Thursday 24 January 2008

寿司料理授業 Sushi Cooking Lessons

Instead Of todays Japanese lesson, we learned how to make 手綱寿司 Tadsuna Zushi and まんじゅう Manjuu.

For that we were lead to another building than usual, which hosted a big room, designed to teach cooking. 素晴らしい Wonderful!



Our group's teacher



Next to our teachers, we had high class Japanese cooks explain to us the recipe.

手綱寿司 Tadsuna Zushi

A little fact about the Japanese language. When a word is combined with another one, like above, the first sound often becomes soft. So the strong S in Sushi becomes the soft Z when combined with Tadsuna or other Sushi types like Maki Zushi.

材料 Ingredients

干し椎茸 dried Shiitake Japanese mushrooms
小松菜 Chinese cabbage
人参 carrot 1本
卵 egg 2ヶ

米 rice
酢 vinegar
醤油 soy sauce
しょうが ginger

作り方


Wash and cook some rice together with some 昆布 Konbu seaweed, if you can find some. Then put the rice in a large bowl and mix it with half a cup of vinegar. Stir the rice / vinegar for 2 minutes.


Mix the two eggs with some sugar, some salt. Then make scrambled eggs.

干し椎茸
Put the musrooms in water and add some vegetable stock, sugar and soy sauce. Then when the mushrooms are dry and cold, cut them into stripes.

人参
Cut the carrot in thin stripes and put them into water. Add some sugar, salt vegetable stock and boil it for a short while.

小松菜
Put the Chinese cabbage into hot water and add some salt. Cook it until it gets a nice color then put it into cold water and out again. Then cut it into thin stripes.

Use a long wooden board and put your 巻きす (Makikisu the bamboo board for making Sushi, see picture) on top. Now put some with plastic wrap on top, which will make everything a bit easier.
Now make small lines of the prepared ingredients from left to right: 卵 egg, 人参 carrot, 椎茸 mushrooms , 小松菜 Chinese cabbage then start again with egg until you reached the end.
Now spread another plastic wrap and put some rice in. Warp and form the rice like a tube and make it as long as your line of ingredients on the 巻きす Makikisu. Open the wrap and put the rice on top of the ingredients.
Now wrap the combination with the plastic warp under the ingredients and use the 巻きす Makikisu to make it round and sticky. Be sure to give it a good consistency.
Finally use the sharpest knife you have, best is of course a Japanese 包丁 (kitchen knife), and cut the long tube into mouth fit pieces; then carefully remove the remaining wrap.



line them up



measure the rice tube's length



make the tube the right length



and use the 巻ききす to make it more stiff



Yatta! Your done. You can eat your 手綱寿司 Tadsuna Zushi with some ginger and 醤油 Shouyu soy sauce.

Note:
(Usually the line on the 巻きす board starts with 海老 Ebi Shrimps. So if you want, you can get some Ebi and add it before 卵 egg. And more traditional than vegetable stock is 出汁 Dashi fish stock).



My friend Noppon



Yay for vegetarian Sushi



Juan's Sushi turned out a bit ugly

Ho! but now we want a nice desert, don't we! So let's make some Manjuu!

利休 まんじゅう Rikyuu Manjuu

材料 Ingredients

黒糖 black sugar 100g
上白糖 first class sugar 35g
水飴 starch syrup 20g
水 water 65g
重曹 baking soda 4g
薄力粉 (ふるう) wheat flour (low viscosity) 200g
餡子 Anko sweet bean jam/paste 25g

道具 Tools

steam pot
frying pan

作り方

Prepare a frying pan and fry the black sugar a little. Now add the white sugar, the starch syrup and the water and fry it on a weak flame until you have a black solution.

Prepare a bowl and put the solution and the flour together with the soda inside (using a sieve if you have one) and mix it really well. Put in a tiny bit of water, if it doesn't work out.

Now form around 12 little balls out of the dough. Using flour on your hands makes it easier to form. Then take a ball and make it flat, put a round ball of 餡子 Anko inside and slow and carefully wrap the dough around until it encloses the 餡子 Anko completely.

Now you need a steam cook pot with two stages. Put water in the first stage and make it boil, then put the まんじゅう Manjuu with a tiny piece of paper into the second stage and put the second stage on top of the first stage and close the lid. Now let it steam/cook for 10 minutes and they are done.



