UNIQLO

Just received a package from my friend in Hokkaido – UNIQLO clothes and a book for Hiro.

What a wonderful gift!  Things must be still not as same as they used to be over there, but she did find the time to go shopping for my little boy…  Thanks!

She said that she heard on the news saying UNIQLO is getting popular in Australia, and that’s why she went to UNIQLO to buy some baby clothes.  Then I thought “Ok, there is no UNIQLO in Perth, but there must be few in Eastern states.  Actually, according to UNIQLO website, there is no UNIQLO shop in Australia.  (@_@)

The Japanese retailer UNIQLO is expanding worldwide now.  Personally I love UNIQLO too.  That’s one of the shop I go to every time I go back to Japan.  I love the simple design, and most of all, the price.  Reasonable pricing, basic and simple design, and wide variety.

When UNIQLO first opened in Japan, the image of the brand was just “cheap”  around me and friends.  So, sometimes we felt little embarrassed when someone said “hey, isn’t it UNIQLO you’re wearing?”  But now, UNIQLO is one of the biggest brand in Japan and very popular in other countries too.

I think, what changed the image of UNIQLO in us was when they did collaboration with famous artists and anime characters.  When I first saw the  tv ads of UNIQLO T-shirts designed by famous artists, my image for UNIQLO brand was 180° changed and it suddenly seemed to be very stylish.  Since then, they do many collaborations with famous brands and anime characters such as Disney, Dragon Ball, etc.

They sell many products, from panties to jackets, but my favourites are jeans and pants.  They hem the pants when you buy them for free, and give you a little card showing the name of the person (staff) who did it, so you can bring them back to the shop anytime if the size wasn’t right or there’s any problem.   Located in almost each city in Japan is the another reason why I go there too.

Nice and Easy

It was such a beautiful morning!  I mean, I was awake from 3am trying to put Hiro to sleep, and after the sunrise I stepped outside to hang laundry then I noticed the air was pretty cold and the sky was blue.  I love this moment!  I’m excited to know that autumn is just around the corner 🙂  (Or maybe it will be hot again during the day?)

Yesterday evening my friend called me and we chatted for about 1 hour on the phone.  She was asking me how the things were, and talking about her workplace etc.  Then we started talking about Japan as she is flying back there next month for holiday for 3 weeks.  She said that she may spend lots of money in Japan, as usual…  Going out with friends, going shopping, eating out, travelling to sister’s house by shinkansen… I know what it is, because I’m like her.  We don’t spend much money in Perth (no shopping, not much eat-out), so when we go back to Japan we spend a lot.

I told her I’m thinking to have my hair cut sometime soon, and still can’t decide if I should get hair permed only, or get coloured too.  Then, she told me about “hair-clouring shampoo”.

There seems to be few brands of “colouring shampoo” sold in Japan that colour your hair as you wash…   Is there anything Japan doesn’t have?  There is a colouring shampoo for pets as well (*_*)

End of March Already!

Today is my dad’s 61st birthday 🙂  I just sent an email saying “happy birthday” and told him to eat something special tonight followed by a big birthday cake.  I was in Japan on dad’s birthday last year and remember eating cake with family.  I can’t believe it was just 1 year ago!  I feel like I haven’t been to Japan for a long time.

Things are still the same around me…  Still bit depressed by the news from Japan, and wearing PJ all day at home. I really need to refresh up!  I don’t normally spend lots of money on clothes and bags, but I feel like doing it right now.  I want to wear nice clothes and make-up, and go shopping and eat something nice!  I also want to have my hair cut too.  Should I keep it long or make it short?

It should be autumn by now, and according to the news, Eastern states are much cooler than Perth (around 22 degrees?)  Yet, it was another hot day with strong sunlight yesterday.  The iPad2 was released on Friday at 5PM, and D headed to the nearest JB HiFi to get few (for his dad, himself and friends), but there’s so many people queueing by the time we arrived and he couldn’t get what he wanted.  I overheard that there’re 1000’s people at the apple store in the city at that time.  1000’s…

Now, I’m spending the most of my free time thinking and planning what to do and where to go in Japan in autumn (autumn in Japan – around Sep ~ Nov).  Planning a trip is the most fun part, isn’t it. 🙂  We probably won’t be able to go out much as Hiro will be there too, but I think we’re going to stay with my family (mostly with my grandparents) as much as we can.  One of my grandma can’t hear me every time I call her, so we need to be there to talk to her.  We’re also going to eat lots of autumn foods, such as matsutake! 😀

Baby Sculpture

The other day we packed our diaper bag and headed to Tiny Treasures‘s atelier to get Hiro’s hands and foot sculpture.  I was curious to find out how they’re going to mold the shape of baby’s hands and foot.

