Wednesday Bento: Elmo and Cookie Monster

Another quick and easy one!!!

Elmo: Rice ball with tomato ketchup, sliced cheese, nori, carrot

Cookie monster: Rice ball with green furikake, sliced cheese, nori

Croquette

Cucumber,

Mini tomatoes

Iyoukan (Japanese big orange)

February Flower Arrangement

I had my flower arrangement class again yesterday. This time I had to work with L style arrangement. Hina Matsuri is coming, so momo no hana (peach blossom) was the highlight. I really enjoyed the session and am happy with the result.

I also tried to rearrange the bouquet I got from Hiro on my birthday :p

Our tiny living room smells really good now. Love it!!

How I miss my flower garden in Sorowako!!!

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 (^___^)

One day ski/snowboarding trip

We went to Mt. Jeans in Nasu, Tochigi area, Japan yesterday. Oh well, Iki actually still had pretty bad cough but he (and Hiro) really wanted to ski that the season almost comes to the end.

Iki is getting better skiing. He really loves it and started to say irritating things while waiting for me (like:"you're so slow, mom!"), or even tried to teach me how to snowboard! Ha! Let's wait until you try snowboarding, young man!!

I wished I could learn as fast as a kid could. I am still working hard on my snowboarding skill. Have to practice a lot to turn. I fell down for so many times that my whole body is aching now -don't ask about my rib. Yes, it's still painful (>.<)- I'm running out of time (and money haha!) this year, but I hope I could make it by the end of winter!

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! ;-)

Mie Bancir

I spent my childhood at a small town in Borneo island: Banjarmasin and this food is one of my favorite childhood memory. Bancir literary means transsexual, and I think this meal is named because of its appearance. It only has a little bit soup, so can't really said as noodle soup or stir fry noodle. The ingredients were stir fried a bit and then boiled in a little bit soup.

I got this recipe from my grandmother. But instead of using chinese noodle, I used udon (because it was the only noodle I could find in my fridge). It surprisingly tasted very good. Very very good! hmmmmm

Wednesday Bento: Nyasu (pokemon character)

Iki had fever yesterday and didn't go to school so I thought today he would take another day off and have a rest at home - means I didn't have to make the Wednesday Bento. But he was fine in the morning and really wanted to go to school! (>.<)

He requested this Pokemon Character obento and I started making it pretty late. But well....at least it looks like a cat LOL (sorry, Iki :p)

Inside:

Nyasu: Plum rice ball, omelette, sliced cheese, ham, nori

Potato croquettes

Boiled Broccoli

Strawberry

Rib pain

I got severe right rib pain after falling down on a hard snow during
snowboarding last Sunday. I thought it's just bruised but this morning
the pain is getting worse....

Want to have it checked by X-ray but can't go to doctor today. Iki got
high fever so he is on his bed the whole day, can't possibly leave him
alone.

I'm trying anti inflammatory cream and let's see if it could help.
Arghh....hope I didn't break my rib!!! I'm in snowboarding mode now
and plan to take snowboard lesson this weekend....... (_ _o)

Sent from my iPhone

To the top!!

We did it!

I still had hangover from drinking with my girlfriends the night before, but we went to the top of the mountain together, the three of us. It was incredible!

Japan is surely getting warmer now. It's only february but the snow is wet already. It's even melted on my snowboard. This makes Hiro wants to go ski every weekend.....

Girls night out

Boy it was fun! We went out last Saturday night and the fathers took care of the kids. We had a lot of parties in the afternoon, but drinking outside at night is definitely different.

We ate Kushiage at Nezu. One of my friend is moving to Jakarta and she really wanted to eat it. In that specific restaurant. It was my first time to eat it, and it was really good!!

Then we went back to our station, and drank at the bar in front of it until 1.30 am. Nearby our house so that we could crawl back home if we were too drunk haha!

It was a good fun.....Hope we could do it again :p

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

Winter Camping

Yes, we did it last weekend. I still think that we were crazy!

We were hungry when we arrived at the Regina forest campsite in Fukushima Perfecture, but before we could start making fire, we still had to clean away snow! What an exercise!

For the first time in my life, I felt like cooking in a freezer. All the leftover food turned into ice the next day, even my liquid dish washing detergent LOL

It was cold cold cold, that I thought I wouldn't survive

Eventhough Hiro and Iki had so much fun making this happy snowman :)

Hot black coffee was a luxurious treat

Thanks God we didn't have to stay in a tent!! Hiro rented this igloo shaped comfortable cabin for us spending the night

But it was fun. Once in a lifetime experience....O N C E in a life time....!!! (could it be only once, Hiro?! :p)