Our two Colombian guys starting from the left Giovanni and Juan



Don't add soap!

Yatta! Oishii! (Delicious!)



Our self made dinner: Sushi and Manjuu (mine is the bottom left corner)

Tips:
If you don't have a steam cook pot, don't worry. You don't need to be Mac Gyver to create tools. E.g. try to use a normal pot with some water and put a sieve in it. If it doesn't fit, fix it with paper clips.



a two level steam cooking pot





super kawaii bonus pictures! (the child of one of the Japanese students)

Sunday 20 January 2008

ナルト俳句 Naurto Haiku

A friend of mine is currently working on a Naruto 同人誌 Doujinshi (a kind of Japanese Manga fanzine) and I agreed to contribute a little bit. The topic is the 漫画 Manga / Anime Naruto and I decided to make 俳句 Haiku about the main characters:

春の使者
ぶっ飛ばさせて
惨い拳

Der Bote des Fruehlings
laesst dich ganz weit fliegen
mit graussamer Faust

The messenger of spring,
makes you fly afar
with cruel fist.

オロチマル
蛇の大ピエロ
古い皮膚

Orochimaru
der grosse Clown aller Schlangen
(nichts als) eine alte Haut

Orochimaru
the biggest clown of all the snakes
(nothing but) an old skin

黒い影
蛇の殺し屋
女性の夢

der schhwarze Schatten,
der Auftragskiller der Schlange,
und Traum aller Maedchen

the black shadow
assassin of the snake
and a girls' dream

影になる
ラーメン食べて
おめでたい

(Ho)kage werden!
waehrend man Ramen isst
Na Herzlichen Glueckwunsch, du Naivling
(Ein 駄洒落 Japanisches Wortspiel: Omedetou Heisst Glueckwunsch, aber Medetai naiv, dumm und leichtglauebig)

to become (Ho)kage!
eating Ramen
congratulations you simpleton
(this is a 駄洒落, a Japanese Pun: Omedetou means congratulations, but medetai means naive, stupid and gullible)

盗んだ目
仮面覆って
愛の天

Ein gestohlenes Auge
unter einer Maske verborgen
das Paradies der Liebe.

a stolen eye
hidden below a mask
the lovers' paradise

Saturday 19 January 2008

鎌倉 Kamakura

天狼会 Tenroukai Field Trip!



This weekend the 天狼会 Tenroukai group I joined made a field trip to 鎌倉 Kamakura. Now because there is a whole epoche named after this city, the 鎌倉時代 (Kamakura Epoch) (1192 - 1333) and because 幕府 Shogunate reigned over Japan from here, I always thought it was one of Japan's former capital cities. But in spite of is obvious de facto functioning as capital, the capital of this epoch was still 平安 Heian or with its more modern name 京都 Kyoto.

The reason is that while the noblesse and the 天皇 Tenno were still in Heian, the warrior class, who was in actual power, made 鎌倉 Kamakura its home. The reason for that becomes obvious if you look at Kamakura from a bird's view or take a map.


Kamakura is written かまくら on the map

You can easily see that the city is completely encircled by mountains having one round easy to defend shore. That means 鎌倉 Kamakura is a natural fortress both against attacks from the sea, as well as from land. That is why a warrior class would choose such a location over 京都 Kyoto.

In fact it was here that the reigning warrior class had to deal with the two large scale invasions launched by the Mongol Emperor Kublai Kahn from Korea, who had already subdued China and Korea. And it was here that, according to Japanese belief, the gods intervened and sent their heavenly winds (神風 Kamikaze = God's Winds) to crush their enemies on sea. Whether it was divine interventions or not, it is a fact that the Mongol fleet was destroyed by a heavy 台風 typhoon before the coast of 九州 Kyushu. The Buddhist monks in 鎌倉 Kamakura claimed to have evoked this outcome by reciting sutras. Whether this is true or not, you can find an incredible amount of temples in this (nowadays) small and dreamy little town.

And that is why we chose Kamakura for a field trip. Its influence on Japan's political, cultural and spiritual development is very significant. Back in school days I remember field trips to be cool, because you get out of the class room and have nothing to learn and that's it. Now I was really excited about it and totally enjoyed it. I actually often think about how exciting it would be to go to school once more with the interest in the world, which I currently have. I would suck in all the knowledge about the world, my teachers would give me, and harass them with questions.