The lady was really friendly and I loved her atelier.  She also does sculpture for pets too.

This is how she did.  She made some mixture, and wrapped it around Hiro’s feet and hand.

I thought he was going to cry, but he was very quiet.  🙂

Sculpture will be done in 4 weeks…  It will remind us in few years time that he used to be this tiny.

Things Lately

Things have been little depressing lately… The news about Japan, a tiny argument with in-law, and staying in the house for the most of the time, etc.  We do go out, just to the park nearby and grocery shopping. Even if it’s just a 10 minutes shopping, we need to plan the trip beforehand – check the diaper, feeding,etc. We are still not used to going out for long hour.

I’ve been taking lots of photos of Hiro, and posted some of them to my mum.  I hope it’ll arrive soon!  I can’t believe a stamp for an envelop to Japan is now $2.20.  It used to be $1.30 just few months ago.  Is a stamp within Australia still 55 cent?

After hearing about the extra pumps being added to help cooling down the nuclear heat, I hope things are getting better over there.  I’ve started to plan our trip to Japan (too soon?) already 🙂  First, Hiro needs to get Japanese passport – … well, I haven’t had time to go to Japanese consulate to register his birth yet, but after it’s done, it shouldn’t take time…  It’ll be about 1.5 years since my last homecoming.  To think about it, it’s not really a long time.  But I feel like I’m dying to eat Japanese food there!  (Autumn food!)

After having Hiro, I realised I can eat almost any food now.  Soft scrambled egg, smoked salmon, camanbart cheese…  During pregnancy I had craving for sushi (although sushi is not really my favorite food), so I recently headed to Nishi Japanese restaurant in Myaree to have nigiri-zushi.  I ordered assorted sushi medium – which contains 10 pieces of nigiri-zushi + few pieces of hosomaki (thin rolled sushi).  … Ummmm, it made me realise how much I miss going back to Japan!  The dish was around $22.00…  in Japan, you can get the same amount of nigiri-zushi from a convenience store for around 680 yen.  Yes, I will be very happy with sushi from convenience stores.

Oh, and, my friend brought me some takikomi-dohan (seasoned rice).  She thought I was having trouble cooking 🙂  Thanks E&K, it was really nice.  Japanese food is the best!

Just a Thought

I know it may sound little strange, but when I was having dinner with in-laws tonight, I suddenly started thinking about the past – my life before coming to Perth, and the time when I was dating D.

Do you regret something what you’ve done in the past?  Or, wonder what it would be if you had chosen different direction in your life?  Like, for example, you had to make a decision “yes” or “no” at some situation in the past, and you chose “no”, but you wonder what your life would have been if you had chosen “yes” instead.

I don’t (try not to) regret my decisions and my past, but sometimes it comes up to my mind… Where would I be and what would I be doing if I chose different answers in the past?

To think about it, I’ve had so many situations that might have changed my life.  I had a boyfriend when I came to Perth to study English. I left him in Japan, and after awhile things got difficult and I decided to break up with him.  There was nothing wrong with him, it was just me – I just wanted to concentrate on my study and make my dream come true.

When I was dating D, I just happened to stay in his house for few weeks (some trouble at the shared house I was living), then I ended up staying in this house… until now.  I was going to move out the house, but D said “no”.  I stayed, but what if I had moved out and lived by my own?  Would the things be still same as our current situation?

It may be a silly thought…  just wondering.

What to do next?

It’s already March… I don’t know why but I was so sure that my bub would come out in February. I guess he is punctual.

Now, everyone tells me not to go out by myself anymore. I know I shouldn’t, but it’s not easy.. I even need to ask someone to come along just to buy a bottle of milk from a shop near the house. When I try to tidy up a room I need to ask D to help me getting a box from the top shelve even though he is busy working. I don’t want to disturb anyone, but I’m …… bored!!! I can’t just stay in the bed all day and do nothing (><).

… I know I may envy this situation once the bub comes out and things get busy.

