袋に入っていて、切って焼くだけ！

Oisixのホームページが非常に分かりづらく、最初すごく困ったのですが
こういう事みたいです。

定期宅配オイシックスクラブには以下3つのコースがある。
【おいしいものセレクトコース】
【プレママ＆ママコース】
【KitOisix献立コース】
クラブ会員になるための会員費はなし。
コース毎に定期的におすすめ商品を提案してくれる。
提案されたものを全て変更することも可能。
一定以上の金額で送料無料

980円の牛乳飲み放題は、この定期配送のコースを頼む必要がある。

実は、この牛乳飲み放題を利用したくて定期コースの申し込みをして、
牛乳飲み放題の商品だけを頼もうと思ってました。
しかし、そこで発生したのが送料問題。
商品自体は0円なのに、送料が７５０円！！！
せっかくなので、定期配送を使ってみようと言う事に。。。。

詳しい写真はないのですが、こんな感じで届きます。
新鮮な野菜ということで、次の日までに使わなくてはならないので要注意。

KitOisixにはレシピも入っていて、すごく便利
献立、料理の幅が広がります:)
ただ最近思うのが、副菜が少し適当・・・？

今度、頼んだボックスの詳細をお伝えします。

豚のミルフィーユ鍋/ Hot Pot

今日のよるご飯♪
豚のミルフィーユ鍋

Today's dinner

Pork mille-feuille hot pot

もう最近じゃないか。一時期めっちゃはやったよね。今更ながらやってみた！

参考にしたレシピはcookpad: 691669

ゆずをおだしに入れるといいかも！って思ったんだけど、すだちな気分だったのですだちをスライスしてだしにいれて一緒に煮たら、めっちゃいいにおいがした！

白菜と豚肉からとってもいいお出汁がでて、家族はぽんず使わずにそのままお出汁と一緒にたべていました。

満足してもらえたみたいでよかったよかった。めでたしめでたし。

When winter comes, the hot pot becomes really popular since it's warm!

You might think the name of this dish is strange but that's what it's literally called in Japanese. It is because layers of Chinese cabbage and pork look like mille-feuille.

The hot pot dish is really easy to cook. All you have to do is basically cutting veges and meat and put them all in the pot. DONE haha

Since I put soya based soup from the beginning, amazing soup is created after being mixed with the extras of pork and vege. People often put rice or noodle after the hot pot dish, since the great soup is made. I'm looking forward to put rice in the soup tomorrow morning for my breakfast :)

クレープメーカー ドレミ Review

I bought 'crepe maker' the other day. I think in the U.K. people call it as pancakes.

I guess until three years ago, there is a crepe shop called Hediard in Ikebukuro which was my mom's and my favourite place for tea. Now it's replaced to Tokyu Hands.....
Basically after I came back from my study abroad, I can't enjoy crepe anymore in Japan :(

I had crepe in Nottingham at a place called Aubreys Traditional Creperie. It was just amazing and I really enjoy it! If you visit Nottingham, you definitely have to go there! 

Anyway after this wonderful crepe experience in Nottingham, I miss crepe more. Haha But there is no place to have good one close to where I live, I decided to buy the crepe maker! Brilliant idea right :p?

When I looked up the Internet, as always there are many and different prices. I just got confused and gave up choosing one. But my eager to have crepe motivated me to find the right one haha
This Do Re Mi is the one I came across at the beginning. Since this is really cheap, I wasn't quite sure whether this works well or not. I read some reviews saying the heat power is not good but there are many positive ones too. After being confused a lot, I decided to give it a go. If it didn't work, it just cost around 3000. 

One day after I replaced the order, it arrived! 

I failed the first one of course but when it comes to the forth try, I made this good crepe!!
I like banana chocolate custard crepe the best so I used Nutella ( I bought when I was in the UK) and I made custard.
When I cook, I always look up to CookPad ( jp recipe site) and I found a really good recipe for custard. 
The recipe ID is 2892140 so you can have a look if you're interested in :)

It seems like the heat at the centre of the plate is a bit weak.

