Shabuyou Date Night

The other night, Peter and I went out on a hot date to the adult session of stake conference.  Just kidding.  Well, not about about the stake conference, but about the hot part.  That actually came later . . . at the shabu shabu restaurant, Shabuyou, we went to!  (Get your mind out of the gutter!)  Shabu shabu is also sometimes known as "hot pot."  It's where you have a pot of boiling soup and you throw veggies and very thinly sliced pieces of meat into it to cook.  The cooking (of the meat especially) goes very quickly, in fact the name shabu shabu is said to mimic the sound of dipping your meat into the broth back and forth, and then, just like that, it's cooked!

GPS Coordinates:

35.722736, 139.373468

Dohton Bori - Okonomiyaki Restaurant

This last weekend we went out for okonomiyaki (which is like a vegetable and meat pancake) here in Fussa.  We've made okonomiyaki at home in the past--it's super easy!  But, we had never gone out to an okonomiyaki restaurant before.  It was delicious and fun, although I don't think we'll be doing it with young kids again any time soon!  Or, at the very least, without a squirmy almost toddler in tow.  Bennett tried too hard too often to touch the burning hot griddle in the center of our table!

Aside from keeping Bennett from burning his chubby little hands, it was a fun experience.  After choosing what type of okonomiyaki you'd like, they serve it to you in a bowl like this:

Once you get your bowl of ingredients, you stir it up really well, being sure to combine the egg so that it all sticks together and then just plop it on the griddle!  Pretty easy and very delicious!  We also ordered some gyoza and yakisoba for the kids.  They ate everything, but both kids seemed to like the okonomiyaki the best!  I love being here and exposing my kids to new foods--and it's even better when they surprise by liking it!

Dohton Bori is in Fussa, just a couple minutes from the base.

GPS Coordinates: 35.738075, 139.332645

Date Night at Sushi Kazu

For Peter's and my first date night in Japan, we went and got sushi.  Sushi is my very favorite food, and I had been dying to eat real, authentic sushi here in the Motherland.  So, upon a recommendation from one of Peter's coworkers who is from here, we ventured out to a place pretty close to base that was supposed to be fabulous.  We found the restaurant and walked in, only to find that every chair was filled.  The sushi chef apologized that there was no room and politely just waved us off.  Um, okay.  What do we do now???

We decided that another sushi restaurant had to be close by, so we started roaming the streets (poor Peter was carrying Bennett in the carseat the whole time, which is no small endeavor--that kid is heavy!) looking for a place to eat.  After about 20 minutes of walking and searching, we were about to give up as we reached the end of the street on which we were walking.  I saw a small restuarant-looking place, and peeked through the paper windows, and hooray!  I found a little sushi restaurant!  And by little, I mean very small.  Like 3 seats at the sushi counter and one table that could fit maybe 5 people.  And that's it.  It was a total mom and pop place, with pop as sushi chef, and mom as the server wearing traditional clothing with a white smock for working worn over her clothes.

After being seated, and ordering (we had the choice of two sushi combo platters--that was the entire menu!), we proceeded to eat THE BEST SUSHI OF OUR LIVES.  Seriously.  I don't really know what else to say.  The fish was perfect, and we were completely in awe as we watched the sushi chef make each roll.  That night set a pretty great precedent for our date nights in Japan!

(Please excuse the poorly-lit, poor-quality iPhone pictures--they really don't do it justice!)

Sushi Kazu

GPS Coordinates: 

35.742900, 139.329555

Tanabata Festival

We've only been in Japan for about three and a half weeks, yet we feel like we've been able to experience so much already!  It makes me excited for how much we will be able to do and see in the next three years.  Last week was the annual Tanabata Festival here in Fussa.  The festival is always centered right around the Fussa train station, and just blocks from base, giving us no other excuse than to go and participate in the festivities!

The streets were decorated with streamers and all sorts of festive paper creations.  Many people dress in traditional clothing for the festivals here, so it was fun to see so many different brightly colored kimonos up close.  AND THE FOOD!  So good.  Think of street food in New York or maybe carnival food and then bump the quality and taste up about 500 notches and you'll get street food at a Japanese festival!  Yakitori (meat on a stick), okonimiyaki (vegetable pancakes), karage (Japanese style fried chicken nuggets), pancake balls (no idea what the correct name is!), yakisoba (fried noodles), and all sorts of fish on a stick, just to name a few things.  And it's all so delicious.  

There were also a bunch of little carnival games for the kids and small toys for sale.  This was, of course, Will's favorite part of the festival.  

We love going to our local festival, but next time we go to a festival, you can count on Clara being dressed up!  Kawaii!!!

Making it in Japan

Konnichiwa!!!!  After a couple months, I'm back!  On the other side of the world!  And it's awesome!  And I'm wondering how many more short-exclamation-marked sentences I can make!

