only in japan?

umbrella vending machine @ train station!

out & about today

we were at yamada denki, looking at new laptop for J.
K played in the kids area - seemed to have great time throwing all the toys around.

then went to a interior/furniture store,but all we bought was this pair of toilet slippers at J`s insistance.

I never see much use for them, but he says we need them for any japanese guests （think he means his folks!).lol

vegemite on toast!

this morning is k`s first taste! She lapped it up like a little Aussie trouper! yay

one of those days

now, I know that sounds like I am going to start on a big ol' rant, but I actually had a GOOD day, so it is one of those GOOD DAY stories (lol)

This morning R took K and me for a walk, just down to the park at the end of the street which is in the middle of the 団地 apartments. If we go with the stroller, then I usually run around with R while K watches - she loves it, giggling the whole time as I puff and pant around the park. But today we went out with K in the ergo baby carrier. (as an aside here, may I just say that this is THE BEST baby carrier. I had a Ninna nanna (I think it is called) which you can use from birth, but once K got to be about 7kg, it really hurt even just to go around the corner for a walk with her in it, cause there is no support really...she just "hangs" on your shoulders.

With the Ergo, there is a waistband and really thick shoulder straps, so it is like wearing a backpack. I love my ergo! so does K - she tries to put it on herself hehe!


anyway, back to the story....
so we were at the park, just walking around, when we came across some cute flowers growing at the side of one of the apartment blocks. I was about to take a photo fo the flowers, when a little ol' lady came out and asked me if I would like some flowers!! so she picked a few for me to take home. They are now pride of place in the 玄関 on the shoe box.

Then when we went for our afternoon walk, I heard someone calling out from behind me "is that a Jack Russel?" about R. I turned around to see a woman on a bike with a Jack Russel Terrier in the basket that looked JUST LIKE R!!!! The same black with spots - most Jacks we see are the tan and white ones, and the only other black Jack that I had seen was once at home in Oz. So I was actually so excited to see another black and white Jack, just like our little R


and here is R being fawned over by K! K LOVES HER!


Add to those 2 nice experiences that the lady at the bread shop was really nice to me, and I managed to get a loaf of bread sliced into 12 slices, and it only cost 240yen, AND K was a little angel all day, which is much nicer than the last few days of whining that she has been sending my way AND J offered to bring home something from the COZY CORNER cake shop at the supermarket on his way home...but I declined (how good am I!?) .....and ate half a costco chocolate muffin instead with milk for dessert. still have a few left in the freezer, and I really need to clean out the freezer (my excuse for having to eat a muffin a day anyway)!

small things really, but they all added up to make today a nice day! yay!

K`s breakky

this morning I had a big bowl of muesli （which I ate half of)& milk. I also had some of mummy & daddy`s toast! now I am watching my favourite tv show、 おかあさんと一緒 and dancing to my favourite song : ぱわわぷ! mummy likes this song too - you should see HER dance to it!

last post for the day, I promise

so this is what we had for dinner. I think I am going through a 和 phase!
★豚の生姜焼き
★ひじき煮 （ひじき、豚肉、人参、こんやく、油揚げ)
★大豆とキュウリの大根和え
★筍と豆腐の吸い物
★アスバラwithマヨネーズ
★ご飯
j looked at it said 美味しそう - he never says that、 so Iwas chuffed! Only problem was the 吸い物 was a bit lacking flavour. oh well. the hijiki was just right though!

K`s dinner

Change of game plan - cause we were having ひじき for dinner as one of our 小鉢, I decided to give it to K as well...she loves it! I never even realised that Hijiki is actually a seaweed. For some reason I thought it was a "mountain vege".

So here is what K had:

rice dressed with ひじき
pumpkin
tofu
and a cup of milk!

Wierd mix, hey!? lol but she ate the lot, and came back for seconds - some of my rice!

筍

So I attempted to do something with the takenoko bamboo shoots, following the instructions on this page.

This is the bambo shoot I bought.

There wasn't that much left after took all the peel off it...

I wonder if I took too much peel off? Have a look at what I threw away!

I prepared the big pot for simmering the bamboo shoots. It might have been a bit of an overkill. (sorry, don't know how to flip the photo as I sent it from my mobile - still can't get my camera to upload photos to computer.....maybe the 2G memory stick was not such a good idea after all?)

So apparently I let this simmer for like 40minutes or something.

I think I might try to make this recipe for 吸い物 out of it, IF it works, lol

what this kid eats

I have been meaning to write this post for a while, after nay made a comment on my post about K eating her little shirasu fish with rice, and asked what I feed her.

well, it is really a big old hodge-podge of anything and everything, because that is what WE eat! lol. When I started K on solids, we started with Farex baby cereal that I picked up when in Oz. We also started on sweet potato, because it was in season then, so it seemed like a good thing to start off with.
Now that K is over 1 year old, her diet has expanded, to include lots of veges, meats, fish and dairy.

A lot of the food I give her is obviously influenced by the fact that we are living in Japan. I give her tofu a lot, and also use tofu to make little chicken meatballs or mixed with mince to make sausages. She LOVES rice. I reckon she could eat a whole bowl of it with nothing else and be happy. I was getting worried for a bit last month, because it seemed that rice was ALL she was eating. So I started making roll sandwiches (with cream cheese or cottage cheese mixed with pumpkin or spinach) which she loves cause she can hold them in her hand. I also made a little quiche for her yesterday with tomato and chicken, she lapped that one up too, so I think she is back on track for "aussie" food.

I guess, the main thing is that I want K to be able to eat with the family whether she is in Japan or in Australia, so I have to keep trying to introduce her to lots of different foods and styles - not just the rice!! But rice is just SO EASY, it does tend to be the staple food that she eats nearly every day. I try to find some recipes on the internet, and I have a good little book that has Japanese food in it, but I don't get around to making interesting stuff everyday - so we have our regular of rice with "something". sort of like a 混ぜ御飯 mixed rice.

Also, the commercial baby food here is really different from home, and has a lot of fishy meals, or japanese flavoured meals. So I think she is used to these flavours - I don't give her commercial food all the time, but I do make sure that I have a few in the house all the time, as J is prone to announce things like "lets go for a walk to the shops 30mins away(usually said 20mins before K's lunch time)" or "let's have sushi-ro (sushi train) for dinner(usually said after we have been out all day)" or my favourite, "lets go camping for 2 days, and let's leave in 5 minutes" at the drop of a hat, and pre-made food is really a must to have! And bananas and avocados - they have really got me through a few meals on-the-go with K!

So today's menu for K:
breakfast - baby muesli with milk
10am snack - baby senbei(rice crackers); drink of milk
11am snack - banana
12 lunch - cream cheese roll sandwiches; drink of water
:
3pm snack - maybe some tofu (think 冷奴): drink of milk or water
4 or 5pm - probably another senbei OR rusks (toasted bread crusts)
6pm dinner - rice with carrots, peas and corn and home-made sausage: drink of milk

As for me? I had a smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwhich for lunch (yum). Dinner is probably going to be ginger pork (bought for half price at the supermarket at 8pm last night - J needed to get something so we all trapsed down to the supermarket for an "outing" before K's bedtime) and something with bamboo shoots in it, cause I bought a bamboo shoot yesterday, but didn't know for sure how to cook it, so I asked J what to do - apparently I can simmer it in the left-over water used to wash the rice. hope it turns out ok.

me, after 3 days of GW camping wearing sunglasses but no sunscreen during some serious UV ray action