this and that

My foreigner card's expiration date is coming up, so last Friday, we went to get it renewed before we left for Kyoto.

We appreciated that we didn't need to wait in the long queue that was was snaking around out in front of the building, but what a mess it was inside!

No signage as to what needed to be done (probably more so because of the pandemic)...thankfully though we were in and out rather "quickly" (30 minutes give or take)...

These days whenever we go to Kyoto, we always pick up some doughnuts from Kamo Donuts.

They are kitty corner to where MIL lives, so we just run across the street and get our fix.

Since I was cleaning all day with SIL, I totally forgot to wear a mask when I went to get these (though I probably should have worn one with all that dust)...luckily the guy working there let me just cover my mouth with my hand and point at the showcase.

Another thing we eat whenever we are in Kansai is 551...

Since BIL had bought pizza for our lunch on Monday, Satoshi picked up an assortment of items from 551 for our lunch on Tuesday.

I was impressed that Satoshi remembered that MIL loved these anpan from Kokoroniamai Anpanya and picked some up for her.

We placed some on MIL's altar and we also enjoyed some too.

SIL said she has always wanted to try these but was never willing to line up for them, I'm glad she got to try them.

I thought I was pretty good at purging, but my SIL has proved that she is the queen of purging, so I brought back a few dishes from MIL's stash as they may not be there the next time we go to Kyoto for MIL's 49 day service in April...

Itami Airport got a face lift just as we moved to Tokyo in 2018, it was our first time seeing all the changes and we loved how spacious (and new) everything looked.

Tokyo's numbers seem to have plateaued in the 300 case range. 

When we went to Kyoto/Kansai by plane, I was shocked that it was a full flight.

Even if we all wore masks during the funeral and cremation, we did have meals with family (which was totally out of my pandemic comfort zone), so hopefully we all will be okay.

Have a safe weekend.

aramaki rose park

We visited Aramaki Rose Park on Sunday.

We brought some baked items that we had picked up from Manpuku Bakery (a croquette sandwich, bagel with egg, pastrami, zucchini and lettuce, potato foccacia and yakisoba pan). Some bing cherries and two small thermos' of coffee. Everything was so good.

We love this park, and going there early in the morning (it opens at 9:00), is so peaceful.

Hope you had a nice weekend.

sunday

Sunday the weather was quite summery, I think the high was 25C!

We packed a spam musubi bento and went to check out the roses at Aramaki Rose Park.

Arriving close to 9:00, we had the whole place to ourselves. It was nice, no one smoking or talking loudly. Just peace and quiet.

As the tour buses of people arrived, we left and went home to figure out what to do about lunch...

We ended up hanging out at the Itami airport (which is nearby where we live)...just gazing at the planes, dreaming of places to travel to.

The airport also has a huge furniture/interior store, so we did a little window shopping...I think we may change our dining table soon...whoo!

The weather was fabulous...to the point of being, HOT! At least it wasn't humid.

What did you do on the weekend?

cute

Sometimes Satoshi and I like to hang out at the Itami airport.

It isn't too far from where we live. Satoshi says he likes to go there just to "feel like he's going on a vacation".

Unlike most airports, this one is a great place to hang out because most of the shops and restaurants are outside of the security area.

A large observation deck on the rooftop is a great place to watch the planes land and take off.

There is a large interior shop which we like to ooh and aah over their furniture that will probably never fit into our apartment.

And I loved this cute planter that was outside of a garden shop there too.

Are you able to hang out at your airport?

made in japan

The roses are in bloom again at Aramaki Rose Park, so I packed us a breakfast bento to eat at the park.

I had been seeing this foldable type of sandwich box and picked one up at the 100 yen store (which is made in Japan).

The Japanese have things down to a science, even sandwiches.

You can buy bread just the right size to fit into your sandwich box.

Bummer part is you can only buy 6 slices at a time. I hear that packaged bread in the Kanto area (Eastern Japan) comes with less slices (like 2 or 4)? While the bread in the Kansai area (Western Japan) are usually thicker sliced with max 6 slices...I've also seen types that have the crusts cut off for tea sandwiches.

Anyway, the night before I made some tandoori chicken then shredded it. In the morning I and made one sandwich with the chicken, cucumber and lettuce and the other one with the chicken, lettuce and roasted red bell pepper.

I wasn't too sure as how to pack the sandwiches into the box, since it was my first time using it.

I placed a piece of parchment paper in thinking I could put the sandwich directly in, but then wrapped each one to prevent them from drying out.