As you can see, the edge of dough becomes a bit burned when the centre is ready. 
Anyway I can make crepe easily with this maker and I am really happy with this.

The second time I made crepe using this machine, I didn't have milk to make dough so I used yogurt drink instead of milk. It tasted sweeter than normal but still acceptable. If you have a trouble of running out of milk to make dough, you can use yogurt drink if you have it!

I would like to make crepe with not sweet things such as chocolate and fruits. Maybe I can put tuna, sausages and cheese. I'm thinking to find a good recipe for it.

If you wanna make crepe at home as well, I recommend this to you :)   

Cupcake tips!/how to return on Amazon

Finally I have some free time to enjoy cooking! I decided to bake cupcakes the other day. I wasn't a massive fan of cupcakes but recently I've been kinda feeling to try them. Well this is basically because of my experience in the UK and Anna Sacoons. So this is my first first first time and I made a lot of mistakes. I feel I'm stupid but if you're about to make them for the first time, my mistakes would help you :)

First of all, I noticed I didn't have a cupcake pan, but I just tried. Well the result is not good. You can still bake them but the shape is totally not good. So I ordered a cupcake pan on Amazon because after visiting so many shops in Tokyo but I couldn't find any. I ordered this one(

WILTON レギュラーマフィンパン 12CAV 2105-954). It was delivered yesterday. I opened it with an excitement. I realised my big mistake. My oven is not that big to fit the pan. Omg

Always measure before buying anything really! 

One day later, I've got a smaller one, the half size. 

WILTON レギュラーマフィンパン 6CAV 2105-953

After being back to JP, I'm just really surprised the cost of butter and cheese. Also there are so many things relates to baking which are very difficult to get in here like coconut related items. Well Japan is definitely not baking friendly country. Hahaha

This time I tried this recipe on Cookpad. 
This is a good one but not for people who like a rich texture. 
Since powder sugar was a bit expensive, I used less amount of it but it was ok. I'm not that much fancy with too much sweet things.

Another tip is that you have to cool the dough properly otherwise cream cheese icing would be melted.... I found this part really tricky since if I put them into a fridge, they became crumbling.
After realising I bought a bigger pan, I returned it on Amazon. Well normally I don't do that, I've found that is interesting to share. I guess you create an account when you place an order. Go to your page and check your order history. There is a button saying 'return/refund' 返品する. Click it and issue your ID for the return. You ask a post service. You can choose the time so that you don't have to be home all day long.
I've found this whole process is quite easy. However, if the return is due to your fault, you have to pay the sending fee. Well this time it turns out the sending fee is more expensive than the actual price.... :(

Coconut water/Hacienda del cielo

This coconut water is highly recommended!! 

To survive this JP humid hot summer, you have to keep drinking water! 
In JP, coconut is not that popular. Well at least for my family probably, I didn't encounter coconut for a long time. Since I didn't have enough coconut experience, I tended to avoid coconut. When I visited Langkawi last year, I had a chance to try coconut water. Well my friend and I were not quite expected about being offered it but anyway tried it. After some sips, we were like 'well this is actually tasty!' 
Having that experience, I become to like coconut itself :)
Even though I normally don't finish a bottle of drink in a day, I drunk all in a half day. 

The day I encountered the coconut water, I had a lunch at Hacienda del cielo.
That is a Mexican restaurant and we had these.

They were tasty and I really like big windows and terraces there. Since it locates in the 9th floor, there is a good view of Omotesando. (Personally I don't like JP view though :p)
Well I don't like stuffs at a front desk but I wanna go there for dinner next time!

Besties snuggle stay over

The other day I visited E's brand new home! Well I have to say how much I miss this kind of visiting or stay over. 
When I was in Bristol, I visited my friends flat and also I invited my friends to mine a lot. It was just amazing to do daily stuffs together like cooking, watching videos or whatever. If I can't invite my friends, we've got to pay money to be together.... I really wanna do a share house when I start working but that looks too much money for me in JP....

