Where to Go This Winter

As winter comes, things make me miss down south.  I don’t know what the “things” are: maybe the cold air that makes me cuddle in a warm blanket,  the sound of the rain that erases all the noise outside…  All of them recall my memory of staying down south.

Winter makes me feel warm inside, in spite of the cold weather.  That’s the reason why I like winter.

I think many people prefer summer to winter, especially the people who live near the beautiful beaches, like Perth.  I’m sure some people are longing for the arrival of next spring/summer already.  I get to see many cheap deals at hotels and some travel packages around this time, eg Rottnest Island.  I understand why, as Rottnest Island is surrounded by beautiful ocean and there is pretty much nothing to do except for swimming and cycling.  But, I don’t mind going there in a cold day and watch the quiet beaches.

I actually went there couples of years ago with my husband and stayed for a night.  It was beautiful.  Although we had not much things to do, we enjoyed the slow time there.

I also like South.  I haven’t travelled much since I came to Perth and I’ve only been to Bunbury, Busselton, Pemberton and Margaret River, all of them were really beautiful towns.  As there’s nothing much to do and plenty of time, I could totally relax and day-dreamed about things – I couldn’t do such things while leading a busy days in Perth.  It’s really amazing that you could experience the different pace of time in just few hours drive!

It was about two years ago that we went to Pemberton.  We stayed in a farm lodge, and there’re horses, kangaroos, sheep, dogs etc wondering around right in front of our lodge.

It started raining when we arrived the lodge, and it was very cold.  But, I couldn’t help going walking around the area.  Walking through the mountains, stepping on the leaves on the ground, avoiding huge tree roots…  there was no “road” or “path” that was created by human.  It was such a beautiful walk.

aaaaa, it makes me want to go there again (><)

Yamashiro Onsen Trip 2

Dinner was crab full-course (>v<).

Started with beer, we had crab sashimi, crab steamed board, crab chawan-mushi, frame-grilled crab, crab sushi, crab tempura, crab salad, crab soup, and crab flavored rice with crab meat.  You gotta be crab-lover to eat this dinner…

Crab season is winter, and the areas near Japan Sea, like Ishikawa prefecture, is famous for crabbing.  My family used to come to Fukui prefecture (next to Ishikawa) every winter to enjoy crab when I was a kid.

The food was delish!  We were so full and couldn’t move our bodies after eating these crabs…

In the morning, we were woken up with these breakfast.

A typical Japanese breakfast – rice, miso soup, some condiments and grilled fish…

We grilled our fish on charcoals..  There was squid sashimi, some cooked vegetables with dashi broth, pickles and Onsen Tamago.  Onsen Tamago is half-cooked egg by been immersed in natural, hot Onsen water.  It’s eaten with soy sauce and mirin based sauce.  Those 6 condiments are mentaiko, nori (seaweed paste), grilled salmon flakes, chirimen-jako (seasoned tiny fishes), walnut miso, and seasoned dry shellfish meat.

My dad and I finished the meal with Onsen coffee (brewed with Onsen water).

You can imagine how full we were!  So many seafood in 2 days….  I wonder how come Australian people don’t eat seafood as much as we (Japanese) do, we both live in island county.

Yamashiro Onsen Trip 1

My parents, brother and I went to Yamashiro Onsen in Ishikawa prefecture as 18th was my mum’s birthday, and my dad is turning to 60 (kanreki) on 27th.  We stayed there one night.

This area, Kaga, is very historical place and also famous for its natural onsen.  My family stayed in a room with private onsen.

Ryokan means traditional Japanese style inn/hotel.  The room is usually tatami-matted, and guests were expected to sleep on futon on the floor.

It was also a cold day and little raining.  We arrived this Ryokan around 2pm, and just relaxed until 6 pm – dinner time.  There’re also few more spas (onsen) inside of the Ryokan (non private) , so I went out of the room to enjoy bigger Roten-buro (outdoor onsen) at the ground floor.  Although those spas are not private, there’s no one there.   I was alone and enjoying 4 different Roten-buro by myself. ♪

The dinner and breakfast was gorgeous!!!!  I will post about the food later

This are is just 2 hours drive away from my house. The onsen (natural water) was so good, and I could feel my skin was so smooth after taking bath.  Everyone changed to Yukata (light cotton kimono) and played card game until dinner…

My Friends are Everywhere..

As I’m from Osaka College of Foreign Language, my friends from the school are all interested in other countries and traveling the world.  I was taking Studying Abroad Course (major in Animal Science) and most of my classmates flew to America to go to universities after graduation.  I, on the other hand, chose to come to Australia instead of America.  Major reason for this was that I thought Australia was surrounded by big nature and wild animals.  (which is true)

I was browsing the college website the other day and I noticed there’re photos of my classmates on the site.  It recalled the memory of my last home-coming trip – I had a small gathering with my classmates in Osaka and could catch up with them.  After that, they seem to be doing fine and some of them are again going overseas for further career

One friend, who is also from Shiga prefecture, went to America to study animal behavior at an university.  Since then she got a job at one of her work-experience place and now she is working as a dog trainer in America  It had been her dream to be a dog trainer and she seems to be so happy.

Another friend, Haru, she studied preschool education in New York and moved to Hawaii after graduating an university to work as a kindergarden assistant teacher.  Then she went back to Japan, worked in a International kindergarden for awhile, and now she is flying back to America, Portland to work as an assistant teacher for one year.  She is so determined

Another one, who also chose to come to Perth, Western Australia with me after graduating the Osaka college, worked in Japan for few years after graduating from school in Perth.  Few days ago she flew to Ireland!

I’m not planning to go overseas and work at this point.  I will probably stay in Perth and just lead my life here  But in future, maybe when I’m much older, I would like to go to other countries and do some voluntary work.  It is one of my dream!

Banana & Walnut Cake

As last week has been super busy for me, I am so happy to have this long weekend  Less than 2 weeks to go, I’ve been meeting my friends to say “bye” before my trip to Japan.  … yes it’s just a 2 weeks trip and this may sound like I’m over reacting ( :p ), but that’s what we usually do

I’m not a phone person and I don’t really like talking on the phone, even to my family.  I don’t know what to talk about!  My family is all the same, when I occasionally call them, they are like “so… how are you?” “I see… we are fine here” and no more conversation.  So I (we) prefer just e-mailing.  While in Japan if I wanted to say something I just emailed people.  We can email from mobile to mobile in Japan and it is super cheap to use (we kind of have sms but never used it before – expensive and sucks..) and you could send photos, voice message, image character etc etc on the e-mail since long time ago.  So, if I find something funny, even a tiny thing, I took a photo and sent to my mum “hey I found this” ” how about oyako-donburi tonight?”  My mum is like my best friend.  .. she looks young too.  So, flying back to Japan and seeing their face & hearing their voice is something I need to do.  I try going back at least once a year.

Anyway, the orders for Bagelia last week has been different…  Someone asked me if I could make cheese cake with fruits, and another asked me if I could wrap banana cake individually.  I normally wrap a whole banana cake in a plastic film, but she said that her kid wanted to bring the cake to the school and give to the classmate.

I, of course, said “yes” and I individually wrapped the cake with ribbon and small tags (so that classmates know what it is).  They turned out to be cute.   She ordered 48 pieces of banana cakes, plus other cakes and bagels.  I hope the classmates liked it…