Misawa Summer Festival

During the obon period, summer is also the time for all sorts of festivals! In Misawa from 21 - 24 Aug, they will held their summer festival which parade will be shown with floats and performers. Each float is so huge that usually it take 20-30 at least (usually even more) to carry the float. We managed to catch the parade during evening and its was quite breezy. The bad thing was i got a few "souvenirs" from the mosquito.   

my 1st piece of duck meat this year!

all the wishes written and hang on the float,

each made by different communities

so intricate 

the only cartoon theme!

Our edamame and corn attack

Started our day in harvesting our edamame plants. Quite tedious work as we need to remove one by one from the branches, wash, dried and boil and only then remove them from the shells. Yet all these amount, we finished eating them within 2 meals. (Edited after "someone" messaged me telling me i was wrong, there's more left ;p)

During dinner, S was trying to make corn soup and grinding the corns in food blender machine. Wrong move, as Corn blast attack occurred lol! He had overload with too much corn that it blasted right out to him and everywhere in the kitchen. Then as a person who failed to learn from his mistake, he did it a second time, this time without his shirt since he had removed it after being shattered with corn residue the 1st time round. As you can guess, a second blast of corn attack invaded our kitchen yet again, this time he was scalded with the corn on his body. I burst out into laughter and hurried to mop up all the corns. Not an easy task.... Took us 3-4 times to clean the residue completely off the kitchen floor. 

drying them

the final product.

not trying to show off his body but to show the burn marks, All those red spots and the white patch covered all came from the scalding corn. 

Hamburger Restaurant (Kazamidori) @ Misawa

Good news today! I passed the JLPT 4 test! Ya!!! Don't have to retake in Dec then. S checked the result in the morning and told me to check myself. I did not want to check at all and he was making a face like i failed so the more i refused to see. Anyway, i scored 117/180 not that good at all but its ok. The end result is ultimately what i want to see hehe! S was saying luckily don't want to retake in Dec since it might be snowing and it will be a long and dangerous drive then. 

Went to a new one coin (500 yen) lunch restaurant the other day, the exterior looked quite fancy and they also catered to wedding as well. According to their menu, their speciality seemed to be hamburger (Japanese style), very home-made taste. 

not bad but S can make it at home so most likely i won't be suggesting to come again anytime soon. 

In uni dreamland (Tanesashi Coast 種差海岸)

Been moaning in heart that uni (sea urchin) season is ending soon but i had yet to eat the raw uni don. Was browsing through the magazine after finishing blood donation and a page popped out. It was a page of all the uni restaurants! Maybe my prayer was heard?! S knew that what i was hinting when i passed it to him so he called several shops before he finally found one that still served raw uni. The resturant is near the Tanesashi coast, i had never been that before and the coastal sea view was beautiful, very peaceful place. Will come here again when we have the time. We waited quite a while before our turn was called. Craving satisfied!   

thats the page!

the normal looking restaurant but so many cars waiting for empty parkings!

famous for uni!

2200 yen set of raw uni don! it just melt in ur mouth!

Its our "CORN" time!

We (He) had been chopping down our corn plants. I was helping to carry the corns out of the garden when i saw black patches or bits of it on some of the corns from far. Thinking its just soil but upon closer look, its actually composed of tiny baby insects! Yikes! The corns became their breeding ground! I asked him if they are eating the corn, he said no. They are only breeding there because the corns are warm and they like warm places. I'm glad i did not try to touch the black area at all.... phew! All those corns were almost eaten up by both of us and the taste was so sweet! Like the ones sold in Japanese supermarkets, defiantly our "to grow list" for next year :)  

growing more and more. yikes~

green chilli! 

at first thought it was soil but its actually babies insects!! apparently they like to hatch on warm places! gross!

plenty of corns!

super super sweet!

Uni season

Between mid/end July to mid/end August is uni (sea urchin)season. Sanriku (三陸) along the coastline was part of the tsunami devastated area and they are famous for uni! Every year they will hold uni festival in end July and we missed it this year as he was working that day. Ever since I had tasted expensive uni, i had fell in love with the rich taste. We drove down to Hashikami famous uni restaurant (its on right hand side near Hashikami city hall) hoping to eat raw uni don. Too bad it wasn't our luck that day and we ordered second alternative instead. 

non stop customers keep coming in

ramen with egg uni don set (1400 yen) also delicious but..... i want to eat raw uni

this the raw uni don i been savouring for 

New methods to reduce weight.