Yesterday I was tiding up my fridge, and ended up cooking all day. For some reason my freezer is always full, and I noticed that the foods were not as cold (frozen) as they should be due to the insufficient air circulation. I keep lots of food in the fridge/freezer (e.g. nori sheets in the freezer, icing sugar in the fridge) – I guess I need a bigger fridge!

I started cooking some chikuzen-ni (Japanese simmered roots veggies), shepards pie and lasagna.  Chikuzen-ni is for me (D doesn’t really like these Japanese food), and lasagna and pie are for D (I don’t really like these meaty food).  Then, sliced half-frozen beef very thin for cooking later (to use for yakiniku, or hot pot).  I also found pie sheets in the freezer, so I made mini pie tartlets and sugar cookies using these sheets.

It was actually really tiring to stay in the kitchen, especially while using fire and oven – hot!  I won’t be doing any cooking for the next few days for sure…  Yesterday was my cooking day 🙂

Stone Hunting and Acacia Bowl

The other day, D suddenly told me that he wanted to buy some stones for his bonsai – he had searched and found some shops selling rocks for aquariums and interior decoration.  To me, stones aren’t something to buy, they are something to find near the creek/river side, mountains, parks, house yard… anywhere.  So, I suggested to go somewhere to find the stones/rocks he wanted.

But, I realized that I’ve never actually seen stones and rocks near the water around Perth.  Not around the beaches, not around the parks and not in the house yards.  Ummm…  I know what kind of stones he is looking for, and I know we can get these from the river and lake bank near my house in Japan.  Ummm where can we find some rocks in Perth?

We googled parks with pond/creek around our house, and headed there with a plastic bag.

According to the satellite photo there’s a pond in centre of the park, but it was very dry – actually no water at all!  We could still see some rocks around the pond(used-to-be) so we picked up few and headed home.  It was another hot day and couldn’t walk around much.

While D was busy treating the rocks in the yard, I started to make some snacks.  I really love the acacia bowl that I bought from Freedom outlet shop. (it was $3.00!)  I thought it would be a good bowl to fill edamame or some nuts, but bagel would probably go well on it too.

I like eating the fresh one just like that – without any spread.  A glass of milk or cafe au lait with it would be nice!

Oh, I spent a relaxing birthday yesterday, by the way.  Nothing special, but nothing to complain about!  Mother-in-law made mee goreng for me in the morning.  “Noodle = long life” they eat noodle on the birthday to wish for long life.  Is this a Chinese thing?  The idea sounds similar to toshikoshi-soba (Japanese people eat soba noodle at 0:00AM on the New Year’s day to wish for long life).

D and I had something to buy at IKEA, and had a pit-stop at the cafe eating a princess cake 🙂

Yesterday wasn’t a great day for people in New Zealand.  I wish all those affected a quick recovery back to normal life…

Hot and Humid Summer

This summer has been quite humid in Perth, don’t you think? The summer in Perth should be dry and hot… I don’t like humidity. (>_<)

Today was my Week37’s OB appointment. On Week 34 my baby’s head was engaged, but on my last visit last week (Week36) OB told me that the head wasn’t in my pelvis anymore – lifted up again. So, today I was little bit nervous to know if the head was engaged again . …. It was!!! The head is now perfectly in my pelvis :). It’s a relief.

D and I attended a Parenting Class at the hospital on Saturday. It was a fast truck course and from 9am to 3:30pm. I was bit surprised to know that there’re quite a few number of pregnant women who’s due dates are close to mine at the same hospital and with the same OB! Everyone looked uncomfortable… but happy 🙂

When I watched the video of virginal/cesarean birth the first time, it was really scary…  but now I don’t feel scared anymore.  I’ve watched few child birth video and they are quite educational.   Yeah I still feel little anxious, but not much. I’m surprised with this feeling, actually. If I was younger I’d be freaked out.

Today I was practicing filling up the form for Japanese birth registry. I had to go to Jap embassy to obtain the form (they don’t allow people to download online, which is, to me, too troublesome). The form is very tricky and I even didn’t understand the description of “how to write” in Japanese. I had to phone the embassy to ask. After the bub is born I need to go there to submit the form, and then we can apply for his Japanese passport. Applying Australian passport seems to be much easier to me. You can download the form online, and can submit it throu post office.
He is going to have two nationalities (Japan and Australia) temporary and he will have to chose one before he turns 22years old.

Hey, by the way tomorrow is my birthday! Totally forgot about that… No plan so far, I guess I will just relax (which I have been doing since my last day at work) and watch DVD or go shopping 🙂

BBQ (Baby Shower?)