The night before I also roasted some cauliflower with some ras-el hanout. In the morning, I packed it with some cherry tomatoes, as well as some asian pear and some coffee.

This is how our breakfast picnic looked...kinda messy, yeah?! Everything was delicious though.

Not to mention we had a nice view too.

After breakfast, we folded up our sandwich box and packed everything up.

It was a great day to get out and about.

aramaki rose park

Wednesday, Satoshi had the day off so I packed some foods for our breakfast, and we headed to Aramaki Rose Park.

We love this place especially during Spring because the blooms are the most plentiful.

One item in our bento was this chicken which was really easy to make.

Baked chicken with mustard adapted from "Colorful Bento" for 2 servings

120 grams chicken thighs, skinless, boneless (1 serving = 60 grams)
2 teaspoons tonkatsu sauce
2 teaspoons grainy mustard

Mix tonkatsu sauce and mustard together, spread onto chicken pieces

In 150C (300F) oven bake for 15 minutes

NOTES: This was easy and delicious.

Also in our bento was some goya kinpira, kinoko (mushroom) shigure-ni, a few rakkyo and rice.

For the shigure-ni, I upped the amount of kinoko (mushrooms) and instead of beef, used konnyaku (jellied devil's tongue).

I also packed some coffee in a thermos.

As with previous visits, the park was filled with lots of school children and elderly people.

The flowers were in full bloom and every time the wind blew you could catch a "whiff" of the roses.

This particular rose was unusual and called "love".

The weather is slowing warming up during the daytime and it was nice to get out and about.

It's Friday here, hope you have a nice weekend!

osaka international airport

It is Sunday, it is also Father's Day. Happy Father's Day to all of you. Hope you get to do something you'd like to do today.

Satoshi had Thursday and Friday off, so he worked yesterday, is working today and won't be off until next Saturday. We went to stay with his mom on Thursday and Friday, to help out with the preparations for the 100-day service coming up at the end of the month. I think she was happy just to have us around.

On a lazy weekend, what better thing to do then to head to the airport.

The Osaka International Airport is located about 10 minutes by train or 40 minutes on foot or 5 minutes by car from where we live.

When I studied in Japan (some many moons ago), this was the airport I flew in and out of.

The international flights stopped when the Kansai International Airport was built in 1994 and now, only domestic flights come and go through Osaka International Airport, or Itami airport as some call it.

With the loss of business after the international flights stopped, the airport has gone under major renovations to improve their appearance and have put in several shops and restaurants to lure people, "to just hang out at the airport".

There is a huge observation deck up top, on the weekday that we were there, there were many people (though you can't see them) eating their breakfast, having some coffee or just relaxing (maybe daydreaming of going on vacation?).

I was surprised how neat they line everything up down below.


Another thing that surprised me was the workers bowing and waving "goodbye" to the planes.

Usually for our summer vacations, we use our miles for a domestic trip, or go abroad, but with the continuing rise in gas/oil prices and food items, we are looking into using the trains for our summer vacation this year.

What are you planning to do this Summer?

Hope you have a great week, my week looks to be filled with all kinds of events, hope to be able to share them with you soon.

ume pork

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about a foodie party we had and a dish that one of the wives brought.

She didn't have a recipe, so I tried re-creating the dish for dinner.

You need thinly sliced pork. I bought the kind for shabu-shabu (the hot pot where you wave your slices of meat in hot broth a couple of times then eat it). Try to buy meat that is a little bigger than the width of your shiso leaf.

Try to buy the same amount of shiso (perilla leaves/beefsteak leaves) as slices of meat. Luckily, in Japan, they sell it in packages of 10.

You need some ume paste, if you don't have any, just de-seed the ume and chop it up. I didn't have any, but did have a paste made with chopped up shibazuke (veggies that are pickled with red shiso), shiso, black sesame and ume.

Lay your piece of pork flat, put a leaf of shiso, then put some ume paste, then roll tightly.

Put a half tablespoon of oil in a pan and heat.

Cook until the pork is browned and cooked through. Some ume paste may leak and the red from it may be hard to tell if your meat is cooked through, just try to cook it for at least until the outside is dark brown in color.

This dish is easy and tasty. I think you could use thinly sliced beef or even flattened out chicken too.


With the leftovers, I put some into our breakfast bento on Sunday.
With breakfast and some coffee in tow, we went to our favorite park during this time of year--Aramaki Rose Garden. The roses are in full bloom.