Thomas

Well luckily for me such a "teacher" joined our field trip. Apart from Akatsuki-san and me, Kazue-sensei invited her good friend Thomas for the trip, who would act as our guide. Thomas is American of birth, but living in Japan for about 23 years. He is living in the same prefecture as I do (神奈川県 Kanagawa Prefecture), has his own Karate 道場 Dojo and a publishing company, through which he earns his living. He studied history and philosophy, but in spite of his interest and good grades never graduated. Apart from the Dojo he leads a small Magic group in Kanagawa.
After saying hello, he asked me to ask him questions about anything I could think of and I did ask, without embarrassment, some very fundamental questions, given the chance ^-^.

"What is the meaning of life?"

"The meaning of life is to learn to understand, understand ourself, understand each other, understand our surroundings, with which we interact and without we could not be, understand our world, understand our universe. Science seems a good tool for approaching this task, but we also need spiritual understanding by for example meditation. By gaining larger understanding, we also gain a more balanced life and are easily able to deal with the world's perils and help and love each other.
After centuries of human evolution and millions of years of the evolution of life itself, it seems very likely that this is the very goal, we have".

"Do you believe in god?"

"Which god? Take alone Christians having in fact several hundred different gods, which they worship. I don't think there is a god like that, a god with si human characteristics.
What I do believe is that we are a mirror a fragment a 3D shadow of some multidimensional perfect pattern. You can see this pattern everywhere. The Macro Cosmos can be found in the Micro Cosmos. A single cell's DNA stores the complete information of the being it belonged to. As a red blood cell is part of our organism, we are yet again part of a larger organism. You could call this larger organism god. And through constant evolution we are approaching it steadily, while being already part of it."

"Is there a correct or wrong religion? Is religion itself wrong?"

"Yes, no and no. Every religion can be correct for you. People have achieved 'enlightenment' or became a more evolved balanced human being by any of the great religions of our time. Although the individual religion's path and teachings might have minor differences, they all contain larger truths and wisdoms gathered over the ages and in the end it is the person walking on this path that determines the religion. So religion is not wrong, but a help and path to becoming a greater human being. What you probably meant with 'wrong' has nothing to do with religion itself, it is when politicians and generals exploit and use religion for selfish reasons of war and political power over people. Most people calling themselves follower of a religion however, never really understand there own religion and stay spiritually where they were, when they entered."

(After reading the great Science Fiction book 'Ender's Game', in which humanity decided to extinct an alien race of course for the safety of the earth, but also because they came to the reasoning that since e.g. an ant cannot survive or think without it's queen, a human's life is worth more than a space-ant's. Therefore I asked: )
"Would you value an animal's life, an insect's life a plant's life, different from a human being's life?"

"First you have to understand, that a human cannot life by its own. Humans are social animals and can only survive in groups without going insane. I send some of my students to the mountains to life on there own for 4-5 days. Usually nobody lasts longer than two days. By hard training and preparation, you might be able to last for months, but eventually you would go insane. But leaving that apart, without animals, insects or plants, we could not survive could we? Even if because of our scientific breakthroughs and supermarkets we sometimes think of being outside of naturals circles, of course we aren't. If we can't grow plants or heed animals, we would die. Therefore this question is more difficult as you might think. Without the other there would be no human. So if we only value human life, humanity could not continue to exist."

"In the 天狼会 Tenroukai we read and talk about the ideas of the Kabbalah, what would you say the Kabbalah is?"

"The Kabbalah tries to describe the universe. Thus a Kabbalhist is one who lives in this universe. Therefore all of us are Kabbalhists, whether we choose to or not.
The Kabbalah is the last surviving (as far as I know) system, that tries to cover all aspects of the universe open to us. For example science, religion, meditation, philosophy, exercise, magic, etc. Most religions and religious book cover some of these, but not all of them. I am pretty sure that all of nowadays world religion started with complete models like that, but taking Christianity for example, through the countless revisions of the bible and what would be allowed to be part of Christian teachings and what not, large parts got lost. Talking about Buddhism it is the large path Buddhism went from Tibet and India to all the other parts in the world, like our little Japan here. I think in Tibet itself such a complete model does still exist.
The Kabbalah itself as well as many of the lost world models probably have their origin in a world model created in ancient Egypt."

