22237

That's how many steps I had on my pedometer after we got back from an adventure yesterday.

First stop...Shinobazu Pond.

The lotus flowers were only starting to bloom.

Hopefully we'll be able to get back here when they are in full bloom.

Next we stumbled upon this tiny arare shop, Takesen.

They've been making arare for over 60 years.

Everything made from scratch and no preservatives or artificial sweeteners.

We purchased two types...the one on the left has three flavors, sugar, matcha and plain.

The one on the right uses "white" shoyu.

We look forward to trying both soon!

Then we made our way to our next stop...journalist, Takashi Tachibana's cat building.

He was apparently a cat lover.

He recently passed away and when I saw the story on the news, they showed his building, a quick check online showed where the building is located.

I'm glad we got to check this out.

And then we stumbled upon Okano Eisen's main shop on the way to our next stop.

If you remember, we stopped in to their Toranomon shop earlier this year and felt they were quite cold, plus we weren't able to purchase their mame daifuku.

Well, this shop was nicer and we got lucky on this day.

I'm glad we tried this, it was filled with sweet bean paste and there are cooked red beans (mame) worked into the outer mochi...the sweet and salty combination is nicely balanced.

Our next stop was the Koishikawa Botanical Garden...loved these copper fences that were punched with holes made to look like leaves.

If I am not mistaken, this botanical garden is run by Tokyo University.

This botanical garden holds all sorts of plants, trees and herbs.

In September 1923, this garden was a shelter for residents during the largest earthquake in Tokyo.

 Hope you can see this short video of the krazy worm I saw in the garden.

It was iridescent green/yellow and there were ants or something eating it...eek!

And then we walked back to have lunch at Firehouse.

I had seen this shop on a Japanese drama and bookmarked it to try.

We had to wait about 30 minutes for a table.

Satoshi had the egg burger. 

The egg was oozy and he said he enjoyed this.

I had their apple burger...apples sauteed with sugar and cinnamon.

Totally different but I enjoyed the sweet and salty combination.

It was nice to eat out for a change but I was disappointed that the restaurant did not have any acrylic barriers between diners and that at the other diners were talking out loud without their masks while dining.

Hoping this was a safe meal and we plan to be more careful with our choice in eateries in the future...

After lunch, we then walked to see the Akamon (red gate) of Tokyo University.

We had often seen this on the news, but never saw it in person.

We couldn't go on to the campus, but it was nice to walk around this area.

I loved looking at the different buildings.

Like this tiny barber shop amongst the cement jungle.

 and then we were back at Shinobazu Pond...I was fascinated by the water beads on this large lotus leaves...click to see the short video.

And then before going home, we went to check out the Tsuki no matsu located at Kiyomizu Kannon-do in Ueno Park...the original was damaged in the Edo period and this one was restored in 2012.

Hiroshige Utagawa painted this scenery of the Tsuki no matsu and Kiyomizu Kannon-do in his U-kiyoe paintings.

It was quite a long day...luckily it didn't rain very hard, just some drizzles and we got to see all that we wanted to.

Takesen

3-41-16 Hongo

Bunkyo, Tokyo

Phone: 03.3811.3268

Hours: 9:00-18:00 Mondays-Fridays, 10:00-18:00 Saturdays & Sundays

Takashi Tachibana Cat Building

2-18 Koishikawa

Bunkyo, Tokyo

Okano Eisen

1-24-4 Koishikawa

Bunkyo, Tokyo

Phone: 03.3811.2345

Hours and days off: n/a

Koishikawa Botanical Garden

3-7 Hakusan

Bunkyo, Tokyo

Phone: 03.3814.0138

Closed Mondays

Hours: 9:00-16:30

Admission: 500 yen 

Firehouse

4-5-10 Hongo

Bunkyo, Tokyo

Phone: 03.3815.6044

Open daily : 11:00-21:30

shigezo's soy meat

I wrote about Shigezo's inarizushi here...well, they also sell all sorts of soy products.

We recently tried their minced soy "meat"...which if I remember correctly cost 130 yen (tax included).

When we first moved to Japan, products were limited to accommodate vegan and vegetarian diets.

Nowadays, there are more products on the market.

I had to look online to see how to prepare this since the instructions on the back of the package were kind of vague.

