I present you…

…my grandfather!

Believe it or not, he is 85 years old and is incredibly young and fit for his age.
Few years ago, he started taking Majic lessons and performs for the local community gathering from time to time.
He is such a great role model, always willing to take on a new challenge in life.

Go grandpa!

a stroll among the fish

I was very fortunate to be able to spend new years in Japan two years in a row. As much as I enjoy staying in different countries, nothing beats the food and the atmosphere of a Japanese traditional New Years.

A peek at my New Year's dinner...

Just like last year, my family and I went to Kuroshio Market (Kuroshio Ichiba) to check out the delicacies of Wakayama prefecture. Here’s what the market looks like… (Apology for the poor video, I took it with my digital camera)

Don’t be disgusted by the black goo in the video. It’s very very yummy. Looks are not everything!

merry go round

Another year has passed by and I find myself sitting in the exact spot as I was last January, which makes me realize that I haven’t posted many entries on this blog last year despite my initial intention to do so. No wonder why I struggle to write in English these days!
I can not believe that 2009 is over. I still remember writing my first entry on this blog like it happened yesterday. Every year as I get older, I feel like time is getting faster. I remember when I was little, there were many moments where I wished for time to go faster. Where have those days gone, and what has happened to me. No it’s not me, it’s just like the theory of Paul Janet, that the psychological time is in inverse proportion with your age.  To a 50-year-old, 1 year is 1/50 of their life, whereas for a 5-year-old, 1 year is 1/5 of their life. Hence, 10 years for a 50-year-old is the equivalent to 1 year for a 5-year-old (1 day for a 5-year-old equals 10 days for a 50-year-old). This will mean that my 1 day is approximately a month for a 1-year-old. Better use your time effective before I add anther year to my age.

Overall 2009 was a great year, but I know that 2010 will be a greater year for me. A lot of changes are on the way, and I am very anxious and excited to experience each and one of them.

The first sunset of 2010

Happy New Year everyone.
I hope 2010 brings you happiness and peace!

cruise with style

This video is great for those that have never been to Japan, or those who have and is Japan-home-sick, or people like me who live in Japan but doesn’t have the time to travel.
Sit back, relax, and enjoy Tokyo in 10 minutes!

They have Kyoto too. Te first scene “shijo-kawaramachi”, that’s where I always meet up with my friends in Kyoto. I was even there last night

iRelish: kaiseki ryori 2

…continuing from the previous post.
4. Hassun （八寸）
3 to 5 small dish placed in a “hassun” size (about 24cm) tray.

- boiled kinjiso plant
- octopus egg & kidney beans marinated in sesame sauce
- white asparagus soup
- green caviar & assorted seaweeds with ume-plum sauce
- kawakujira-obake (inner skin of whale tail)
with cucumber and vinegar miso

5. Yakimono （焼物）
Grilled dish.

grilled eggplant & duck meat with sesame sauce

6. Nimono （煮物）
Boil-cooked dish.

gourd, taro, carrot, snow pea
and shark’s fin in thick ginger sauce

7. Gohan （御飯）
8. Tomewan （止椀）
9. Kounomono （香の物）
Rice, soup and pickles.

matsutake mushroom rice
miso soup
gourd pickles

10. Dessert （デザート）
I forgot to take a picture of the dessert,
but I think we had a choice of 1 dessert out of 5.
I had the creme brulee. yum.

And that is the end of the meal.
As you can see, each portion is not big, but you do become very full at the end of the meal. This kaiseki ryori I had was about 8,000 yen, which would be more on the reasonable side for a proper kaiseki ryori. If you go to a top-notch restaurant, you can be charged somewhere between 13,000 and 50,000 (very expensive, but the ingredients are superb and definitely worth the money!).

iRelish: kaiseki ryori 1

While waiting for your kaiseki ryori to be served, you will notice a piece of paper lying in front of you.
This is called oshinagaki and it is the detailed menu of your kaiseki ryori. It tells you what is included in each dish in the order served. Not only will reading this help you prep on what you’re about to savour in few minutes, but you can entertain yourself by attempting to read all the unique kanji written on the menu. Most things in Japan can be written in kanji, but when the kanji is too complicated, we tend to write it in hiragana or katakatana to simplify it. For example, “corn” in Japanese is tomorokoshi, and is usually written in katakana as トウモロコシ, but this can be written in kanji as 玉蜀黍. So much more complicated! So if you want to impress your mates at the table, make sure you study your kanji.

