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Mixed Plate Friday (Japan)

Dec19

Another Hawaii related sighting! Blue Water Shrimp! Did I try it? No. I don’t even eat here when I’m home lol. The prices aren’t horrendous but pretty expensive for Japan.

Grape Sorbet Balls | Cup of Ice | Mitsuya Cider

Yes, yes, yes! This is one of the social media trends I wanted to try the most! Add the sorbet balls to the cup and pour in some mitsuya cider…mix it all up and this is what it looks like. It’s super good, super sweet. I loved the taste of it though! If they ever bring these grape sorbet balls to Hawaii, I suggest you try it!

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Snoopy Museum Tokyo – Machida, Japan

Dec17

We always come to check out the Snoopy Museum when we’re in Tokyo. We came two years ago and they were under renovation so we were excited to come back to check it out! We were hoping it would mean a bigger gift shop but shucks, it wasn’t! If anything, I felt like the gift shop was smaller and had less to offer this time around. Boo. If you like Peanuts and can make it out to Kawagoe, I would highly suggest the Snoopy Village there. SO MUCH stuff.

Not much else to post on today, just check out the pictures below!

We’ve only come during Christmas time so I haven’t ever experienced the museum in non-Christmas mode. I really enjoy Christmas so I am okay to keep seeing it in this way!

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Mixed Plate Friday (Japan)

Dec12

Saiboku

Saiboku was such a cute town with its pork restaurants and grocery stores! Unfortunately we did not get to try any of the pork products during this trip, we just did a quick walkthrough before heading to a shrine and then off to Kawagoe. I would definitely like to return to try out their products!

Sayama Cha Cola

Chan’s friend got this for us. They were told that this area was known for the sayama cha cola (green tea mixed with cola). I’m not usually a big fan of green tea so I wasn’t too sure about this. Well let me just say, I tried it a few days later in the hotel room and freaking loved it. It wasn’t too sweet and had just the right amount of carbonation. I liked it a lot, Chan didn’t love it as much as me which meant I could have the rest of his bottle. A win is a win.

Time to buy some cloting. LOL, not as much funny Engrish signs this time around.

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Mixed Plate Friday (Japan)

Dec5

Do you peep what I peep on a walk through Shin-Okubo in Japan?

Funny yeah?? I don’t know who this belongs to but it was fun to see a bit of home in Japan like this.

Every time I saw this company’s signage, I had to take a picture and send it to my friends to tell them this was their communication style. I never even looked up what they do lol.

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Off to Japan…

Nov7

As you read this, I should be on my way to Japan. Another chance to make beautiful memories with Chan in one of our favorite places to travel. Our fear this trip is if the local Japanese people will hate us since we are foreigners and some foreigners are not doing us any favors with their bad behavior in Japan!

As always, feel free to follow me on instagram. I will be posting stories daily of our adventures! So excited for this trip, I am super burnt out from work and just life in general so I need this breather. Short blog vacay, see you folks soon!

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Mixed Plate Friday

Oct31

Pileus Cloud
(If this photo is yours, please let me know so I can credit you)

Not much of a mixed plate today, just a bit of storytelling. About a year ago, I went to a conference and was speaking with a fellow attendee who is originally from China. Part of our introduction assignment was to discuss the origin of our names. I have never asked or been told about the origins of my Chinese name. My English name, yes. My parents did not know English and asked either the doctor or a friend to name me and were given the name Jenny.

Anyway, the Chinese colleague I was seated next to was so warm and genuine that I felt inclined to ask her about my name. I’ve had a complicated relationship with Chinese people, a lot of my family members are directly from China and I have been treated quite poorly in my upbringing which has brought a hesitancy to talk to or be nice to other Chinese people in fear of getting hurt like I have in the past. Anyway, I wrote my Chinese name out for her in Chinese and she diligently started up looking the characters to find the meaning.

Soon, she told me it meant little cloud which was amazing to me because I just never assumed my name had any meaning (much like Jenny). Then something told me to look up my mom’s name and asked her to look it up as well. I forget the exact meaning of my mom’s name but it is associated with clouds as well which really touched me, that I was called little cloud after my mom.

Now about a year later, I got asked about the origins of my name again but decided to do the googling on my own. I looked up the name myself and pulled up pileus cloud. Do you see that image on the top of this post? Apparently the iridescent pileus cloud occurred in China, isn’t it just such a majestic sight? I feel so creatively charged when I think about this image and my name’s connection. I think about how much thought and consideration was taken in coming up with my name. The meaning is so deep. I do hope I have a chance of seeing an iridescent pileus cloud in person one day. Something about my name now brings me such a heartwarming feeling. If you don’t know the origins of your name, I do hope you go out and find it. You could be very pleasantly surprised like I was.