I also didn't want to reconstitute the whole package, so I just measured out 1/2 a cup and added some warm water to cover and let it sit for 30 minutes.

After the 30 minutes, I gently squeezed the "meat" and set it aside.

It had a slight tofu smell but the texture felt like minced meat.

I cooked some diced eggplant (for texture) with some onions and then added the soy meat, and seasoned it with some taco seasoning.

The texture of the soy after cooking was a little softer than meat, but flavorwise you could not tell that there was no meat in it.

Shigezo also sells soy meat that is similar to sliced pork and chicken nuggets, so we'll give those a try after we eat this up.

Shigezo (UPDATE: 2022 out of business)

7-49-10 Nishikamata

Ota, Tokyo

Phone: 03.3733.2380

Open daily 10:00-19:00

on a walk

Saturday it was blazing but we decided to go on a walk...

The house that had that plumeria tree, now has 3 more!

First time to see white agapanthus.

Sorry my finger in the way again...we met a new friend.

He was actually out looking for the dogs that had passed a couple minutes before.

Omori Furusato Hamabe Park...when we first explored this area, we were looking for the sandy beach...here it is!

The water and sand looked gross to me (am totally spoiled with beaches in Hawaii!)

On the way to the park, we picked up sandwiches from Takeuchi Bakery and Sakaeya Bakery and had lunch on a bench

It was nice to be outside and take off our masks for a little bit.

The park has pergolas, pavilions and benches, so there were many people having lunch or just talking (with their masks on) to friends

There were also many people sun bathing or walking their dogs.

The park also has beach volleyball courts...the sand looks nicer here!

On our walk home, we saw some houses covered in vines.

Social distancing at the bus stop...

The humidity was pretty nasty especially with masks on and our legs were jelly from all that walking, it was still nice to be able to get out.

super easy pupus

Super easy pupus that we had last Friday....

Take some boiled tako (octopus) and cut into bite sized pieces.

Smash 1 Japanese cucumber and break it up into relatively bite sized pieces.

Add 1 tablespoon of kim chee base and mix.

This was the recipe on Momoya's website, but I would probably add a little sesame oil and sesame seeds for a little more flavor.

Torotaku...I read somewhere that you don't actually need to use toro (fatty tuna) for it to be called torotaku, so I used maguro because I couldn’t find toro at the market I was at.

Mince your maguro, takuan and shiso (I used 5 leaves)...add some sesame seeds, mix well.

Serve with nori and shoyu.

I actually wanted to serve this with Korean nori, but Satoshi wanted ajitsuke nori (Japanese seasoned nori).

Since I could not find ajitsuke nori at the store I was at, I served it with yakinori (roasted nori).

Instead I added a little sesame oil to my shoyu.

Not really recipes, but super easy to put together and tasty too.

this and that

This past Saturday (Friday in the US) was my cousin's son's graduation.

I think in order to keep the gathering small, each student could only invite 4 people to attend the ceremony.

Luckily, they had an online viewing, so we were able to watch the ceremony, love technology!

It was Satoshi's first experience to see an American high school graduation.

Congratulations K and the class of 2021!

Chiyohime peaches...these were smaller than normal, but super floral.

Chiyohime literally means Princess Chiyo

They could have been a little more ripe because the flesh near the seed was sour and really firm.

Can't wait to try different varieties in the coming weeks.

On June 20th last year, we were eating at Civitas.

Since last year, most eateries have these acrylic "walls" to block "flying germs"...which also makes conversations pretty hard to hear...

The only reason we were eating out was because we went to see Satoshi's friend perform rakugo.

We saw him perform a couple of times in Osaka.

The auditorium that we went to see the performance at had seats blocked off with these signs so that no one was seated next to each other and not right behind each other.

Everyone had to keep their mask on while watching the performances.

This dude was not paying attention and sat right in front of me.

The sign which was taped to the chair fell off the seat and when he stood up to leave, guess what was attached to his back?!

We should have chased after him....we wondered how far he got before someone told him about it…or if anyone told him about it

It was nice to be out and about, but it was oh so humid especially while wearing a mask.

Not to mention my feet got beat up from not wearing sandals in over a year.