Field Trip

And thus we talked and talked. And of course I was not the only one having questions, Akatsuki-san also had a lot of questions for Thomas. Now the sad thing was, that because of his Karate Dojo, Thomas had to be back very early and only could accompany us to one temple. However he promised to give us a real historical, esoteric and philosophical tour of Kamakura in march, starting with the 大仏 Daibutsu (the huge bronze Buddha statue).

鶴岡八幡宮 Tsurugaoka Hachiman Gu

The big 将軍 Shogun of the 鎌倉時代 Kamakura Epoch, Minamoto No Yoritomo built this huge and wonderful Shinto shrine close to the center of the city. From it huge 鳥居 Torii lead all the way to the sea. And from top of the shrine you indeed have a wonderful view and can follow the Torii with your eyes. There are some incredible wonderful wood carvings inside the temple inner sanctum and all around the areal you can spot wonderful little sacred spots overseen by the tourists. On the way leading to the shrine, you will also encounter some stands selling fresh made sweets of the region.





wonderful wood carvings

After Thomas parture, the rest of us decided not go to Kamakura's main tourist spot, the 大仏 Daibutsu (the huge bronze Buddha statue) and wait for Thoma's tour in march. Instead we went to 報国寺 Hokoku temple and the 銭洗い弁天 Zeniarai Benten Shrine.

報国寺 Hokoku



The Hokoku temple has a wonderful dreamy romantic magnificent bamboo garden on its back. Entrance is 200 Yen and worth far more than that. We were lucky, because the sun just was on the right spot to shine between the bamboo trees and granted us an unbelievable view. Many people choose this garden for meditation, other just stare in awe. Apart from the wonderful trees, there is also a rock face with carved in holes for graves, which also looks wonderful. We spend a long time in there and when we finished we simply decided to walk through once more.













銭洗い弁天 Zeniarai Benten Shrine

The story of this shrine goes like this: The big 将軍 Shogun Minamoto No Yoritomo came to Kamakura and people told him of a mystical spring inside a mountain, which is said to give you back the money you wash in side by many times, if you "invest" it. Minamoto No Yoritomo immediately went there and let the spring by enshrined.
Today you can pass to a small cave to the inner shrine in front of the mountain in which you can find the cave. Many Japanese people from all over Japan come here to wash there money ever since. And I was not surprised to see large parts of the shrine being donated by Japan's big banks. (As some trivia, the Benten shrines' symbol is the Triforce from Zelda games. It has its origin here.)

We washed some money. Akatsuki-san later bought a lottery lot with the money he washed. Since I am not in need of money right now, I intent to give me washed money to someone who can need some money coming back to him/her. ^-^



the passage through the mountain



inside the cave holding the sacred spring

その他 Further Recommendations

Apart from that for you, if you choose to visit Kamakura, I can further recommend the 大仏 Daibutsu, which I mentioned, the 東慶寺 Tokeiji, because it historically acted as a refugee for women abused by their men, which therefore fled owning nothing. A very interesting place. And finally the 長谷寺 Hasedera, which hosts Japan's largest wooden statue devoted to the Buddhist deity Kannon.

Asking the question of life, the universe and everything, like it was everyday coffee talk and exploring ancient fortress cities

mika

Friday 18 January 2008

日本料理 Cooking In Japanese

I already have a post talking about the Japanese Cuisine, now in this post I will gradually reveal, how to cook traditional Japanese meals by yourself.
In Japanese restaurants abroad you will only meet a very small portion of the incredible variety of Japanese food. So I decided to start cooking those meals by myself, so I would be able to present them to friends and family, when I go back to Germany. But to my dear reader I reveal the recipes here, as I uncover them, so you don't have to wait for me and can try it yourself.

有利 Advantages

Home-made food has even more advantages. For example
* you can cook vegetarian/vegan versions of meals
* you can choose natural ingredients (e.g. 玄米 genmai natural rice)
* you can add/remove things you like/dislike
* you can use fresh vegetables
* you can invite friends for dinner

お握り Onigiri



Let's start with the Japanese equivalent to butter bread. The most frequent thing you will encounter in children's school bags, as well as in the suitcases of office workers or in the lunch boxes of construction site workers: お握りOnigiri.

Basically an Onigiri is a ball of sticky rice. Often people will wrap this rice ball in Nori, sheets of (very healthy) seaweed and add a filling in the middle and that's it. Simple, good, filling, light and healthy.