Anyway I visited hers and cooked together. 

She already cooked egg pudding and egg soup. Thanks to them, our dinner looks just awesome and of course it was yummy!

She introduced American drama called 'Girls Guide to Depravity' to me. 
Well I'm hooked although I don't necessarily agree with all the rules in it. Oh! I'm surprised American women's aggressiveness. Maybe it's just normal in the state but with my JP point of view, it looks aggressive and I don't think I can be like that. Anyway funny drama!  

Recently JP summer started to show its true face. Sooooo humid hot!
I just wanna get out of here :( :(

青森県津軽じょっぱり親父の黒にんにく/Black Garlic

Recently mum kept talking about black garlic. The other day, she decided to buy one finally.

久しぶりの日本語。

最近ままが黒ニンニクに大変な興味をしめしていて、この間ついに彼女は買うという決断をくだしたようです。

To be honest, I was not that much into black garlic. For me, it was hard to imagine to eat a piece of garlic only. 

個人的にはあまり興味がなかったんだけど笑
にんにくをそのまま食べるなんて、にんにくは好きだけど考えられなかったの。

Surprisingly, it tastes like prune. Actually it's yummy!!!! I guess just because it was slowly fermented.

Mum keeps asking me 'Aya-chan are you feeling better?? more energetic???'
Well mum, I'm not sure hahaha
But seems like this is good for my health :)

実際食べてみると実はとってもおいしかった！プールンみたいなの。
たぶんじっくり熟成されたからだと思う。
なんか、青森の食べ物メインの居酒屋さんでかったんだけど、もしも気になる人はこのにんにくを売っているケイエス青果のホームページへ！
ままがしきりに、「元気になった？」って聞いてくるけどそれは謎笑
まあ、体にはきっと良いでしょう。

This is how we celebrate a friend's birthday/誕生日ディナー

Oh the half of 2014 has already gone..... Well this year is just a tough year before much harder years I guess. Recently I've been feeling 'I'm not ready! I'm not ready! I just live smiling and happily....' hahahaha Everything is getting complicated but I've got to stop postponing everything and start to struggle with them.

Well anyway I just wanted to point out how fast time flies! I just can't believe almost two days have passed since I posted the previous blog and also it's July 2014 already!

The other day my friends and I had a lovely birthday dinner for one of them.
We wanted to do a all night party but we all were busy to do so. Maybe next time!

One of them reserved a restaurant which has aquariums inside. We went to other branch on Valentine's day (this might sound a bit strange but we had an amazing girls night on that day! Well don't ask don't ask anything further :p) Since we went to both of them, we kinda complete aquarium restaurants. Hehe
Inside of the restaurant is really dark but a good atmosphere for what's so called 'girls dinner' (女子会)
The restaurant: Aquarium LIME 

We're very hungry so didn't have time to be bothered by taking pics.
This is the only food pic hahaha

They are our starters. We had carpaccio, tuna steak, beef steak, Thai taste noodles and a cake! I became really really full physically and psychologically as well. 

We got to know each other at uni and now some of us have started working. It's good to share the important shift from a student to a business person. At the same time, it's a bit strange feeling. We're not baby babies any more. We can't go travels whenever we like..... Haha
It's just getting very difficult to find a good day and time for everyone but I really hope we can catch up like this often!!!

Food Food Food!/Poreless Labo

Normally I try to spend on Sundays with my mum. I don't remember when this Sunday mummy daughter shopping started, but I try to be free on Sundays after I came back from the U.K. even more.  Since I had something to do, I met her around three today and had some dessert.

Takano fruit parlour's parfait.

It is yummy but every time I think as if I'm tricked. They put some fruits on top of it and the rest of it is just ice cream and jelly things. 

After that, we did some little shopping. I found this wonderful dress. It was green but this looks black in this photo...! By the way, I didn't buy cause I already got a plenty amount of clothes and it seems obvious that I can't wear this in japan. 