Since I thought I wouldn’t have a chance to throw a little home party after the baby is born, I invited my friends to come over to my house to enjoy bbq and catch up with them.   …. and it turned out to be a little baby shower party!

Two of my friends came to my house 1 hour early with balloons, and decorated the house with them!

I prepared some foods – sandwiches, veggie sticks, dips and some salads – as there’d be more girls and I knew they’d prefer eating vegetables (their liking for foods are similar to mine). I also prepared many vegetables to grills too.

But!  In the morning, D and I found out the bbq grill was broken (>0<).  The fire kept dying (we just got new gas from Bunnings)….  so, we decided to grill the meats and veggies with our small in-door grill, George Foreman!

It was a hot day and everyone stayed inside chatting (although all the balloons were decorated in the garden).  Thanks to this super fast-heating grill, barbecuing was done in 20 minutes!  Meanwhile I insisted everyone to gather around the table (they were everywhere – sitting on the sofa, exploring the house, playing in-door soccer etc) and start eating.

I wasn’t sure if the foods were going to be enough (as I wasn’t sure if everyone was coming, and how much kids would eat), but they were just fine.  They liked my buttered mushroom the best 🙂  Oh, I totally forgot that I also made chicken kebabs (skewered, marinated chicken pieces with capsicums and onions), but when I realised it everyone was already full, going back to the sofa and started chatting again.

I always prepare some desserts when I invite my friends to come over.  This time, I made cheese cake, fruits platter, and orange mousse.  Actually I thought the cheese cake was failure – so I covered it up with whipped cream and blueberry jam on top :p  But, surprisingly, it turned out to be the hit. They even asked me for the recipe!

I made this orange mousse in the morning as I thought the dessert wouldn’t be enough too. Actually the food was more than enough and when I brought this mousse up to the table everyone was screaming “enough~” “so full~”.  But they ate it anyway!  I used 100% orange juice (not real orange as I didn’t have time!)  to make it, and it was very easy.  I will post the recipe later.

Oh, they gave me some gifts for the baby.  Baby clothes, baby’s photo album (as they know I take lots of photos), hand-print making kit (from Japan), and toys.  Everything was beautiful, and I had such a great time!

Pregnancy Photo Shoot and San Churro

Yey, week 35! ♪  It’s finally the last month of my pregnancy…

I’ve wanted to take some photos of myself with this biggest-ever belly.  At first I was thinking to take a pregnancy photo shoot at a studio, but I rather have it for my baby after he is born, so I asked D to take me to Kings Park and shoot some photos of me and belly.  Kings Park is the place where we had our wedding photo shoots too.

It was a shiny day with cool breeze – actually it was rather windy.  The sunshine was strong though – so we had to walk in the shade.  My pelvic bone hurts when I walk too much, so we sat down several times to rest during the 1 hour walk, and took around 50 photos.  I’m quite happy with the result. 🙂

We needed something cold to chill our body down afterwards. First I was thinking about Gloria Jeans, but we headed to San Churro in Subiaco instead.

We had an iced chocolate and a kid’s churros.  The smell from Jus Burger next door was really tempting, but we were after some sweets only – probably we eat burger then enjoy the sweet chocolate next time!

Yukidaruma

Here is a chilling photo of yukidaruma – snow man – from Hokkaido, Japan.  This tiny yukidaruma was showing its face from a snow house (kamakura) in front of a Spanish restaurant – my friend said.  As you can see, snow man in Japan has two body parts, not three.  In Australia, America, and some other countries, snow man has three body parts and I always thought it was strange.  Two-ball body looks much cuter than three–ball, don’t you think?

QLD is having another trouble again by Yasi cyclone this time.  Right after the terrible flood, I hope things will go better for QLD residents soon.  Japan seems to be having a big snow at the moment, and my friend who lives in Fukui (above Shiga) said that snow had piled up 2M!  Yeah, February is the coldest month in Japan, and I remember lots of snow storm around this time of the year.

Last night dinner at Hans Palace in East Perth (website) took 4 hours… and some of the food was still in my stomach when I woke up this morning!  We (my in-laws : 13 people) all had Chinese New Year banquet, which included New Year salad, Shark Fin and Crab Meat Soup, Singapore Style Chili Lobster with buns, Braised Pork, Roasted Chicken, Sweet & Sour Fish, Stir-fried Fish, Fried Rice, Deep-fried Crab Rolls, Sea Cucumber with Oyster Sauce, Mango Pudding and Fruits Platter.

