Dreamy Donuts

Dreamy Donuts was started in Australia and New Zealand, and currently there are 16 shops within Australia.  The shop in Carousel shopping centre (WA) opened just few months ago.  When I saw the sign of this shop in Carousel shopping centre before it’s opened, I actually thought “hmm just another donut shop”.  I didn’t really think that I would want to try them.  

After the shop opened I passed the shop and I noticed that they’re pretty busy.  All the donuts in showcase looked delicious and cute!  

I didn’t still buy donuts from them that time ( :p), but yesterday my sister-in-law bought a dozen of Dreamy donuts and I tried one.  It was really fluffy, soft and moist.  Yes it was delicious, almost like a cake.   Look at the photo!

I will buy them in the future for sure!  If the price was little cheaper it’d be great though … but I guess it’s the standard price for donuts in Perth

Souvenir from Japan Sep/09

Here are some of the souvenirs I bought from Japan trip.

Most of them are junks from 100 yen shop. :p  In the photo, the two banana cases, pink square kitchen timer, frog looking silicon pinch, yellow shower head are from Seria – one of 100yen shop in Japan.  I actually prefer Seria to Daiso now because the products in Seria are nicer and stylish.  And Daiso sells not only 100 yen products but also 200 yen ~ 500 yen products in the shop, so it’s bit confusing…  although I bought a tea pot from Daiso for 300 yen and it was a good shopping.

The green bean looking toy and white & black square things are from local electric shop near my house.   The green bean toy is called “Puni Puni Edamame” - Electric Popping Soybean Pod Keychain.  It’s just a funny stuff…  The white & black “Human Player” is a toy that you answer 50 questions on the initial setup and create another “you”, then you can watch what another you is doing on the screen anytime.  You can also create other people like your friends or family and play games too.  The personality of another you is made based on your answers.  I bought it because it’s cheap: retail price was about 3600 yen but the shop was selling it at 300 yen!  

The round looking white machines are from Yodobashi Umeda (I wrote about this shop in my previous post).  The one in the box is “Aqua Rain”, a floating fountain with prismatic color light and quiet sound of waterfalls.  The another machine next to it is “Relaxing Spa Light”, a floating mood light with 4 different nature sounds (river, insect, bird and wave).

  Those type of machines are for Japanese people who take bath every night.  We bought them just to remember Japan, even though we hardly take bath in Perth. :p

I just love shopping in Japan.  Every time I go back, there are always something new and they are not that expensive.  In the shops I saw more interesting toys such as Bowlingual Voice – a machine which translates dog’s bowwow into message, Home Star – a home planetarium machine which projects beautiful stars on your ceiling, and you can also chose which day’s stars to be projected: eg 21/Sep/08. etc etc.

If you like these gadgets it’d be fun to just look for some “treasures” in electric shops in Japan.

Shopping Day

What a fine day today!  It sure is getting closer to spring.  Maybe summer is just around the corner already.

Today I did my first shopping after coming back from holiday.  My hubby and I went to Joondalup around 9am, window-shopping around the shopping mall and, then went to IKEA to buy some small staff.  The small kitchen trolley is going to be on sale from 28/Sep till 05/Oct ($69.00)!  I have similar looking kitchen island at home, and might as well buy this too  Need to come back next week..

Then we went to Garden City shopping centre.  (Yes we were driving around Perth from North to South :p ) In Garden City we were wondering around Myer, then noticed that they’re doing a sale.  We went to kitchen section on 3F and found out that some of the mixers are 15% off.  I’d been wanting to buy one nice mixer for myself, (I’d been using mother-in-law’s).  We actually had few Coles/Myer cards from friends for our wedding, so we decided to use them to buy the mixer.  

My first mixer ♪  Before buying this Sunbeam mixer we’re actually thinking to buy KitchenAid‘s mixer (very popular, cheaper than Dualit but still expensive!).  The reason why we chose this mixer is the price, and other features like strong 850 watt.  I used the gift card to buy this $369 mixer, thank you guys…   BTW 15% off sale ends on Monday  

After coming home I finally had a chance to wash my car.  It was super dirty…  that’s the demerit of having a black car, isn’t it.  Aware of this, however, I still wanted to buy black car anyway.  So I need to wash it occasionally.  Now my car is clean, I wonder what to do tomorrow

September Food in Japan

September is the beginning of Autumn in Japan, but I was expecting the climate to be hot as I had been told from my family and friends that it was still hot and humid around the end of August.  However, it seems that air temperature dropped very quickly: the climate was like Autumn by the time we arrived Japan.  My dad told me that it was raining everyday until the end of August, then became very hot and humid, but the air started to cool down after few days.  So basically they had summer for just one week :p  

Luckily lots of Autumn food ware already in the shops while we were there.  Nashi pears, grapes, sweet potatoes, maron (chest nuts)…  Lots of Japanese snacks and sweets had their “Autumn flavor” such as sweet potato danish and maron ice cream.  Convenience stores were selling oden already too.

I saw few shops in Kyoto and Shiga that sells white-Taiyaki.  (fish shaped cake with fillings)  Usually taiyaki is just normal pancake-like color, but someone decided to make it in white color for some reason and it became popular.  I’m sure the taste will be same as normal taiyaki though… 

And, after a boom of super sized food (eg: GIGA Pudding , Quarter-pounder Burger etc  ) in Japan, there seemed to be an another new boom this time : petit food (small size food).  In department stores, supermarkets and on tv, I saw shops selling petit taiyaki, petit donuts, and petit gyu-don (beef bowl).  Japanese people sure like new stuff.. :p

Anyway,

At home I could enjoy some Autumn food: grilled samma (saury), kuri-gohan (steamed rice with chestnuts) etc.   So delicious … !  Outside, the wind was slightly cool and we could hear Autumn insects singing at the garden at night.  Relaxing in the living room with my family, listening to the sound of Autumn and eating nashi pears .. it was exactly how I wanted to spend a time in Japan!

“Death Note”

On the plane from Singapore to Osaka, I was watching this Japanese movie “Death Note” and “Death Note ~The Last Name~”.  This movie was made in 2006, 3 years ago, but I never had a chance to watch it although it sounded interesting to me.

“Death Note” is a Japanese manga (comics) series which had been serialized in a popular Japanese manga magazine “Weekly Shonen Jump” for almost 3 years.  The movie, in my opinion, really followed the original comic well.  I enjoyed watching it!

A brief description of the story is … The series centers on Light Yagami, a university student who discovers a supernatural notebood, the “Death Note”, dropped on Earth by a death god.  The Death Note grants its user the ability to kill anyone whose face they have seen, by writing the victim’s name in the notebook.  The story follows Light’s attempt to create and rule a world cleansed of evil using the notebook, and the complex conflict between him, his opponents and a mysterious detective known to the world only as L.  (from wikipedia) 

Together ”Death Note” and “Death Note ~The Last Name~” and the third film “Death Note ~L; change the worLd”, the movies earned over $80 million in Japan and stayed at #1 at the box office not only in Japan, but also in Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand. The cult hit broke into the Asian mainstream and almost got banned in China as a smattering of copycat true crimes became associated with the movie.

The actor who played Light Yagami is Tatsuya Fujiwara.  He’s been on many films, plays and tv series drama etc, but I never had any interest on him… until now!  After watching this movie I realized how cool he is :p  And, the scene where both Light and L believe themselves to be on the side of justice and the two match wits in an intricate game of cat-and-mouse is very interesting.  If you like watching Japanese films I recommend this.  Guess which one, either Light or “L”, wins in the end.