We also get a treatment at Poreless Labo. My face skin condition is getting better but now it can be damaged by UV. It is really surprising that skin gets dry even in this humid weather. 

We had dinner at a Thai restaurant. I fond a rare food called Thai fondue! 

It was good but spicy!!!!!
Every time I have a Thai food, I have to struggle with its spicy. I thought about asking to get rid of all the chilli but if it's not spiciness, I feel something is missing..... Hahahahaha.


Tmr finally I can be relaxed a bit even though another crazily busy days will follow. 
Good night! Oyasumi~

REVIEW: Healthy Chocolate Brownie Recipe | Tanya Burr

Since the other day M was leaving JP.......(I was really sentimental. Itll be definitely a great experience for her, but I miss her and I wanna be there with her. I miss UK soooo much) I wanted to bake a cake. Actually I wanted to make coconut cake but it can be melted easily. I've got soooo many things to do tmr so I have to carry cake almost all day long....

So I chose Tanya's recipe since it won't be melted easily.

You can watch her video to make it :)

Ingredients

- 1/2 cup Coconut Oil
- 300g Dark Chocolate (you can use 150g milk & 150g dark if you don't like too much dark chocolate - I love it though as I think the dark chocolate makes it taste like rich chocolate pudding!)
- 2 cups Coconut Sugar (you can replace this with regular caster sugar 
or brown sugar if you want to! I just use Coconut sugar as it's better for you.)
- cap full of Vanilla Extract
- 1 cup Ground Almonds
- 1 mashed Avocado
- 1 tsp Baking Powder
- 3 Eggs

One good feature of this recipe is you can mix everything in a pot. You don't need many bowls to mix everything. Washing friendly :)

I made this late at night after a busy part time job. I couldn't taste it properly. I was really nervous it's taste but E said it was really nice. I decided to believe her opinion!

Always saying goodbye is hard and strange. I'm not good at imagining what it would be after saying goodbye. I kinda think all the time I let go myself as the time pasts without feeling special things which is very sad and unfortunate. I just can't express myself well. 

Now she's gone! I really hope her all the best....!!!!

Well it's very difficult to write these things.... 

Anyway today was a farewell day.
I really hope her all the best XXXX

Breakfast at Cinnamon's / シナモンズで朝食を

Since M's leaving JP soon, EMOA has to meet up before that. However, we are all busy so we could only have branch together.
I kinda feel that EMOA's style is drinking and eating. AND I almost miss my last train. Haha
It was very new idea for us to have branch all together.

Recently I've been thinking that I don't feel good about typical JP breakfast like a rice bowl and something. I'm not a big fan of bread either but in the morning it's easier for me to have bread rather than rice. Also what my body wants most is more fresh fruits! I really miss £1 raspberry(I didn't know how to spell this word since now! Oh my!), blueberry and strawberry..... Well every fruit to be honest.....
Anyway I've been thinking the best breakfast for me lately. When I was searching on the Internet, I remember the existence of Egg Benedict! It seems as if the Hollandaise sauce is a key to make it. Since I don't like sauce made from power thing, I googled how to make it from the beginning. It looks really needing a lot of effort. Lazy me thought 'why not try restaurant's first and learn its taste first?'
When I first searching for where we go for our branch/breakfast, I was like 'oh I wanna try Egg Benedict!!!'
So here we go! We went to Cinnamon's!

Cinnamon's has come from Hawaii. It won Honolulu magazine's Hale 'Aina award 2013 first place "gold" - best breakfast. 

Adress

Kailua, HI (Oahu)
315 Uluniu Street
Kailua, Hawaii 96734
Phone: (808) 261-8724
Fax: (808) 262-9910

表参道/Omotesando (Japan)

東京都渋谷区神宮前5-13-2 パインアンダーフラットB1F

東京メトロ神宮前駅より徒歩６分

横浜店/Yokohama (Japan)

神奈川県横浜市中区山下町67-1 グローリオタワー 1F

みなとみらい線　元町中華街駅４番出口　徒歩30秒 

Whoop yeah! This looks delicious!
As always, I can't eat a lot so went for a half size one. When it was served, it looked very small amount of food but I was quite full when I finished it. It was sooooo good. I just kept eating without much talking which is very rare to me! Haha
I'm seriously thinking to cook it at home for my breakfast in the future!