Loved the stained glass in the lobby of the auditorium.

Near the main entrance there was a life-size cut out of sumo wrestler, Taiho.

On the way back to catch the train I noticed this huge magnolia hanging over the temple wall next door to the auditorium..

Monday...emergency dental thingy, I freaked myself out and thought one of my lower front teeth had cracked near the base of the tooth and was kinda depressed about it…after some checking the dentist says…”it is plaque!” and had the hygienist clean my teeth…whew! and thankful for insurance.

As for the Olympics, they (JOC-Japan Olympic Committee) have decided to go against what the medical people have recommended.

The medical people recommended no spectators…JOC plan to allow 10,000 spectators to view each game and allow 20,000 spectators each for the opening and closing ceremonies.

The medical people recommended people from other prefectures not be allowed to come to Tokyo..so JOC are allowing it.  

And while we are at it... the main branch of government have also allowed people from other prefectures to come to Tokyo to get vaccinated!

As of June 21st, the state of emergency in Tokyo has ended, bars & restaurants are allowed to serve alcohol.

BUT, you can only be in a party of 2 and can only drink for 90 minutes (at a time) between 11:00 and 19:00…there are people that have been drinking non-stop from 11:00 to 19:00…geez!

All eateries/bars must close at 20:00....excuse my finger, but you can see how antsy everyone was to go out drinking with all the empty bottles in front of a bar...

Can you believe JOC was thinking to serve alcohol during the games in the stands?! which would've been a double standard for all the eateries who would have had to stop serving at 19:00...sigh

Oh and there was one member of the team from Uganda who tested positive AFTER arriving in Japan.

The main government is playing the "I thought you were supposed to do it" card with who is supposed to check on the others travelling with the infected member and the other passengers on the same flight...sigh

As of today, the infected one member from Uganda has since increased to two members...eep!

Tokyo is on the rebound with infected cases, with the state of emergency ended and everyone out and about like the pandemic is over, I can only imagine what the numbers will be like next week.

With less than 30 days until the start of the games, Tokyo will probably skyrocket out of control...pray for us people...at this point, the main branch of government is only relying on the vaccines...

Have a safe weekend.

oxymoron's caponata style curry

Tried a new (to me) recipe from the Oxymoron's curry book...Caponata style curry

For some reason I couldn't get any zucchini at the two markets I went to, so I just used eggplant, okra, onions and canned tomatoes.

I also had frozen part of a large red bell pepper, so I added it in.

This recipe uses quite a large amount of spices and oil.

Adapted from Oxymoron Curry Book : serves about 2 or 3 

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon cumin seed

1 clove garlic, slice thin

1/2 onion, sliced

2 small eggplants, rinsed cut into rough large bite sized pieces

1/2 red bell pepper, cut roughly into large bite sized pieces

4 okra, cut into half

1 tablespoon coriander powder

1 tablespoon curry powder

1/2 tablespoon cumin powder

1 teaspoon turmeric powder

1 can of diced tomatoes (about 400 grams)

1 teaspoon shoyu

salt, pepper to taste

garam masala to taste

Heat the oil in a pan and add the cumin seeds

When you hear the seeds start to sizzle, add the garlic

When the garlic starts to get fragrant add the onions, eggplant, okra, red bell pepper

Coat everything well with the spices and oil

Add the canned tomatoes and dry spices

Bring everything to a boil then turn the heat down to simmer

Cover and cook for about 10 minutes

After the 10 minutes, remove the cover and let some of the liquid evaporate

Add the garam masala, salt and pepper to taste

Serve with rice or baguette

NOTES: caponata which is similar to ratatouille (I think) meets curry…

this was pretty easy to put together, very tasty and meatless.

We had this with rice and another time with baguette and both ways were delicious.

It was also good served warm & served cold.

The original recipe calls for whole cayenne peppers but I didn’t have any on hand, so I left it out. I guess I could have added powdered cayenne pepper, but didn't.

This was delicious and if I find zucchini, I'll try this again.

wedding video

 

Back in April, I told you that we sent our wedding video out to be dubbed into a DVD, well we got it back and since some of you wanted to see it, I've attached a super short snippet of our wedding video...there is sound attached, so if you are viewing this at work, please turn down your sound...enjoy!