One Good Thing A Day – Project Day 11 – Happy Birthday Tata! & Iron Chef Michiba

Today is my Father’s Birthday!

Happy Birthday Tata!

I sent him some goodies from Japan….. like an instant curry from Iron Chef (Japanese/Better Iron Chef Show) Rokusaburo Michiba! We used to watch the show on TV together all the time and always loved his cooking and presentation style, so when I found the curry, I just had to send it over!

By far, my favorite chefs from the show were Rokusaburo Michiba (Japanese specialty) and Hiroyuki Sakai (French specialty). So far, (thanks to my wonderful boyfriend<3) I’ve been to one of Sakai San’s restaurants La Rochelle in Shibuya. What a stunning restaurant and dining experience indeed!

Click to go to La Rochelle Website

Read Michiba San’s Bio.

Read Sakai San’s Bio.

One Good Thing A Day – Project Day 10 – Kompeito *Japanese Candies*

Today we received these adorable Japanese candies called Kompeito.  Basically, they’re balls of sugar infused with many lovely flavours like the Matcha (Japanese ceremonial green tea) and cream-coloured ginger type.

My favourite by far is Matcha -yum, yum.

One Good Thing A Day – Project Day 9 – Gachapin Craft Project

Gachapin.  He’s tall, green, has one tooth and looks like he’s stoned.

This Japanese character is quite famous and well-loved by many -including many otaku, or hard-core enthusiasts.

Here’s a car I passed by that freaked me out but also gave me a great project idea just for fun.

I decided to gather a few materials from my “leftovers” pile to see if I can get the right colours for a cut out collage type of artwork…..

… and I remembered that I had a few shikishi boards (decorative calligraphy boards) from Daiso (¥100 shop) a long time ago.

It was pure luck that I had one with a green fade on it!

I went online to see images of Gachapin and see if I can make a nice cut out. I started with the main body and arms, followed by his tummy area, which was just layered pink cardboard paper over peach magazine paper.

The eyes were basically black cardboard paper and some white paper from the magazine.

I also had leftover faux chiyogami from a ¥100 shop, so I decided to cut out the groups of flowers from the page and leave the rest for the next project.

I placed everything on the shikishi and this is how it turned out:

Seems like a mini Gachapin shrine for the real otaku!

Potato + Cheese + Bacon + Vending Machine =

That’s right, potato and cheese potage.  Along with many other selections of soups and even sometimes *Oden , everything is available in random vending manchines in Japan.

*Oden is a popular cold weather soup that includes simmering tofu, fish cakes, daikon (radish) and many other ingredients.  Very easy to find in convenience stores all across Japan.

One Good Thing A Day – Project Day 8 – Man Flying Kite with Fishing Rod

YOKOHAMA DAY!

We decided to take a day off…well….after doing a little work in the morning….and went down to Yokohama!

I love to visit Yokohama because of the large open spaces and general relaxing atmosphere.  Before getting some lunch, we decided to walk through a park and enjoy the scenery, when we noticed something truly unusual….. a group of older men gathered around one person and looking up at the sky. Naturally, we had to investigate.  Looking up at the sky, we saw a kite, nothing unusual about that….. but when we looked at the person everyone was gathering around, we noticed they weren’t holding a normal kite handle but a fishing rod instead.  Seem that the men were bored of finishing and decided to attach a kite to one of the rods.

I wasn’t able to snap a picture, so here’s a terrible 10 second sketch instead:

While this is certainly NOT the strangest thing I’ve seen in Japan, it’s up there!

One Good Thing A Day – Project Day 7 – Apple Ginger Drink

Keeping with the Ginger Drinks, like my Wilkinson’s from the other day, I found this fantastic ginger-apple drink from Afternoon Tea.  Apparently they boil apple juice with cloves, fresh ginger and a touch of lemongrass.

When it’s all done, they serve it with fresh slices of apple and ginger floating in the cup and a fresh ginger stick to stir it with.