After finishing it, we just chilled there. I was quite fascinated by a movie playing on the wall. Blue Crush
We noticed an actor who did a role of Warner in 'legally blond' is in the movie. Seems like E doesn't like him and it was funny to watch her reaction when he appeared on the screen. E seldom dislike others so I'm sorry for the actor! Haha. I guess it's kinda because his roles tend to be naughty boy like Warner in Legally blond.
While watching the movie and observing pancakes being served, i was tempted to eat one of them.
We ordered ours for the dessert :)

Yum yum!!!!!
We really liked whipped cream which stupid me forgot to take a pic.
It tasted like proper milk and less sugary. This is half sized one. Well I can clearly say I won't finish even half sized one by myself. It's just unbelievable to finish a normal size which has four pancakes all together. Insane haha

Nowadays pancakes from especially from Hawaii and the States are sooooo popular in Japan.

This is why trend is sometimes terrifying because I'm also tempted to try it even though I'm not a big fan of pan cakes....!!

Having breakfast or branch with your friends turns out as a really good idea!

You can make a good use of one day. Well one thing I was surprised is that there are soooo many people at Omotesando even on Monday! I kinda imagined to explore there with a lot of spaces but the reality was completely different. Some have to work weekends and others have to work weekdays.

It was a really nice day and I was happy this much

but a bit bitter sweet cause M is leaving soon............well I'm not gonna go further about this now

Anyway high recommended to try breakfast time with your friends or family, whoever! for your fulfilling day :)

しゃぶしゃぶ/Shabu shabu/いちにぃさん

After I experienced working at a shabu shabu restaurant, I become a bit addicted to it which sounds as if I'm super happy person.... Maybe yes haha

I'd say I have shabu shabu dinner once a month at home or at a restaurant. 
I personally like beef shabu shabu but this time I tried pork one at a restaurant called ichi-nii-sann (いちにぃさん)

Normally there are two shabu shabu sauces, one is ponzu (citrus-seasoned soy sauces) and the other is sesame one. However this time, the restaurant offered us a sauce for soba. It's still based on soy sauce but a bit different. They recommended me to put a lot of spring onion in it.

Look! How excited I was!!!! Hahaha

If you wanna try shabu shabu, there are some suggestion from me :)

Shabu zen(しゃぶ禅):All you can eat style. They have not all you can eat courses. The quality of beef is amazing.
Shabu shabu Onyasai(しゃぶしゃぶ温野菜): All you can eat style not only meat and veges, you can have small dishes! I recommend you not to go to Shibuya one maybe Shinjyuku one either. I tried Akasaka one and my fixed idea of Onyasai totally got destroyed. My friends and I had a really nice dinner. I brought my friend to Shibuya one because Akasaka one was good but Shibuya one was not that much great. I was a bit disappointed....
Oumigensuke(近江源助): they serve a brand beef, Oumi beef. You can have a shabu shabu course on Saturday and Sundays!

覇王別姫 漢楚の戦い/Classical Chinese Opera/T.G.I.Fridays

2月くらいに
『さらばわが愛～覇王別姫』を見てこの間駅でこのポスターを見かけて是非見てみたいとおもって生まれて初めての京劇をみてきました。

I watched 'Farewell My Concubine' in February. It was such a nice movie about Chinese history and art. I was amaze by its quality and at the same time, I was so disappointed by Japanese movies' qualities.... Anyway I came across this poster at a station and I took a second look. I was excited about this chance to watch the classical Chinese opera with my eyes!!! 

