Hiro’s 2nd Birthday

Today is my son’s 2nd birthday ~~!!!!

Yesterday he had so much fun with his friends  I can’t believe it’s been 2 years since I held him for the first time at the hospital.  He grow up too fast :_(

Last year on his first birthday, I made him only pancake so he could eat it.  But this year, I made a huge birthday cake with lots of fruits + his favourite Japanese character “Anpanman”!!

He loved it!!  All other kids were gathering around the cake too.

He could blow the candle pretty good!  Well done, Hiro.

Happy 2nd birthday xxx

Today we had birthday lunch with family.  We went to Wagamama Subiaco ; I will write about it on next post

Thanks for reading!

Very Hot & Humid New Year

Time passes so fast….  I was talking about Christmas and New Year’s Eve, and now it’s already January 14!
How did everyone spend New Year’s Day and the holiday season?  We did pretty much nothing – just relaxing in the pool in the yard and visiting friend’s house.

Hiro made New Year’s mochi (kagami-mochi) using Play-Doh.  A little mandarine on top

And he ate mochi we made.  It was first time he had mochi – I was little worried that he might get choked on mochi (that’s a major reason for people being admitted to the hospital in Japan during New Year’s holiday season :p)

And we were treated with Spanish chicken dish by our friends  It was delish!

I brought some sushi and dessert.

I wasn’t in Perth this time last year so I’m not sure if it’s only this year or it’s been like this since last year, but Perth’s summer is getting humid….!!!  Since I came to Perth in 2003 Perth’s summer has been always HOT and DRY.  Now I don’t know if I’m in Japan or Bali or Australia :p  I hate hot and humid climate….  it makes me go crazy (*_*)

Australia Day has been always sunny and hot (and dry), so hopefully it’ll be like that next week…

Cooking for New Year’s Day

It’s been sooo hot (+ humid) here and I don’t feel that tomorrow is next year already!!  I really miss white Christmas and snowy New Year’s Day.

I decided to make some sushi and zenzai (mochi in red bean porridge) just to make myself feel like it’s a special day.  We eat zenzai on New Year’s Day in Japan

In Japan, New Year’s Days (usually 1st ~ 3rd of January) is supposed to be doing nothing but relaxing with families, so people make lots of food before New Year’s Eve that can be kept for at least few days – idea is that no cooking in the first few days of January.  But here in Perth it goes up to 40℃ and I can’t cook food and keep them for a long time.
I just made inari-sushi, zenzai, kinako-mochi (mochi dusted with sweet soy powder), and soup for Hiro.

I couldn’t find Japanese kinako (soy powder) so I used Korean one instead.  No sugar, just plain kinako.  For dusting mochi, I added sugar to the powder to make it sweet.

I haven’t used this mochi-pounding machine for a long time! I got it from Japan – it’s actually a kid’s toy, but it works in a small amount of mochi rice.

We are gonna eat zenzai in the morning on New Year’s Day. Hopefully we can eat noodle  (toshikoshi-soba) at midnight of  New Year’s Eve!!
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!

Hinata Cafe 2012

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…  First, this is not a photo of Hinata Cafe market which was held in Bibra Lake. Today a new Apple store opened in Garden City so I went there to have a look in the morning. It wasn’t my plain, it was D’s.  I was actually gonna go to Hinata Cafe from 10AM, but D insisted that he wanted to get free T-shirt. :-p

There were many people queuing and the staff in blue Tshirts were cheering to all customers.

After receiving freebie, we headed to Hinata Cafe market.

It was a beautiful sunny day!  Perfect day for outdoor market like this.  It was my first time going there, and the place was cosy and filled with people.  Parking area was very limited.

There’re chairs and tables where people can eat and drink the food/beverage they buy from Hinata cafe.  Above photo – nature craft was my favourite.

There are handmade arts and craft sold inside the small building.  They’re so cute and well-made.  Very lovely.

From 10:30 and 12:30 there was “under the tree kindergarden” which some people did reading and singing to kids.

Demonstration of Japanese tea ceremony was available.

I met many friends over there.  It was a great catch-up.  My friend had this “miso soup & 2 onigiri” lunch served on a bed of a bamboo leaf.  There was a big queue to the cafe.  I wanted to eat green tea tiramisu, but I couldn’t  Hopefully I can try lots of food next year.

Birthday Party – Japan Themed!-

We visited my friend’s house for her elder son’s 3rd birthday party!

I’m surprised that not many people (even Indonesian people!) don’t know this Japanese cartoon character “Anpan-man”.  Anpan-man is super popular in Japan now.  Everywhere you go, you’ll see this face.  All my friends here who have children have at least one Anpan-man good at home.  So do I.  On my last homecoming trip I felt like I had to buy Anpan-man goods as they’re everywhere.

Above foods are chirashi-zushi (scattered sushi) with Anpan-man face, omu-rice with Anpan-man face, potato salads, and gyoza.

Here is another Anpan-man.  They are actual anpan (buns filled with sweet red bean paste).  The faces are so cute!  Everything was handmade.

Hiro got one too.

Birthday cake was tiramisu.  With Anpan-man face on it.

After blowing the candles, the birthday boy did this “traditional Japanese ceremony” thingy – breaking the lid of sake container.  I thought there’d be toys or lollies inside as this was a child’s birthday party, but the inside was filled with real sake.  It was for adults.

Food was amazing.  Mum did a great job!