Back to the oshinagaki, basically you will look at it with every dish to say your oohs & aahs, such as “ooh, this is eggplant?.”
Trust me, it is quite fun to be acquainted with your food this way.
Ok, on with the food…

1. Sakizuke（先付）
The first dish, usually something that
can be enjoyed together with your drink (alcohol).

turban shell cooked in sake
served together with lotus root,
Japanese ginger and dried wheat gluten.

2. Suimono（吸物）
A light soup to be enjoyed with your drink
(yes, you’re still drinking..!)

earthenware pot-steamed
Matsutake mushroom
and Japanese conger

Matsutake mushroom is a popular food in Autumn. Because it’s hard to harvest, it tends to be pricey, but remains popular for its beautiful smell. The taste however is not overly special, but its aroma beats all other mushrooms and signifies the arrival of Autumn. In the above dish, Matsutake is cooked in a seasoned broth in a earthenware pot. You pour the broth in a little serving cup and squeeze a hint of sudachi (Japanese lime, another Autumn favourite) and enjoy the soup filled with Autumn flavours.

3. Tsukuri （造里）
Assorted sashimi

sea bream, horse mackerel and tuna

to be continued…

a sense of season

Out of all the things that make me happy to be back in Japan after spending time abroad, one thing stands out from the rest. It is just in an entire different league than the rest, and it happens to be fulfill about 89% of my brain at all time.

JAPANESE FOOD

Pretty obvious why I’m obsessed with Japanese food since I am Japanese who grew up with Japanese food up till now (not just plain Japanese food, but the ones prepared by a former-chef, my mom), but having had the pleasure of eating beautiful food from different countries and cultures, Japanese food is still my ultimate soul-food.

Instead of me trying to explain all the magnificent faces of Japanese food, I will simply keep posting about my favorite dishes, and will leave the judgment to you

I get a lot questions regarding Japanese food, mostly from people planning to visit Japan and are seeking advice on the best restaurant to eat Sushi. Sushi is unique, it’s artistic, could be expensive, but nonetheless delicious. I have no intention on stopping people from eating Sushi during a holiday in Japan, but there is a whole another dimension of Japanese food to be enjoyed in Japan, and I strongly feel more people should take advantage of that.

That being said, if you want the best of Japanese cuisine, I recommend you try kaiseki ryori. Kaiseki ryori is a course meal consisting of various dishes, so you can enjoy the different aspects of Japanese cuisine in one meal. Kaiseki ryori originated as a light meal served during the traditional tea ceremony, but nowadays it’s regarded as a multi-course Japanese cuisine served in proper restaurants (the light meal served during the tea ceremony is referred as cha-kaiseki now).

The dishes served in kaiseki ryori uses ingredients of the season. Japanese people enjoy and appreciate the changing of the seasons through our food. The dish has to be stimulating both to the tongue and the eyes and each ingredient is crafted to perfection. Being tasty is of course important, but a good kaiseki ryori has to possess the essence of season with true artistry.

On the next post, I will put pictures of the kaiseki ryori I had this summer.

eish!

I realized that my last post before my disappearance was on South Africa and how much I missed it. Obviously enough, there’s a good chance that I annoyed my friends by constantly talking about South Africa, but  braaing and munching on biltong with friends from SA spurred my love for the country, and even though I was living in a beautiful country known as Australia, my mind had flown over 9,000 Km to SA and decided to stay.  On top of it, the weather in Sydney hasn’t been too great, and if you’ve lived in South Africa, you will know why this made me miss SA even more!

I have a friend in Sydney who runs a business in SA. This requires him to travel to SA couple times a year, each nearly a month long. This time, he was bringing his girlfriend along, and suggested that I join them on their trip to have a nice vacation with her whilst he works. At the time, I had just gotten a promotion at work, and settling in Australia had crossed my mind a couple of times. A week after my friend’s suggestion, I handed in my resignation, and 3 weeks later, I had quit my job, moved out of my flat, and was standing in Sydney airport with a packed suitcase. Can you say, spontaneous? I don’t think I will ever forget the puzzled look my boss gave me when I told him why I wanted to leave the company.

“I just feel like I should go to South Africa”.

To sum it up, I stayed in SA for just over 3 weeks.