So let me give you the basic recipe first and give suggestions for fillings.

食材 Ingredients
お米 rice
海苔 nori

道具 Tools
炊飯器 rice cooker
plastic foil
a small bowl or flat tea cup

Cook the rice (white rice will be more sticky, while natural rice will have more taste and nutrition) in the rice cooker. Without using a rice cooker, it will be pretty though to get the rice sticky and it is a very handy and energy saving tool, so go and get one.
Take a sheet of plastic foil and wrap it around your cup/bowl. Then wet your hands and grab some rice and put it into the plastic foil wrapped bowl/cup. Press it down. Now you could make a little pit in the middle and add some fillings (see below) in it. Take the plastic foil out of the cup/bowl and tie it. Now you can easily form the rice into whatever shape you can think of. Traditional when using nori is a triangle form.
Spread a nori sheet on a board, open the plastic bag and put the rice shape on the nori. Now wrap the nori around the shape and put the whole back into the plastic foil.
Here you can find the page of the person who came up with the plastic foil cup/bowl method to shape the rice. The page also includes some illustrating pictures and ideas for ingredients.

Repeat this for as much rice as you have made and as many fillings you can think of. You can put the wrapped nori into your fridge and take them to work, on travel or wherever your feet may carry you.

Fillings

Traditional fillings include 梅干し umeboshi (pickled plumes) and other pickled vegetables as well as all the variety of fish you find in Japan.

No traditional fillings I tried, that work well include
* cocktail tomato + drop of oil + basil + cheese
* small cut carrot + chili sauce
* small cut cucumber with a dip of soy sauce
* garlic/onion/ginger as an addition to other fillings
* mushrooms
* olives

お好み焼き Okonomiyaki



Okonomiyaki is one of my favorite meals in the Japanese cuisine. It is in fact so brilliant, that it is often called Japanese pizza. The reasons why it is so brilliant include a preparation/cooking time from under 10 minutes, an extreme deliciousness and, like the pizza the possibility to freely choose ingredients you like. The name even translates to: "Frying what you like". I will give you a traditional version here, but you can vary the ingredients as you like.

食材 Ingredients
お好み焼き粉 Okonomiyaki Floor (You can use normal floor too)
キャベツ Cabbage
ねぎ spring onion
ニンニク garlic
コーン corn

トッピング Topping
マスタード mustard
おたふくソース Okonomiyaki Sauce (You can also use Ketchup, Chili Sauce, Garlic Sauce or whatever sauce you like)
マヨネーズ Mayonnaise
ハブ herbs

Ok put some floor in a medium sized bowl. There is no right amount, if you take too less it becomes less sticky, the more you take the more sticky it becomes. Play around a bit until you find an amount you like. Add water little by little and mix it with the floor to get a good sticky sauce. Don't make it too fluid, since we are going to put it into a frying pan.
Now add all the other ingredients and mix them well with the floor paste. Take some time, until you get a nice mix.

Now heat a plate or start a fire, put your frying pan on, add oil and give it a minute to heat up. Then pour the bowl's contents into the pan and distribute it evenly. After 2-4 minutes you can turn it around (use two instruments for the turning, else it will be quite hard), and give it another 2 minutes. Done!

Now put it into a plate and add the toppings, mustard, Okonomiyaki Sauce and mayonnaise just as you like them. At last add some herbs. In Japan there are some traditional herbs to choose, but any you like will do.

Tada finished! Looks delicious, is delicious, easy and fast to make. Also you don't need to clean much. Its really a wonderful meal!

As I mentioned above you can basically add any kind of ingredient you can think of. Non-vegetarians in Japan like to add pork or some sea food. Just don't add too much, to give the mix a chance to become a little bit solid.

炊飯器パン Rice Cooker Bread



Ok the next one will be no traditional Japanese meal, though it does fit very well in Japan. The reason I came up with this bread is for once, not many Japanese houses have ovens, but everyone has a rice cooker. Secondly the bread in Japanese bakeries is almost always sweet and white (= sweet/tasteless). And thirdly I have recently watched an Anime about baking bread (焼きたてじゃっパン Yakitate Japan), where they make such a bread.