But really.  We're here and we're loving it.  After a super fun-filled two and a half weeks of visiting family in Utah and California, we began our trek to Japan.  And let me just say, moving to another country is CRAZY.  We sold both of our cars and a bunch of our stuff/older furniture, sent about 1/4 of our belongings to storage in the states, and then put all the rest of our belongings on a boat set for Japan (which still hasn't arrived btw, and it's been about 6 weeks).  Then we gathered our things that we'd actually be taking with us on the plane.  This consisted of 8 checked suitcases, 6 carry-on bags, 3 car seats, 1 pack 'n play, 1 rock n' play crib, and 1 stroller.  With this load, we left from LA and 10 hours later, landed in Tokyo, which was actually the next day!  The flight went waaaaay better than we had anticipated with the kids though.  However, none of us slept as much as we would have liked, so by the time we got here, especially with the time change, we were exhausted to say the least.

Once we arrived in Tokyo, we gathered our aforementioned belongings and hopped onto a big shuttle bus that drove us the 2 hours to Yokota Air Base and our new home away from home.  At that point, we checked into our temporary housing and immediately went to bed (it was around 9pm), only to all be wide awake and ready for the new day at 3:00am!  After about a week though, we all finally adjusted to the time change.  Kind of anyway.  Our kids are all still waking up between 5:30-6:00 each morning, but at least it's better than 3:00!

After a week in our temporary lodging, we moved into our house!!!  However, our household goods are still on a boat somewhere, so we're using loaner furniture and kitchen supplies.  To say we're anxious for our own things is an understatement!  But we're getting by and everything has really worked out pretty well so far, so I can't complain.  Here we are, on the day we moved into our lavish new home on base.  Nothing says home sweet home like a family picture in matching t-shirts!

I'd like to start a Japan travel and kids' guide here on the blog soon, so stay tuned.  In the meantime, check out the most delicious ramen EVER that we had on one of our first nights here:

 

We happened upon this tiny little mom and pops ramen shop a few minutes from base and it was awesome.  So, so delicious.  The owners (mom and pop) were so nice--they kept giving us things to try for free!  Like these little baby sardines and shrimps, which were surprisingly tasty.  They also gave us (no charge!) some of their homemade gyoza which I could seriously eat for every meal.  It was all so good and they were so nice, in fact, before we left, the owner offered to give us an entire frozen fish!  We politely declined, telling them we had no clue how to cook it, but it was so kind and generous of him!  And, then when we were leaving the mom (woman? wife? co-owner?  I'll stick with mom) grabbed some change and walked out to the paid parking lot with us and helped us figure out the machine to pay for our parking.  Seriously, the people here are beyond nice.  They are gracious and warm and helpful and kind.  I'm so glad for the opportunity to be and to experience this culture, and more importantly to expose my children to it!  I think it's going to be a wonderful 3 years.

Our Japanese Dinner

For Christmas, I got Peter the cookbook, Everyday Harumi, by Harumi Kurihara.  It's a beautiful Japanese cookbook that's meant to be used by people living anywhere, with access to a variety of vegetables and meats.  It has beautiful photographs and I love the design of the book and Harumi's instructions and commentary as well.

With Peter having the day off yesterday, we decided that it would be a good day to try a couple of recipes from his new cookbook.  So, this weekend, we sat down and went through the book to decide on a menu for tonight's meal.  We decided to make the Vegetable Salad with Miso Dressing and the Fried Shrimp with Breadcrumbs with homemade Ponzu Sauce.

The meal turned out delicious.  The miso dressing would normally be a touch sweet for my liking, but as a dressing to these blanched vegetables, it tasted really great.  I would say that our first attempt at trying recipes from Everyday Harumi was a success!

Our Japanese Market Favorites

I thought it might be fun to compile a list of our family's favorite Japanese (or Asian) market buys. With Peter being half Japanese, and also having served his mission for our church in Japan, we often try to incorporate some of his favorite meals and snacks into our regular routine. I know many of my friends and family also have favorite items that they get from their local Asian markets, so please, if you have any to add, please do!

Drinks:

1. Calpico, generically known as Calpis. This non-carbonated soft drink is sweet and has a slight yogurt-type feel (without being "thick"). It is delicious and is a definite favorite of my husband and kids!

2. Ramune. A very carbonated soft drink that comes in a variety of flavors, such as melon, lychee, peach, and many more. It's very sweet and fun to drink! I'll show you why:

The bottle is wrapped as shown above, with a glass ball suspended at the top right under the plastic cover and wrapping. Once you take off the plastic wrapper, you'll have a little plastic tool.

Take the small tool out of the perforated round part and set it atop the bottle.

Then, with quite a bit of force, slam the tool down, so that it forces the glass ball into the neck portion of the bottle. (Don't be afraid to really smack it!)