I first landed in Johannesburg, then met up with the couple in Durban, travelled to Hluluwe and St.Lucia, then to Cape Town (including Stellenbosch, Franshoek, and Hermanus), finally back to Johannesburg. I don’t think I have ever enjoyed SA more than I did in this 3 weeks.
The diverse beauty of the country took my breath away, and I was in awe at everything I saw. Spending time with my South African friends sharing a bottle of chilled cabernet sauvignon felt like heaven!

At the same time, I do know how distressing living in SA can be. Not only is the crime bad, but a lot of times  little things you expect to work don’t. Living in SA with the mindset from other developed country can be very tiring, and you often find yourself banging your hand on the steering wheel and swearing like a character on MTV.  Once you’re inside the loop of stress and complaints, you forget how miserable you’re making your life to be, and all you can think of is to blame things other than yourself for your misery.
I don’t know if I will ever have the chance to live in SA again, and when I do, I don’t know whether I will enjoy it as much as I did in this 3 weeks holiday. Maybe travelling to SA once in a while works the best for me, but SA will always remain in my heart as one of the most beautiful country in the world.
If you are thinking about going to SA for the 2010 World Cup, I say GO FOR IT! The country is working extremely hard for the event, and I’m positive that the first World Cup to be held in Africa will end in great success. Book your tickets people!!

procrastinating

wow.

Really? Has it really been7 months since my last post?

I don’t think I have ever used the phrase “time flies” as much as I have this year. Seems like every time I turn around the corner, a month has passed instead of a minute. You know the photograph of a person standing in the middle of a busy street surrounded by tons of cars, taken with a very slow shutter speed to create a sense of “speed” surrounding that person? Well,  I feel like that person, standing still in the midst of time and movements.  I don’t feel left behind per se, nor do I feel abandoned, desolated, and even distressed.  It’s a strange feeling, because despite how I feel, when I recall what I have done for the past 7 months, I wasn’t standing still, in fact I was very much part of the “speed”.

I think, If I had planned the events in the past 7 months and accomplished them one by one, I would not have felt so out of sync. You see, the problem is that I don’t work towards my plans, I procrastinate, and I’m incredibly spontaneous. Once in a while, I’ll grab a blank sheet of paper and jot down my goals and what I need to do to achieve them. I have great fun doing it so much so that once I’ve completed writing everything down, I feel like I’ve actually accomplished them. Satisfied, I forget everything about what I have just (I can’t emphasize this enough!) written. Instead, I jump onto whatever things that come my way, or whatever things that come into my mind. My friend even introduced me to an application called iProcrastinate (could they have come up with a better name?), which I used only to satisfy myself with the delusional feeling of accomplishment (sorry Ivan). That’s pretty much how I have spent my last 7 months. As you can imagine, I have written down “write a new blog post” to a piece of paper several times already, all probably lying scrunched up in a waste disposal facility :p

By the way, after a great time in Australia, I’m back in Japan.

feeling wild

The best part of living in Sydney is friends. My friends whom I met 6 years ago in South Africa are currently living in Sydney, and most of my free time is spent with them. We spend a lot of time talking and joking about things in South Africa, out of 100% love for the country. It is funny how time helps you appreciate the place you once despised. Especially South Africa. It was a place so different from any other place I’ve been to. It will always have a special place inside my heart. If the right opportunity comes, I’d love to go and live there once again, this time, with a different mindset.

My friend took me to a South Africa butcher shop in Sydney suburb. The store was amazing. Although small, they had eat-some-more biscuits, Rajah curry powder, Chutney sauces and many many more. Most importantly, the store was stacked with boerewors and biltong! Biltong, not beef jerkey. There was a time when I loved them so much that I’d easily eat 1 packet of biltong on my way to work…at 7am in the morning! You’d think that biltong would be popular among meat-loving Aussies, but it seems like many Aussies find biltong unhygenic because it is hanged from the ceiling for days. I say no ways, but I do understand what their problem is. You see, unlike most parts of South Africa, the humidity in Sydney is quite high. Making a good biltong must be difficult to start with, but keeping the biltong dry and fresh for days is almost impossible here. The biltong I bought at the store had mold on them 2 days after it was purchased. This never happend in Johannesburg. I could leave the biltong out for a week if I wanted to.

Nevertheless, a nice cold beer and a bowl of freshly sliced biltong under a beautiful blue sky is still my favorite way to spend the Sunday afternoon.