食材 Ingredients
パン粉 Floor suitable for bread 350g
バター butter or margarine 21g
砂糖 sugar 21g
牛乳/豆乳 milk/soy milk 35 cc
水 water 180 cc
トライイースト dry yeast 5g
食塩 salt 6.5g

Solve the yeast in a little bit of water and add it to the floor. Add water, milk, sugar and salt and mix it to a dough. Then wrap the dough around the butter and keep kneading the dough for at least 10 minutes. This is a bit tiresome, but that's how you make bread. Afterwards let the dough rest for around an hour to give it the chance for the first stage of fermentation.
After the hour use some oil or butter/margarine to grease the rice cooker bowl. Then put the dough inside and try to center it a little.
Press the 炊飯 "cook rice" button. When it is done, put the dough out, turn it and out it in again. Press the button again. After you hear the beep, proceed with turning it one last time and press the button.
This time it is done, and you can enjoy your self-made bread!
Congratulations!

Monday 14 January 2008

成人の日 Coming Of Age Day

Woohoo yet another holiday!

But wait, why do we keep having those holidays? Sounds interesting to look into it. Hmm Wikipedia says every second Monday of January is 成人の日 Coming Of Age Day. Now what is that supposed to be:
All people who turned 20 during the last year are congratulated on this national holiday. Cities and towns hold ceremonies, often with addresses by prominent members of the community. Many of these ceremonies serve alcoholic beverages, which are the privilege of adults. Disorderly conduct has led some cities to curtail these ceremonies. Until 2000, Coming-of-Age Day always fell on January 15.
Some further research reveals that these celebrates Japanese youngsters love to wear their most renowned 和服 traditional Japanese cloths, like 着物 Kimono, on this day.

Since I have no plans for today, I asked my good old companion Hung Lun next door, whether he has plans and woosh off we went to Atsugi's cultural hall, where the event is supposed to take place.



The cultural hall is a red brick building

Arriving in the city center, we already spot some people in 着物 Kimono and eventually find the huge culture hall, a bit off the city center. In front of the hall many many young people in elaborate dresses have gathered waiting for entrance. I use the time and ask around to be allowed to make some pictures.

Although the female 着物 Kimono surely looks impressive, in spite of the color variations, they all look the same to me ^_^. For the male counterparts most wore boring black suits, but some dressed up in male 着物 Kimono, like their female counterpart, but in subtle dark colors and some dressed up in noblesse wear and/or Samurai clothings. I tried to get some pictures of this scenery:





outside the cultural hall





the girls



the boys







and the samurai, the last one looks like a Japanese playboy from a movie, don't you think?

After we are let in, we go up the stairs and enter a huuuge amphibic hall with a stage below. When we sit down, there is already a first performance going on: 太鼓 Taiko ensemble (Japanese Big Drums). I love those drums, but much more impressive is the music people make with them and above all the incredible artistic performance (e.g. juggling while drumming). While in Europe drums are usually always additional instruments, here they are clearly the star.



After that the mayor of our town enters with another important looking guy, whose function I could not understand. They congratulate the youngsters for becoming adults and sit down to be interviewed by one of them.
The young people searched for pictures of the two politicians, when they were 20 and were allowed to ask them two questions about this age. They choose:

1. Who was the most important person to you at this time.
Both name their families, without their support they could not have studied or survived being 20. After that both mention their friends, some of them they hold dearly until now.

and

2. Which was your favorite kind of music back then.
Now while the insignificant? guy answers with some Japanese Pop band, the mayor surprises me, when his favorite song Led Zeppelin - Stairway To Heaven is played from the speakers.



We move to the next part. And while we are moving a small orchestra plays flutes and violins. The next part is a movie presentation in which the former middle schools of the young people congratulate them for becoming of age and all give them some more or less wise advise on the way. The people around us laugh dearly when they see their old teachers on screen. Messages include from standard morale stuff to "Always watch your back, when you are on the ball", from a sports teacher. ^-^



Having seen enough and with the program getting more and more boring, Hung Lun and I decide to leave the big hall and buy some groceries. We have been, of course, the only foreigners at the place ;)



the cultural hall is really huge, and still it was almost completely filled with 20 year olds (and us)!

Sometimes you should just ask yourself the reason for todays holiday and then go out and find out about it...

mika

Thursday 10 January 2008

誕生日 Birthday

Aye from time to time your humble reporter carries one more year on his back. And he was really moved, because the other interns made a party for him.