There were many people there and the soft fragrance of the different roses was so nice and relaxing.

roses and beef

On Friday, Satoshi had the day off and it was nice and sunny, so we packed up some things from the refridge and headed to our favorite park, Aramaki Rose Garden. I've written about this park several times, here, here and here. We love this place because it is free plus you can sit down have your breakfast and just take in all the beautiful roses. There aren't as many roses in Autumn as there are in Spring, so there aren't many tours roaming around the park, which makes it nicer.


On Saturday, we went to Shiga prefecture, which is about an hour away by train from Osaka. Before Shiga prefecture was called Shiga, it was called Omi. So the area we went to can either be called Omi-Hachiman or just Hachiman. Unfortunately, there was a suicide on the rails which delayed our train about 1 hour! When we finally got to Omi-Hachiman, it was almost lunchtime. We went into the tour information center and bought a pass (1000 yen about US $9) which gave us free admission to some of the museums, the ropeway and also discounted bus rides.

Lunch was beef curry made with Omi-gyu (Omi beef) a "brand-name" beef in the area. The curry was disappointing in that there were only bits of beef and nothing else, but they were soft bits. The highlight of our trip was a trip on the canal called Suigo. You get into a boat, take off your shoes and sit on a tatami floor, while the gondolier takes you around the little canalways. There are many yoshi(reed), as you travel through the canal and the wind blows, the reed makes a soft brushing sound. Very calming and relaxing. I think this is a nice thing to do for cherry blossom viewing also, as there are photos of them taking you right under the fully blossomed trees.

The ropeway took us up Mt Hachiman, where you can see the city of Omi-Hachiman, Lake Biwa and the many canals within Omi-Hachiman. Our snack was this mitarashidango (rice cakes grilled then coated with a soy sauce). There were several trees on Mt Hachiman that had started changing colors.

The canals were used to move heavy roof tiles as well as to protect the castle that once existed. As times changed, many of the canals were overgrown with weeds and unkempt. I was surprised to read that most of the canals were almost turned into landfills. The people of the city changed their way of thinking and instead preserved their history. Today the area is used for filming many historical dramas.

Since Winter is approaching, there were many homes and museums having their pine trees trimmed. If you look at the 2nd photo of this mosaic, you might be able to pick out the guy at the top of the pine tree. I think it is so fascinating because these guys climb into the tree to take care of it.

Autumn also brings another favorite flower called kinmokusei (sweet olive). You can smell the sweet fragrance as the winds blow. Most homes in Japan have tiled roofs, the bulk of the tiles are made in Omi-Hachiman. The city also has a museum to showcase all the different tiles. On this mosaic, the top, 5th photo is a tile called agehanocho (opened wing butterfly), it is my grandmother's mon (family crest).

There are many Western styled building that still exist around the city, William Vories is credited for designing them as well as over 1600 buildings throughout Japan.

Another thing you can experience are the historical buildings of the merchant's village. This is where most of the business took place in Hachiman. Walking around this area, you feel like you've stepped back into time.

Dinner was Tiffany's Omi-gyu filet. Served with grainy mustard, coarse salt, matcha (green tea) salt and shiitake (a type of mushroom) salt and wasabi (Japanese horseradish). The steak is cooked to your liking. It was so tender that it actually melted in my mouth. It was a great way to end a great day....or so we thought, we also bought 2 slices of a nice fluffy cheesecake from Andeken. This cheesecake is made from Gouda cheese and topped with a thin slice of pineapple, it was like eating air!

Both Tiffany and Andeken are about 3 minutes walking distance from the JR Omi-Hachiman station.

Tiffany
558 Takakai-cho
Omi-Hachiman, Shiga
Phone: 0748.33.3055
Closed on Tuesdays, Open for lunch 11:00-15:00, dinner 17:30-20:30

Andeken
551 Takakai-cho
Omi-Hachiman, Shiga
Phone: 0748.33.2100
Closed on Tuesdays, Open 9:00-19:30

Have a great week!

happy birthday!

Today is Satoshi's birthday. Since we moved to Japan, I've been baking him a sponge cake with whipped cream and strawberries (mainly because the cost to buy a whole cake is quite outrageous!)

The box cake mix that I buy is often iffy-- sometimes it comes out hard, sometimes just right. Today's cake was no different, very hard on the bottom and light and fluffy on top. After I use up this box (there are two packets when you buy it), I'll try making it from scratch (since I got a recipe off the flour package.)

Here's the birthday boy!

I leave you with some photos of our second trip to Aramaki Rose Garden. We went back this past Wednesday.

Hope you are enjoying the weekend!