Was watching Japanese variety TV show the other day and the doctor declared new methods to reduce weight. The methods are very easy to follow and does not take up long period of time. There are 4 methods in total but i shall only list 3 here since the last method require one to take bath. Very typical for Japanese to take bath daily but this is hard to fulfil in Singapore home without bathtub. 

1st method: Every morning, add few drops of Flaxseed oil to either fresh/pre-packaged blended fruit/vegetable juice. After that you can your normal routine, whether is walking to station, doing housework, jogging etc. Flaxseed oil required vitamins and fibre to work and most effective when one is walking/moving around for at least 10 mins. So i usually drink it before i start on my chores. 

Caution: The oil is weak against heat and will be ineffective.   

the 1st method which stated have to eat with vegetables to have good effect.

2nd method: Takes only 5 mins and will burn the lower body. Sit on a chair with ur bottom sitting little of the surface (look at example below) and lean your back until you rest against the back of the chair. Raise your half bend legs in the air and withstand for 5 mins (example shown in the 2nd pic below). If you feel restless, you can move ur feet up and down or even lower the legs if you are tired as long you can feel that your muscles are in use. It will be difficult maintain the posture in the air for 5 mins but finishing the exercise the muscles will be aching.  

1st example

2nd example. its said do within your limit. Been trying to extend my time slowly.

3rd method: All those food that was suppose to be fattening, like potato, rice, spaghetti, bread etc. To reduce the fat absorb by the body, the best way is to eat all these food in cold! If you warm the food up and let it turn cooler, will not be effective as well. I didn't try it cos too difficult for me to eat cold rice! When i am hungry, a warm bowl of rice is the best for my stomach. So cold soba, noodles, onigiri will be good in this case.

The doctor stated if you can accomplish all the methods listed, you will be able to lose weight within few days! I am only doing the 1st 2 methods out of 4 for a week so yet to lose weight but i have been maintaining my weight the very least and my thighs seemed to be in better shape.

Birthday dinner!

To be exact, it was more of a crab feast! Been wanting to eat their dinner menu for a long time and it was closed when we wanted to celebrate our anniversary. So finally I waited for an occasion to go! 

Upon arrival, we were told that many of the crab dishes stated in menu should be told when we called in for them to prepare in advance. Guess since it was a small sushi restaurant, they only had limited quantity for those that reserved in advance. Quite disappointed when i heard that as it was not stated in menu and we came here specifically to taste the crab. Next when i ordered the uni don... sigh also not available. Fortunately the chef (maybe) felt bad that many of our chosen orders were denied and he decided to give us 2 crab dishes that was originally denied. Yay!! Overall the meal was so satisfying and i am a happy wife! Thanks for the birthday treat!

This is actually raw not cooked. So sweet! 1000yen ($12) for 3 pieces

2000 yen sushi set. so fresh!

my fav! Kani miso (680yen), the crab taste was so flavourful! I was scraping up all the leftover

1000 yen sushi don (deluxe set), chawamuchi is to die for!

1750 yen crab platter!

fried porcupine! super tasty 

Yet another garden update

Well... for the time period, uguys have to get use to my (probably) never ending update about my garden. We planted many variety of fruits and vegetables and one by one are blossoming into fruits of labour :)! Among all, i have been most anxious on edamame and corn! Edamame is not cheap in Japan, a small bag cost around 300 yen ($4 sin). They have the frozen version but all of them came from Taiwan and Thailand actually. Corn is also super expensive and come in seasonal period, but Japan corn are the sweetest i ever tasted.  Usually one vacuum pack corn costs 250 yen ($3.20 sin) but right now as it is harvest season, 1 normal corn cost only 100 yen ($1.20). I have learnt to appreciate many fruits and vegetables always available throughout the year back in Singapore. Here many are only cheap or available during their specific season and so you learnt to look forward as each season approaches. 

p.s so far i managed to kill 1 plant each time when S is away for few days. :p of course i did not do it intentionally. Sorry peppermint and cucumber plant. But the cucumber plant always appeared to be in withering condition so i did not pay attention to it.

digging up the potatoes

edamame: still in midst of growing

never ending vegetables from the garden!

11 potatoes!!

corn!

homemade potato chips! 

まんぷく亭 居酒屋 @ Oirase

Discovered another new place in Oirase, it is along the same street as my favourite sushi place. Also featured in the 500 yen one coin lunch twice but we only decided to try it this time. Read from other blog, this was originally a sushi restaurant but due to tough business, it developed into an Izakaya. No wonder i was thinking how come their recommendation are all related to sashimi.  I was supposed to choose the 500 yen set but i was distracted by the seafood don. 

as i said, ended up drooling over their seafood set

980 yen seafood don set

delicious!! 

the 1 coin set promo from the book