フルーツパーティ Fruits Party



And since "a party", like "any party", would be boring, they added a theme/topic/task to it. It was to become a fruits party "fruits from all over the world". So every one joining the party would bring some fruits or make something out of fruits or at least bring some juice.

The result was quite amazing. A lot of people brought fruits, so that our chefs could prepare awesome decorated plates, as you can see in the picture below.



Of course I also did not come empty handed and prepared my miraculous mega tasty ultra fruits salad version 7. Having made quite some fruit salads I can make them quite yummy. Here's what you need:

フルーツサラダ Fruit Salad



果物 Fruits
りんご Apples
バナナ Banana
キーウィ Kiwi
みかん Mandarin
そのほか Add more fruits as you like

味見 Spices
シナモン Cinnamon
バニラ Vanilla
ハニー Honey
メープルシロップ Maple Syrup
ミルク Milk

First cut the fruit and put it into a large bowl. Then add the spices, wait a little, that the fruit can absorb a bit of the spices and then add some milk (not too much). Mix it to let the milk catch the not absorbed spices and spread it evenly across the rest of the fruits.

Apart from that and the awesome decorated plates, Boy from Thailand brought a very special fruit. Durian, the king of the fruits! As you just read, apart from its undisputed title and size it is forbidden in some places, because of its disgusting smell. I don't think it is that bad, however admit it to be really intense. Boy brought some Durian pieces, cake/cookies and chips.



Pieces Of Durian

Eventually they turned the lights of and handed me a Birthday Cake saying Happy Birthday in chorus =D



I also got a hedgehog CD holder, cocoa, cookies and the Anime Akira on DVD, quite cool!



The party went on much like every other party, except that it was probably much more healthy than most parties, because of our large fruits buffet.


バースでぃ お好み焼き Birthday Okonomiyaki



My good friend and 遍路 pilgrim partner Hong Lun, had another surprise for me at work. Since both of us usually cook and prepare something for the lunch break at work, we also eat together. So on my birthday, without me knowing it, he cook for me. Since it was lunch time, he couldn't bake cake (we are further missing any oven), so he made お好み焼き Okonomiyaki. Since you usually add mayonnaise on top, he used it to write Happy Birthday (see picture!).
That's so cute! My whole day was great, because of this :). Since it was quite large we ate and enjoyed it together ^=^

鏡餅 Kagamimochi (New Year Mochi)



Finally 里美さん Satomi-san, a really nice coworker of me and Hong Lun, who often joins us for lunch and also brings self-cooked stuff, gave me yet another present at work. After 正月 (New Year holiday) she brought some 鏡餅 to work, which we enjoyed together. 餅 Mochi is a very sticky meshed rice paste, which you can eat with something sweet like Anko (sweet bean paste). Because I liked it a lot and because she noticed me using natural ingredients for my lunch (e.g. 玄米 genmai Natural Rice), she gave me something very special. 玄米餅 Mochi made from natural rice. They are incredible healthy and have a lot more taste than 白米餅 white rice mochi. Really nice =D

人形劇 Puppet Theater



Not enough I also got something from a special friend who studied with me in Germany. The day after the 遍路 pilgrimage, I decided to take a half-day holiday to recover some strength. As Fortuna blessed me, just at this day came a real packet for me right to my door! (Getting it yourself would have been quite a nuisance) It contained a complete set of a puppet theater with Kasperl, the thief, the crocodile, the grandmother, the king and queen, the witch, the wizard, the ghost and the fool. All to be played with finger (finger puppets). I was so surprised and touched, that I can't put it in words! That's probably the most romantic present I have ever gotten =D

音楽と物語 Music and Fairy Tales

Before my birthday I already got two very nice presents from two other very dear friends. Two music cds with self designed covers and a little tape with a wonderful story of a little king. For the tape I got to a second hand store and got their last ancient Walkman, which they had.They thought they'd never sell it. Then I got home, put in batteries, plugged in ear plugs, hid below my blanket in my bed. And listened to the story already half dreaming...
dwelling in dreams...

Thank you all my wonderful friends! I love all of you by heart! Please feel hugged by me how ever far you might be away!

your friend eternally
mika

追伸 P.S.
In preparation for the pilgrimage, we went to a cool store called "workman's store". In short that means high quality cloths (resistant to work conditions) for a very low price. So I got this 80s outfit for 2000 Yen (12 Euro) and came with a fit hair style ^^





ok ok the sock-shoes don't fit, I know.