Korean food by native Korean

This is my first time to try some real Korean food cooked by native Korean. I am very fortunate to be staying in a BnB hosted by this gorgeous Korean GoEun in Belgium. It’s super yummy!

PS to GoEun: The noodles on the table were only half done and I was thinking to finish the rest when I woke up. Why did you chuck them away while I was sleeping??  😦

Mission for today:

You need these ingredients:

 

Chop the cucumber and pear into slices but do not cook them. You’re supposed to eat them raw. Cut the beef into slices as well.

Fry the beef:

 

Put everything on top of the noodles:

They’re so yummy!! Thank you very much GoEun! 🙂

 

Haagen Daz for lunch in school

This is probably one of the richest and most valuable school lunch I have ever had in my life! With 230yen, you get your regular Japanese lunch plus a Haagen Daz strawberry flavoured ice-cream, which costs roughly the same if you get it in supermarket.

You can tell how yummy it is from how much she is enjoying it 🙂

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3 years ago today, Japan experienced one of the most devastating earthquake in decent decade. Hundreds of thousands people lost their homes, life, suffered from the aftermath of earthquake. Everyone stops their things and pray at 2.46 pm. The flags were flown at half mast.

Fireworks!

As I said 2 weeks ago, the odds that you will bump into a festival when you come to Japan in summer are quite high. One of them is fireworks shows. There are fireworks shows in almost every town in Japan over the summer holiday period between June and August. Wanna play fireworks yourself instead of watching? Unlike many other countries, it is legal to play with fireworks in Japan. It also explains why you will see shops put out loads of fireworks products in this time.

Festivals 祭り

If you are planning to come to Japan in summer, you may bump into a festival one day on the street. Different kinds of summer festivals have been going in different parts of Japan. I came across with one in my town 2 weeks ago and another  one yesterday in Utsunomiya.

It was so crowded!

 

Wanna try your luck? Here is another way out except for lottery – Goldfish scooping!

One round for 300yen. They will give you 2 fish as souvenirs even if you can’t catch any in the end.

 

Fireworks festival in my town 2 weeks ago:

 

吉祥寺 Kichijoji、西荻窪Nishi-Ogikubo-雑貨zakka continued

We talked about zakka last month. While this time, the topic is still the same – 雑貨zakka, yet we change the location from 自由が丘 Jiyugaoka to吉祥寺Kichijoji and 西荻窪 Nishi-Ogikubo. Hope you like the photos I took last week in these two places.

Once you get out from the JR station, we will see these shopping arcades. One of them is called SunRoad.

SunRoad south entrance:

North entrance:

What a big floor plan (of SunRoad) hanging up on the wall!

 

After asking the staff at the tourist counter, I was told that there are two streets on which zakka are most concentrated. One is Nakamichi Dori,中道通り one is NishiibashiDori　七井橋通り.

 

Chinese restaurant

Some of my girlfriends told me they wanted to find a studio to take some Kimono 着物 (traditional Japanese clothing, as below) photos. Here is one you can try. Just 4725yen, including someone helping you wear your Kimono and setting your hair! If you go with your darling, it costs only 6300yen for two people. What a bargin!

Loads of people take their cats and dogs for a stroll.

Luck draw in front of a department store:

BookOff – the largest second hand book chain in Japan. http://www.bookoff.co.jp

Seiyu 西友 department store. It’s an old one so it’s not as well lit and clean as other department stores. You may skip it if time doesn’t allow.

Freebies are everywhere in the street these days in Japan. This time, soul has become free too!

Tokyu Department Store 東急　www.tokyu-dept.co.jp/：

Yodobashi ヨドバシ – the biggest electric chain in Japan http://www.yodobashi.co.jp

Bumped into a boxing school while I was walking from Kichijoji吉祥寺 to NishiOgikubo西荻窪. The first time in my life to see such a school on ground level! Amazed!

 

A pool for children to play with water and it’s free~!

Don’t be mistaken. Kinokuniya 紀伊国屋is not confined to bookstores本屋. This Kinokuniya紀伊国屋 is actually a supermarket.

Summer hibernation

It’s been over 35 degree for most of the days this week in the Tokyo region. Cases of people die of heat stroke come up on news almost every day. It’s particularly hard for those who work and study at school (ie. teachers and students) as there is no air-conditioner in most of the schools in Japan. Plus, there are few fans installed in each classroom. If you are not from east Asia, you may not understand why everyone’s screaming hell, it’s only 35 degrees anyway.

The situation in Japan and other south Asian countries are very different from those in the United States, and even Africa. There is a teacher from Africa who said that, though he is from the country where temperature is much higher than that in Japan, he finds in more difficult to cope with the heat in Japan than in Africa because of the lack of open space so air is trapped in a small, enclosed area without proper ventilation.  The summer in Japan is not only hot, but humid, very humid to the extent that your tops and pants keep sticking to your skin, making you feeling really uncomfy. You will find yourself out of breath if you stay in a small area with a lot of people. Also, unlike other countries where open space is much more available than the number of people, Japan is quite a crowded country and houses are built right next to each other. Also, due to lack of space, buildings and structures are designed to accommodate more people per unit of area. Open space is really limited, particularly in or near Tokyo region.

So, unlike last summer, I have decided to hibernate this time– simply staying in my room as much as I can and not going anywhere.

Google voice search

Voice search isn’t something new. It’s been out on the market for a while, yet it’s been mainly restricted to leading mobile devices such as iPhone and Blackberry.

Now, if you’ve got the latest version of Google Chrome, you can do a voice search on your computer as well by visiting Google.com with your Chrome browser.

Why use it?

This is a question for many people. Yes, why do you have to use voice search instead of typing it out? Firstly, it provides a convenient way to search if you speak faster than you type. Also, if you’re not sure how to spell your search term, such as ‘aisle’ [I sometimes have to check the dictionary to be honest], you can say it and the word will be typed out for you and the result will be displayed! Easy isn’t it?

How to use it?

Simply open the Chrome browser and go to http://www.google.com/. You’ll see a small gray microphone on the right-hand side of the search box. Click on it and say your search term. That’s it!

Spoken Answers

If you ask your question to Google on Chrome, the answer can be spoken to you. The answer can be a fact, weather condition, stock price, flight status, sports score, currency conversion, mathematical calculation, and more. If you’re a high school student, you will find this feature really great in helping you finish your homework! Shuuu!!!!

HMV – His Master’s Voice

News came yesterday as this historical giant CD chain seeks insolvency protection across the world.

Whether HMV will be successful in getting a buyer is still an unknown, yet its items have been on big sale these days is the truth. Can’t wait to get a steal? Hit their online store by visiting http://www.hmv.com

What really grabs my attention is not its possible closure, but the logo its been using, featuring a cute dog listening to music on a gramophone. I found out later that HMV is not the only one using a logo with such features, others as well, including the well-known Japanese brand JVC.

Do you think who is copying who?

RCA logo

HMV logo

JVC logo

Are you lack of sleep?

How many hours do you sleep over the holiday period, say, Christmas?

I usually make it 8-9 hours these days.

Do you think she needs more? But wait! You gotta finish your work by the end of the lesson!

Obvisouly, she has learned how to do it in her dreams 🙂