I was so hungry … well. we all were, and when the entree was brought to the table everyone was just enjoying the food without talking.  After the Chili Lobster, the Dragon Dance began….  Everyone left their tables and enjoyed watching/feeding the dragons.  I was still hungry, but the wait staff didn’t bring up the main meal until the dance finished.  I understand that no one would eat the main meal while the dance was on, and the food would go cold if they served during the dance.  But, it was almost 8:30 PM when the dance finished.  It’d been 2.5 hours since we arrived the restaurant!  I think they should have served the main before the dance began.  It looked like all other tables were the same –  they didn’t get main meal until the dance finished.  By the time the dance finished, we started to feel full (even though we didn’t eat much food) and couldn’t finish all the main meal and desserts.  Some people were complaining about it and saying that restaurant is doing it on purpose, but we all took the leftover back home so I guess it’s ok…

By the way, today was my last day at work, and I’m going on 1 year parental leave from Monday.  It didn’t feel like it was my last day – but I enjoyed the platters of sushi and karaage that they bought from Sundays Everyday (in Myaree).  The food was delicious – I enjoyed the karaage very much.  I didn’t know my body was wanting meat so much!

From next week I don’t need to wake up to go to work anymore, but I have so many things on my to-do list.  I’m still asking my mum to fly here (she is afraid of flying) sometime around August this year.  I hope my sister cousin can escort my mum …

Australian Day 2011

Aussie day!  I headed to my sister in-law’s house for BBQ lunch.  We started with happy soda slushie that she made.  She bought a proper “happy soda” syrup from asian grocery shop in Canning Vale and it really tasted rose.  Yum!

Flamed grilled meats – lamb, steak and sausages!  I knew they wouldn’t have prepared any salad (Aussie BBQ = meat), so I brought a bowl of greens.  The meat was great.  She made sure the meat was cooked well-done for me.  The flame-grilled steak… it was so great.  I also loved the spinach, cheese and pine nut sausage.

Since I came to Australia, every Australia Day was always hot and fine day.  It was cloudy and drizzling until yesterday, but today it was hot and dry!

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Week 32

I can’t believe I’m already here!  Just few more weeks to go…

Now I think I’ve got everything I need.  I’ve got my breast pump, baby’s ear thermometer, some books to read, and hand-made toy to give to him.

I wasn’t going to buy a breast pump and bottles because I’m planning to do breastfeeding.  But, sister-in-law told me that I will need bottles anyway (otherwise I will have to feed baby every few hours for at least 6 months).  My husband also wishes to feed baby, so I bought a breast pump.  This Ameda Purely Yours is what sister-in-law recommended me.  This is a hospital grade pump with two-pump system so that you can pump milk from two breast at the same time.  Not many retailers sell this item so I had to buy it from an online shop.  It was actually cheaper than buying regular brand breast pump like Avent.

The books written by Oliver Jeffers are my husband’s favorite.  I also love his illustration.  I bought a set of three stories from borders (I wrote about it here) for reading to our bub.

As I mentioned before I made “Baby on Board” stuffing myself!  It was my second time using a sewing machine… since I bought one.  All the “baby on board” sign sold in Perth look the same and I wanted to make my own.  I’m going to hung this in my car 🙂

I made another booking at Mayumi‘s for next weekend.  My left calf was clamped the other night and it’s really hurt.  I couldn’t walk for the next few days, seriously.  I’ve never had such strong clamp before!  I can’t wait for the massage…

On this weekend I went to Murdoch hospital to take a hospital tour for maternity ward.  A nurse showed us few rooms including birth suite and private/shared rooms.  Theatre room and ICU are located at the ground floor.  The tour is carried out every Saturdays and Sundays, but there are 6~7 couples when we attended.

This is it, that’s the place I’m giving birth to my first bub.  I will be receiving an interview phone call from the hospital on week 35, and on week 36 I’m attending a parenting class at Murdoch hospital!

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Subway at Home

Since I can’t (don’t want to) get rolls from Subway while pregnant, I’m making my own Sub salad rolls at home.  It’s actually started few months ago, and D and I eat them very often (like 5 times a week) now.  Especially it’s very hot these days and what I feel like eating is refreshing cold salad anyway.

