6 Years!

So it's been 6 years! I can't believe it's been 6 years. I feel like I really lost track of time!

It's almost like an ordinary day for us. With SLOPPY me served the still floury pancake for breakfast; burnt baguette and still too hard veggies for dinner's side dish, and tasteless and uncooked roasted chicken for our supposed to be main anniversary dinner :p. A lot of eeww and yuck - as always, but they (hiro and Iki) understood anyway. After all these 6 years, things are still the same and I'm afraid will remain the same for the next hmmm 20 years? :p

It's been 6 years. 6 Years of ups and downs; and burnt or tasteless or too salty food. But it was our day today and we are glad that we've been together these 6 whole years.....

Hinamatsuri-kai

March 3 is Hinamatsuri in Japan. Iki's school entrance was beautifully decorated by hinamatsuri decoration made by the children

Then on the following Friday my friend invited me for a hinamatsuri lunch

We ordered the gorgeous lunch box. I don't have a daughter but I feel lucky to be able to celebrate this beautiful tradition with them

Especially when surprisingly the dessert baked was a late celebration for my birthday!

Thank you, girls! I enjoy my life in Japan so much because of all of you too!!

A year older!

And I am a year older yesterday. Am still small, with more and more wrinkles around my eyes, dropping boobs and bums, and a lot more fat here and there. Around waist, arms, thigh, and neck. Ah yeahh...I'm a tante tante now LOL

But I am blessed and happy with my life (^____^)

I had mie bancir for my Indonesian tradition birthday noodle, as a wish for a long life. Oh no....I used udon noodle!! Could I be as fat as udon too....?! (@_@)

Hiro brought home this beautiful bouquet.

And a supper yummy birthday cake. He decorated it with Iki :p

We had this very easy but delicious pork belly and chinese cabbage nabe (hot pot) with camembert cheese. It was surprisingly a good pairing to red wine!

Birthday present? I requested a diamond necklace, so Iki made me necklace with diamond shape cut papers as decoration LOL

And again the birthday wishes from family and friends really made my big day!!! Thank you!

Valentine's day

Valentine's day is a bit different in Japan. Here only women give presents (generally chocolates) to express their feeling. And the men are supposed to return the gift (= the feeling) on the White Day (March 14).

I invited my girlfriends to have chocolate fondue at home at that day. I ate too much chocolate that I swore myself not to eat it for at least 2 weeks :p

This year for the first time Iki got a chocolate gift from a girl. Yes, she was the girl he kissed last time hahaha

And this is my heart to my two men :)

I love you two (^___^)

Mt. Takao

We went to Ukai Toriyama Restaurant in Mt. Takao last Friday to congratulate Iki's cousin who successfully passed the examination to enter private junior high school. It was a very hard work for her to be able to enter her dream school and we are really proud that she could make it!

It is a beautiful restaurant with large Japanese style garden. This was the view from our room:

The food was good too. We chose chicken menu that day and everybody were happily stuffed. I fell in love with the Japanese sake too that day :p. It's pretty pricey though. It costed us 800 usd for 8 people's lunch (+alcohol)

I am interested to see the view in spring, though! ;-)

Setsubun

February 3 is Setsubun here in Japan. This year Iki knew a lot more about it from school so he was pretty excited.

We tried Kansai area's setsubun tradition to eat ehomaki, an uncut sushi roll, eaten in silence facing the yearly lucky compass direction. It was very hard for talkative Iki to eat without talking, and God it was the quietest dinner ever!! This year's lucky direction is South South East, but stupid me, wrongly read the compass. We ate our lucky roll facing the opposite direction: north north west!!!! I hope luck won't go away from us this year!!

Then we did the Mamemaki tradition, this time Iki was the Oni (devil)

And we threw beans in every room in this house to bring in good luck.

By the end of the day, there were beans all over the floor!!

And this was last wednesday's Bento. To celebrate setsubun!

Oni (devil): rice with tomato ketchup, cheese, carrot, spinach

Japanese croquettes

Quail eggs

Strawberries

Roasted beans

Oshogatsu (New Year)

New Year (oshogatsu) is the most important holiday in Japan. Holiday usually starts from 29 December - 3 January and most businesses are closed during that period. New Year is the time to gather with family and travelling from/to big cities could be a nightmare, as it is extremely expensive and crowded.