If you can see in the above picture, the ball is now sitting in the indented space. As you drink, be sure to keep this side down so the ball will stay put and not inhibit your soda from being able to come out the top. (Make sure to take the tool out of the top of the bottle before drinking!) See, fun!!! Right??? Kind of silly, but very novel and fun for kids or at parties. Last year, in addition to sparkling apple juice, we bought Ramunes for the whole family to enjoy on New Year's Eve. These are perfect for special occasions!

Rice and Noodles:

1. Nori, also known as seaweed. We love to eat handfuls of rice wrapped in nori. Or, for a fun snack or lunch meal, we'll make onigiri (Recipes here and here. We like to put tuna mixed with a little mayo inside of ours).

2. Furikake, or rice seasoning. This comes in many different flavors, such as fish, vegetable, or different meat flavors. Below is a vegetable flavor. We just sprinkle this on top of our plain white or brown rice to give it a little flavor, as well as a nice presentation. You can also adorn your onigiri with a little furikake.

3. Soba noodles, or buckwheat noodles. These noodles can be served warm or cold. A healthy alternative to regular pasta, we like to eat these cold, making a quick and tasty summertime meal. They cook quickly, so be sure to watch them! Then just rinse in cold water and serve. We like to dip our noodles in soba dipping sauce.

4. Soba noodle dipping sauce. Also served cold, just put a little bit of this sauce in a bowl next to your noodles and dip each chopstick-full bite and enjoy! This sauce really makes the noodles, but trust me--a little goes a long way! So I recommend dipping as opposed to pouring it over the top :)

Sorry about the picture of a half-empty bottle!

5. Ramen noodles. You may think I'm crazy. Or that I must just be stuck in freshman year of college or something, but, really! At an Asian market, the variations of ramen noodles are endless! You can get so many more flavors than you may find at your normal grocery store. So go ahead and try some! But before you eat, make sure to spice it up a little ;)

Above is pictured some miso flavored ramen. Delicious! But don't just eat it plain! Whenever we eat ramen, my husband likes to doctor it up a little, and by doing so, he makes a much healthier meal! We like to add green onions, egg, sugar snap peas, onions, edamame, tofu, carrots, and even celery to the soup as it's boiling. Really, we just add whatever produce (plus eggs and/or tofu) we have on hand. It makes regular-old ramen into something more like what you'd eat at a ramen shop.

Sorry about the bad iphone picture!

Above is a picture of some ramen that Peter whipped up for us one day after church. The perfect lunch meal, filled with veggies and lots of flavor.

Treats and Snacks: 

1. Botan rice candy. Do any of you have memories of eating this in elementary school when you learned about international cultures??? I do . . . but maybe that was just my school. Anyway, this candy is good, and so different from any typical American candies! It's a rice candy, so it's chewy and a little sticky, but sweet! This candy is also quite novel and fun to eat.

Inside the box are several pieces of candy wrapped as such:

However, once you take the wrapper off, you'll notice another wrapper. But don't remove this one! This is actually rice paper that is meant to be eaten with the candy. The rice paper just dissolves once it's in your mouth.

Below are a couple of pictures of my son enjoying his candy. He seriously LOVES this stuff. 

2. Mochi ice cream. So most of you have probably seen these at Trader Joe's or Costco, but since they're Japanese and some of our very favorites, I had to put them on the list! Mochi (which is just a chewy rice cake) wrapped around ice cream. Not much else to say, other than it's delicious. 

3. Hi-Chew. Also, maybe not too novel. I've seen these sold at Costco or other stores as well, but they're a yummy, chewy candy that comes in a bunch of fruity flavors.

4. Mochi filled with an (pronounced "on"), or sweetened red bean paste. Sounds weird? Maybe. But don't judge! Just try! Mochi, again is a chewy rice cake (the rice is pounded until it becomes this consistency). These rice cakes are sweet and very filling. They're the perfect snack to get you between meals. The consistency and flavors may take a little while to get used to, but if you are adventurous, then I urge you to try this tasty treat!

5. Chocolate-topped cookies in the shape of mushrooms. I have no idea with the actual name for these is. But below is what the box looks like. These will fill your chocolate craving. My three year old doesn't care for them, but he doesn't really like chocolate. I, on the other hand, love chocolate. And these are good. Chocolate-topped cookies. Go get some.

This list really just scratches the surface of the amazing things you can find at Asian markets. From all of the different Asian spices, to bean sprouts, white radishes (daikon), bok choy, and other produce commonly eaten in Asian countries, to frozen pork buns, fish cakes (kamaboko), crab sticks, duck . . . you name it, it's there! We also like to go looking for foods that we've enjoyed in Hawaii or Australia, because they'll often be there too. What treats or mealtime favorites do you pick up from your local Asian market?