So, our fridge is stacked with vegetables.  Lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, avocado, red onions, olives, Jalapeno, cheeses, pickles, and sauces….  Each vegetables are chopped/cut and prepared in separate containers so that we can make a roll anytime.  He loves lots of honey mustard on his roll…

I love American mustard and grain mustard.  Sweet chilli also gives a nice flavor!

It’s kind a good idea, as we can eat many kinds of vegetables everyday.  And D seems that he lost some weights!  He didn’t eat any vegetables when I met him 7 years ago.  What a change!

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Pregnancy Massage

On the weekend I had a relaxing 1 hour massage by a Japanese lady, Mayumi san, in Wembley.  One of my friend has been Mayumi’s regular client for almost 1 year, and few months ago the friend gave me a gift voucher for 1 hour massage at Mayumi’s.  I was wanting to use this voucher but I didn’t make a booking as I was still in the first and second trimester of my pregnancy and didn’t know if I should be getting massage at that time.  And, around late last year I was told that Mayumi was pregnant too.

I wasn’t so sure if she was still doing massage.  I know massaging someone’s body for 1 hour is a pretty hard work.  But, I really wanted to use this voucher as I’m in the third trimester and my feet, back and shoulders needed some help.  I contacted her, and found out that she is still working!  So I made a booking and I headed to the place on the weekend.

Mayumi works as a massage therapist healing injured people.  Deep tissue massage is what she normally does, but since I’m pregnant she did a relaxation massage to help lymph circulation on my body.

It was a heavenly 1 hour!  She started from my calfs and thighs.  I had to lie on my side while she was doing my feet, back and arms (I can’t lie on the stomach).   She said my feet are cold (I have poor blood circulation), and my right foot is little swelled.  For the back, she did deep tissue massage little bit and it was really good.

After the arms are done I sat on a chair for shoulder massage.  Then, I lied on my back and she did my decollete, neck, head and feet.  She used Macadmia oil to do massage, and her pressure was just perfect.

Half way through the massage my body started to feel really warm.  When I called her to make a booking and she told me it’s going to be a relaxation massage, I thought it was going to be something like what I get at a normal massage salon. (like Swedish massage)  But, what she aims is “healing” and “fixing” of the body, not just making you feel good.  Through the massage she gave me some advice.  In my case, lymph circulation was poor, so she advice me to exercise more and move muscles around my ankles regularly.  Unlike blood, lymph doesn’t travel through the body by heart.  Muscles are the one which helps lymph move through the body.

Unfortunately she is soon stopping working as her due date is on April, but I’d like to get her massage after she returns to work.

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Productive Weekend – Making Paper and Owl

It was very productive weekend for me.  I stayed home most of the time because of the heat and tiredness.  I spent time in front of tv a lot, but also enjoyed making some things.  One of them are recycled paper.  Yes, D and I made lots of paper at home using a paper making kit we bought online before Christmas.

First, we teared up paper and soaked in water overnight.

The process is very simple, but it just took some time – we stayed in the laundry room for about 1 hour transforming the soaked paper into pulps using a blender, shaping the pulps into A4 size, and hanging the paper to dry.

Scoop the pulps using a frame,

Pressing the pulps into tea towels,

And drying the paper.

Here are the completed recycled paper!  Looks perfect…

We did this process 3 times over the weekends, and made about 60 pieces of paper.  I’m using the paper for Bagelier and my another website (not completed yet) in future!

Another thing I did over the weekend was….  sewing!!  I actually can’t believe I was type of person who likes doing this stuff, but I did enjoy it.  Buying a sewing machine was D’s idea; we bought Brother sewing machine at just over $70.00 from Spotlight on the Boxing Day.  It had been more than 10 years since last time I used a sewing machine.  I never did sewing outside school;  I didn’t really have interest in sewing.  But now I completed my first work “owl” and am working on my second one “Baby on Board” stuffing toy to put in my car.

Making this owl took quite a long time (as I totally had forgotten how sewing a stuffed toy works), but my “Baby on Board” is nearly finished; I will upload the photo once I’m done!

Hello 2011

２０１１年、明けましておめでとうございます(^0^)

Happy New Year!!

It seems that Japan is getting lots of snow since yesterday.  My mum said it started to snow yesterday morning in her city in Shiga, and in the evening she couldn’t move her car because of the snow which had been built up.  My friends also said that it’s snow storming outside.  Regardless of whether they are enjoying the snow or not, I do miss snow and wish I was there!