On 26th December, people usually change all the Christmas decoration with new year decoration, which are made by pine, bamboo, and plum trees. And inside the house, there is also a kagami mochi to welcome New Year.

People (read: Housewives!) clean the whole house before New Year (Osouji = big cleaning up). Such a hardwork for me, God I miss my maid in Sorowako, Maria during those awful time! But Iki helped me this time, cleaning the sofas and the whole carpets. Thanks, my boy!

On New Year's eve, people eat buckwheat noodle (soba) as a symbol of long life

The sunrise of the first day of the year is pretty important. Most people get up early, some go to higher buildings or mountains, or beach area for better view. Last year we had the first sunrise from our boat on the lake, such a beautiful once in a lifetime experience! This year? All of us were up late :p

The New Year meal is Ozouni, soup with toasted mochi on top. Ozouni varies based on each location in japan, and clear chicken soup broth is the based soup in our house.

It is eaten together with Osechi Ryori, a traditional Japanese New Year food, beautifully presented in a two or three layered traditional box.

I learnt to make this complicated meal in Sorowako last year from Mariko and Miwa, was actually tempted to buy the ready made from the store, but at last put myself into trouble and made them!!! I actually just finished preparing those food and took a bath just before 2010 changed into 2011!

But I am really satisfied and proud of myself (^___^). The pre-ordered Osechi is very expensive. One box cost like 200-500 USD!

There is tradition to visit temple and pray during the first three days of the year. I don't know when will we do it as temples would be full of people during those period. I think Hiro will just wait until the third week :p

2010 was a great year for us. It is our first whole 4 seasons living in Japan. I got a lot of new experiences and friends; and enjoyed every minute of it. I am so excited to welcome 2011, with whatever waiting for us there (^___^)

Happy New Year, friends. Hope 2011 will be a super year for you too!

Happy Birthday, Iki-chan!!

My boy is finally turned 5 today. Yesterday we had party with families, and Iki was very happy to have his grandparents and cousins coming. I didn't take pictures at all :(, as a host I was really really busy preparing the food and making sure everything run smoothly.

We had roasted chicken and cheese fondue as the main food, with octopus tomato salad and christmas tree ham as side dish.

And this is the birthday/christmas cake.

Today we just had a quiet day. Ate sekihan, Japanese red bean rice for breakfast to celebrate birthday and buckwheat noodle (soba) for dinner. Soba is usually eaten on New Year eve in Japan as a symbol of longevity meanwhile eating noodle during birthday for Indonesian has the same meaning too!

He is showered with presents this month. Both for Christmas and birthday. Looking at his room, I don't think I will buy him anymore toys until next December!

He loves mini lego now and can build things following the instruction book already. And this is him making Newton Telescope (with papa-chan's help!), his birthday present from papa.

Happy 5th birthday my boy (^___^)

Christmas Ski

We went to Zao, an onsen area in northern Japan last weekend. Ski season just started last week, so Hiro thought it would be a great way to spend Christmas skiing instead of camping!

At first Iki was excited and followed papa-chan instruction

Well then again, the drama began. Papa-chan got angry and Iki-chan started to cry

Papa-chan walked away.... and everyone felt bad.

So at last we just put him into the ski school. He loved it, wanted to learn ski more, but not from papa-chan. He wants to learn only from the ski school now (>.<).

Anyway both papa-chan and Iki-chan had a good time skiing. And me....just waiting while watching the snowfall and eating a lot of high calorie snacks (@_@).

At least I had fun playing with Iki

while papa-chan had to clean the car from the snow LOL

It was a beautiful day afterall. A beautiful white Christmas (^_^)

Merry Christmas, hope yours' are as beautiful as ours

Tanjoubi-kai

Or birthday party :)

Winter holiday will start next week, so we held birthday party for Iki last Tuesday. As he gets older, it is impossible to have party for him right on his birthday. No friends would come for a birthday party on December 31st!!

Iki requested Transformer Bumblebee birthday cake, which I thought was impossible to make at first!

Lazy me then just brought ready made sponge cake, made a round hole on the surface and filled it in with chocolate whipped cream and chopped mixed nuts.