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Mixed Plate Friday

Oct24

I don’t know the rules about this but it’s okay, I took a picture of the flowers I placed for my mother’s memorial day. Actually, Chan paid for the flowers so it was from him. Aren’t they pretty? Always such a nice day when I go to visit when it’s not raining – what I don’t like is that it is so close to the Byodo-In Temple so I have to be around all the tourist parking hassles.

Lego Lei

Look at the beautiful lei my friend made for me for my birthday! Isn’t it so beautiful? I knew he would be able to create this kine stuff all on his own. Lego leis were a trend this past graduation season and I would love to learn how to make it myself. I got many compliments when I wore this lei. It’s a beautiful lei and it’s a forever lei – I think more people should make and sell these leis! Moreso my friend because he has such good taste in how he makes them.

Japchae

Chan’s Mom made japchae and it is absolutely one of my favorite dishes ever from her. I got to basically keep the entire container and I was ecstatic, it’s the best I have ever tasted! So lucky…

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Mixed Plate Friday

Oct10

Fat Pig Fried Rice | $10.95
bacon, kalua pig, portuguese sausage, scrambled egg

Had a quick breakfast at Yogurstory and you can’t go wrong with the fat pig fried rice. I must be getting old because oh man was this dish salty. I really prefer blander foods now other than spicy (ha!). It was very good but I always forget how the dish comes and find myself asking where the portuguese sausage is. It’s just chopped up as part of the fried rice! Duh! Anyway, good dish but like I said…salty and probably get MSG.

Garlic Shrimp Spaghetti | $14.25
including 2 pc garlic bread

Mini Cold Ginger Chicken (all rice) | $9.89

Back at Lucky Box Restaurant again – can’t go wrong with their food. Tried a new dish this time, the garlic shrimp spaghetti. How was it? Good. It’s just garlic shrimp scampi on spaghetti noodles and well, the noodles are a bit bloated because I think they pre-cook it and just throw it into hot water again to warm them up for orders, so yeah…not at all al dente. That’s okay with me though, I like noodles in all shapes, sizes and textures. The garlic shrimp tasted good. And the cold ginger chicken? Well nothing new there, still good as always. I think I like their cold ginger sauce the most of all that I’ve tried. I am pretty sure they add garlic to it too which makes it lip smacking good. Love it!

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Mixed Plate Friday

Sep26

Spicy Peanuts | $17.69

I thought I planned out the perfect Costco trip. I took my car in to get my tires rotated and they gave me a 1.5 – 2 hour time frame. I sat in the food court and read my book for a little bit, then as the last hour crept up, I went in to order my contacts and then do my shopping. Well, I certainly took my time walking the aisles this day. It was also crazy that it was way busier at 3 something than at 5 something. What? Are people not working? Anyway, long shopping trip means I buy stuff I don’t need. This is one of the things…but it’s good! It comes with 3 medium sized packs inside! Kind of spicy – it has like a mala flavor. Oh by the way, it took almost 3 hours for my car to be done. It’s complete madness.

Honolulu Okazuya Company Kettled Cooked Products

I saw these in the frozen section of Don Quijote the other week. Have any of you tried this? I was quite intrigued. Get “naporitan” pasta, teriyaki yaki-udon and yakisoba noodle. These are all fully cooked, just heat and eat kine. It says they are all small batch and kettle cooked – just throw the whole bag in boiling water for 20(!) minutes and then you can serve it up. I wonder how it is. and don’t let the name fool you, it’s actually a Japanese company.

Tangle Garlic Oil Pasta

Yes, the continuing saga. I got the garlic oil version as a cup noodle and tried it at work. It was better than the bulgogi flavor but not great. I followed instructions for water measurement and placed it in the microwave – it completely overflowed into the microwave enough though I barely had water inside. It was okay but not great.

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Mixed Plate Friday

Sep19

Tangle Bulgogi Alfredo Pasta

This is the newest trend in instant noodles from Korea. It’s pasta but not really cause it looked like ramen noodles to me lol. And man I should have known since it said alfredo that due to my previous experience (anything cheesy or creamy in Korean cuisine is sweet), it was sweet. I did not enjoy it. I also added the exact amount of water they told me to add and it came out as like a soup and not like a pasta dish. They tout high protein in these noodles and get other flavors too, give it a try! They sell it at Don Quijote.

Another trend I saw on TikTok – just combining Kraft Mac and Cheese and Shin Ramyun. I didn’t realize I was making this an instant noodle mixed plate today. But yeah, I bought this mac and cheese thing just to try it.

It was definitely better than I expected but you could just make a regular shin ramyun and add sliced cheese on top. I used to put Kraft’s American Cheese on top – that was good and similar to this.

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