中国語がわからないのがすごく残念だったけど、衣装は綺麗で、音楽は生で演奏していててすべてが綺麗でした。

女性役も男性が演じていると思うんだけど、女性よりも美しいのではないかと思った！
男性の声も綺麗だけど、女性の声は本当に綺麗でどうやって出しているのかすごく気になった。
帰りに他のお客さんがゆっていたとおり、自害するときの演出がわたしてきには新鮮でよかった！

きっと、ひとつひとつの手の仕草に様々な意味があるんだろうなとかおもって、中国史は大学受験のときに少しやったけれど、まったく覚えてなくてもっと知ってたらもっと興奮できたのになあとか、ちょっと反省し、なにに対しても知識があるとより楽しめるんだなーっとおもった日でした。

この間の劇団四季「リトルマーメード」の時とは違って年配の方が多かったかな。

観劇中にお腹がなるくらいお腹減っていたわたしは、T.G.Fridaysでお腹をいっぱいに帰りました。

It was pity that I couldn't understand Chinese so I had to look at subtitles on screens, but the opera itself was amazing. Everything was just BEAUTIFUL! The music was on live and the sound was really authentic. 

As far as I know, performers are all men even women's roles, but I doubted my eyes cause they looked actual women. I thought they might be more beautiful than actual females haha.

Their voice was beautiful as well. I was curious how they manage to make the sound.

I imagine every single movement of their hands and foot has many meanings. I might be able to enjoy more if I knew them or more Chinese history.... although I studied a bit of it for my exam of a uni exams. 

Since my stomach was growling during the performance, I went to T.G.I. Friday to satisfy my greedy stomach hehe
To be honest, I was surprised by the fact there is a T.G.I. Friday in japan. Again, Japan has everything especially from America hahahahahaha 

この写真以外にも、チキンフィンガーとシーザーサラダもシェアして、お腹はちきれそうだった！

こんなザ・アメリカンっていうご飯久しぶりに食べてテンションあがりました！一つ思ったのは、飲み物の炭酸がめっちゃ弱かったこと。友達は日本の炭酸は弱いってゆっていたけど、ほんとにそうなの～？？セブンアップとかただの砂糖水みたいな感じだったけど・・・笑

I was really full because I had chicken fingers and caesar salad. I did enjoy the junky American food a lot :)!!!!
One question about JP T.G.I. Friday is that their fizzy drinks were not actually fizzy..... I had a glass of Seven ups and that was like just normal water with sugar.... hahahaha

蒙古タンメン中本/Nakamoto

When you come to Japan, what would you like to do?

You might wanna try Japanese food. Is Ramen included in the list???

If yes, I higher recommend you to try this ramen!

蒙古タンメン中本/Moko Tanmen Nakamoto

The main character of their ramen is spicy and hot.

Their catch copy is 'Spicy but delicious'

Yeah you might think 'I don't like spicy food' Me either.

However, they have less spicy one.

This is miso tanmen. The base is miso. It's still a bit spicy but a bit! 

As you can see, there are a lot of vegetable on top of ramen which make the taste milder. 

Actually their main ramen has Mabotofu on top of miso tanmen which is spicy. I've eaten this ramen more than 6 years now but every time I didn't have enough courage to try the spicer one....

It seems as if I can ask them to make it less spicy. So maybe I can enjoy eating it.....

They have beaches only around Tokyo area. So don't miss out if you're in Tokyo! X

Japanese supermarkets

Today was such a relaxing day despite the fact I had a part time job. I almost forgot about it!!! Omg Stupid me! But I remembered it ;) Anyway after led very relaxing life enjoying days in the UK, how I live has been totally changed. I stay home more and do more house stuffs. I used to be a super 'out going' person spending most of the time outside. I'm still sometimes super busy but try to spend more time at home relaxed and to enjoy my time alone. It's sometimes difficult thanks to mum though haha.  Today is a good example. I just didn't anything spectacular but it was a good day.  I cooked lunch and made a Japanese sweet. My brother asked me to make it yesterday. To decorate the sweet, I needed to do some shopping. (it's called anmitsu but this is not exactly the one so let's say anmitsu-ish haha)

I just thought it might be a good idea to share how JP supermarkets are. To be honest, I'm not that much used to them cause I started to shop groceries in the UK for the first time in my life. After I came back to Japan, I was really surprised the differences of their items. It is of course because cultures are totally different but I was just surprised. I didn't have any clue the price is reasonable or not most of the time. Especially cheese is unbelievably expensive in Japan.  Anyway when you step into a supermarket, what you see is like this. 