Then worked on the robot's shapes using marsmallow fondant. It was fun actually, I felt like playing with edible playdough

Even Papa-chan also helped to draw the red trasnformer mark. Because according to Iki, that tiny complicated mark was so important (@_@)

And here it is. Transformer Bumblebee cake..

He loved it, everyone loved it

My boy will be five by the end of this year (^___^).

F I V E!!!

Sichi Go San (7-5-3)

Sichi Go San is one of Japan's important festival to celebrate the children's growth at the age of three (boys and girls), five (for boys), and seven (for girls). The festival itself actually is on November fifteen, but now parents can choose whatever date around November and early December to celebrate it.

Iki will turn 5 next month so we decided to celebrate his Sichi Go San this year. We don't know when will we be next Autumn and his grandparents really wanted to make it this year. So we had it last Sunday on November 14.

The festival have started from Heian Period (794-1185, when the Nobles celebrate their children growth in November. Now every parents can celebrate this festival to their children, by visiting the shrines and have prayers through small ceremonies by the priest. Don't you think that those priests are so young??

We went to a shrine nearby Iki's grandparents' house. Where Hiro also had his Sichi Go San festival when he was a little boy. At first I had no clue what is the difference between shrine and temple. It's the red gate. Shrine has this red gate!

It was believed that at the age of three children can start growing their hair, at the age of five the boys can wear hakama (Traditional cloth for boys) for the first time, and at the age of seven the girls can wear obi around the kimono for the first time. Parents and grandparents also dressed formally to visit the shrines. Most mothers wear Kimono but nowadays a lot of families just wear formal western style clothing, also the children celebrating the Sichi Go San. I guess it is more comfortable than the traditional clothes and less pricey! Iki wanted to take the hakama off already after three minutes he was dressed, and those hakama and kimono renting costed a fortune!!! trust me, it was a thousand dollar festival. Thanks God, we only have one boy. Girls would definitely cost more hahaha

After the ceremony Iki got a bag with chitose ame (thousand years candy), omamori (lucky charm) and a small sichi go san cup. The candy is in long stick shape and all came in a paper bag illustrated with turtle and cranes as a symbol of long live.

Iki's grandmother cooked Sekihan (red bean rice) to celebrate it, and we had a photo session in a studio too

Iki-chan sayang, Sichi Go San omedetou! (^___^)

Happy Birthday, Papa-chan

I seriously don't want to remember your age haha!

A very happy birthday, honey. Sorry for the burnt cake, it was supposed to be a campground anyway ;-)

Tooooo bad Iki got fever that we couldn't have your birthday camping this weekend. But we did celebrate it with a little tent and campfire yesterday (^___^)

Campground: baked cheese cake

Tent: store bought castella

The lazy pig: snow balls

Campfire: pretz with caramel chips around

(and two little candles in the middle)

Happy Wedding

We have two celebrations in a year. One is for our marriage in May and the other one is for the wedding party in September. I just realized that I've never wrote anything about our wedding in Surabaya, too busy, I guess :p.

It was a small, beautiful and unforgettable one :) and I love this shot from the party when the girls tried to catch my bouquet.

I completely forgot the September one this year, can't believe I did!

Until we finished our dinner last week on Sept 2, and opened the dessert papa-chan brought home that day!

Thank you, Papa-chan!!!

Rakuyaki

Raku-yaki (楽焼), or Raku ware, is a type of Japanese pottery that is traditionally and primarily used in the Japanese tea ceremony in Japan, most often in the form of tea bowls. It is traditionally characterized by hand-molding of the clay as opposed to turning it on a potter's wheel, resulting in each piece being "one-of-a-kind"; low firing temperatures (resulting in a fairly porous body); leadglazes; and the removal of pieces from the kiln while still glowing hot. In the traditional Japanese firing process, the fired Raku piece is removed from the hot kiln and put directly into water or allowed to cool in the open air - Ibu Wikipedia

During our trip to Kaminoyama onsen last week Iki tried to paint on the raku ware, as a surprise father's day present for his grandfather.

At first he drew Jiji's face on a small raku plate.

Then he seriously painted it. Jiji was drinking beer during dinner so his face was red.

He drew himself on the back of the plate and signed it with his name

Jiji was really happy when Iki gave it to him the next day (^_____^)