Vegetables and fruits Oh another expensive thing in JP is fruit!!!!!! Now I guess people enjoy berries in Europe..... I'm soooo jealous.... I just can't afford them..... Poor me haha So I bought a can of fruit!

What I like most of JP supermarkets is that they have a lot of varieties of fresh seafood! For your meals, you don't have to do a massive cooking with fresh seafood. Only thing you need is to cook rice. Then you eat fish and rice! Yum

Many supermarkets have a lot of ready-to-eat food. They are delicious and sometimes cheaper than you actually buy ingredients. They are helpful but at that same time, when I fail cooking, I feel terrible thinking about these ready food... Haha

Aisles are like this. 

Since I shop at a supermarket a lot, I feel how much the price has risen the past 10 years or so. Maybe I was too young to understand the price but I have an impression vegetables used to be around 100 yen back at the time. The tax increased as well. I kinda understand why Japan is famous for its high cost of living. JP government wants to rise the tax up to 10% in the near future. Even if it is necessary, I'm just worry what it would be then.....

This post is a bit different of other normal posts. I just wanna express how living in JP actually is like at least to me. X

さきいか/Sakiika

さきいかがおいしすぎる！！！

小さい頃から酒飲みみたいなこういうおつまみがだいすきな私。もちろん小さいころはお酒飲んでないし、今もそんなに飲まない。

自分がいかくさい・・・・笑

I guess many people would say 'Oh gross! This is one good example that Asian people eat strange things sometimes.' This is called 'saki-ika' basically dried squid with some flavor. This kind of things go well with sake, but since I was child, I really like eating this without sake / alcohol. If you got a tiny bit of interests, please try one of these in Japan! Other dried things like this would be made from scallop as far as I know. You've got to be careful with the smell by the way!

Tomato; 大浜の恵み・みなみレッド

I think now fruit tomato is very popular in Japan. Fruit tomato is basically tomato but tastes very sweet as if it's a fruit. I am a big fan of tomatoes! I LOVE tomatoes! haha As far as I know, the best fruit tomato is called Amela. It's very expensive so I'm looking for less expensive but good taste fruit tomato these days.

最近もまだまだフルーツトマトがはやっていますね！私はトマトがとってもとっても大好きなのですが、フルーツトマトのキングであると思われるアメーラを定期的に買う金銭的余裕はありませんですので、安くて甘いフルーツトマトを探す旅をしているわけであります。

This tomato is from Ohama, Kumamoto prefecture and called 'Ohama no Megumi.' Can you spot a black bear in the photo? That is Kumamon. Now in Japan, this kind of characters is really popular. As far as I know, every prefecture has their own characters. The most famous one is called 'Funasshii/ふなっしー' It appears on TV a lot in this year. I have not a tiny interests on them but many people love this kind of charactes. (yurukyara)
Ok so back to tomatoes, at the first time I ate these, I was like 'omg! these are yummy! The taste is almost like Amela!' However, in the second time, 'well... Still good but not really good...' And in the third time, 'Well yeah I have to find something new! '
So I tried this one.

これはくまもんで有名な熊本の「大浜の恵み」
はじめて食べた時はおいしい！ってなったんだけどじょじょに感動がうすれてきてちょっと違うのを試そうと思って

Minami Red from Aichi prefecture. To be very very honest,'Ohama no Megumi' is better than this.  

愛知県のみなみレッドを試してみたんだけど、そんなに甘くなかった・・・

いまのところ、「大浜の恵み」が一番かな！