Perth is, on the other hand, in middle of summer.  I had Nachos and watermelon for dinner yesterday.  Oh yes, I didn’t forget to eat toshikoshi-soba 年越しそば this year too.  It’s just one of Japanese tradition I don’t want to miss.  I remember eating soba on the New Year’s eve two years ago at my house with my family, while watching a countdown to 2009 on tv.

In the morning of New Year’s Day, we eat special food called osechi, and zenzai or ozoni in Japan.  Zenzai is a sweet red bean soup with mochi (rice cake), and ozoni is sweet miso soup with mochi.  I had delicious osechi food and ozoni in Perth last year at my friend’s house (I wrote about it here), but this family has gone back to Japan for good and I can’t experience it anymore.

I was actually going to make zenzai at home, but just couldn’t find time.  It’s too hot to make hot azuki soup here anyway…  So, instead, I made mitarashi-dango.  (rice flour dumpling with caramelised sauce)

The process of making dango was fun.  But, after eating just a couple of these I became so full!

Well, at least I started this new year with some Japanese traditional food.

My family is going to visit a shrine for hatsu-moude 初詣 to pray for a new year tomorrow.  My mum said she will pray for me, D and my baby, and buy an amulets and send it to me.  I really wish I was there too.

Today is a start of new year.  My New Year’s resolution is to be honest.  I want to be honest to my feelings and try to share it with other people.  I hope this year will be one of the wonderful year of my life.

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Third Trimester – Week 28~　40

babycentre.com.au

Believe it or not, I’m on the third trimester already!  I’m at week 29, and the baby can be born at any time now (with lots of help by hospital if he is born now, of course).  People started to ask me when my due date is (finally!) because my belly is obviously big.  

I had the glucose test this morning. I had to drink sugar water (it was like soda) and wait for 1 hour to get my blood taken.  While waiting I felt so sleepy…  too much sugar!  Now, I feel little fainting too.  I think I will eat beef steak tonight to boost up my iron level.

It’s just 10 weeks to go, but I realized I haven’t prepared everything for my baby’s arrival yet.  Time flies…  Am I really going to be ready?  I haven’t applied for the paid parental leave to Centrelink yet.  Am I aware of all the medical expenses?  Am I getting enough exercise everyday?  Is my baby doing well?

On my last visit to my OB, my baby was in a breech position.  OB told me that baby will move around, so I didn’t really worry about it.  But now, I don’t know if he is still in a breech position or in a head-down position.  As he grows bigger he won’t be able to move his body around anymore, and if he stays in a breech position giving birth will be difficult.  Just in case he is still in a breech position (which I will find out on my next visit to OB) I found some tips I can do to help my baby into an anterior position (the best position for an easy labour/birth)  

• When sitting, make sure your knees are always lower than your hips (My work involves lots of sitting, so I added a couple of cushion on my chair to make my knees lower than my hips)
• Scrub the floor.  When you’re on all fours, the back of your baby’s head swings to the front of your belly.
• Move around during the day, and take a good night’s rest

Christmas Holiday

Christmas cookie tree.

In the morning of Christmas we woke up with sweet delicious pancake.  I added cherries to the pancake, but D didn’t want any cherries.

After breakfast we sat on a sofa and watched tv for awhile…  It was too hot to go outside!

D started to act weird…  and I knew he was preparing to give me a Christmas present!  We didn’t talk about present until today, and we didn’t even mention about giving a present to each other, but I prepared one and I knew he prepared something for me secretly too.  So, I went outside to get his present ready…

We were trying to act normal, but I couldn’t help laughing.  He gave me a 2011 diary that I wanted!  And, a watch!

A baby bonsai I gave him…  I only prepared one for him 🙁

The wind was still warm in the evening.  It was really tiring day…  I wouldn’t be able to survive without air-con.  After dinner (inari sushi and chicken karaage), we drove to a park near Swan River for walking.  It was 9 PM and quite windy, but the heat was finally off.  It was very hot Christmas…

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Christmas Party 2010

Christmas is just around the corner!  People must be busy for attending Christmas parties at this time of the year. 😀

My friends and I had a small Christmas party last weekend.  One of them are flying to Taiwan and Malaysia soon to spend her Christmas and New Year’s Day there.  Other friends have been already back to Japan.

We brought so many food….  Temaki-sushi (hand-rolled sushi), pupusa (El Salvador’s food), roasted pumpkin salad, Japanese style roast beef, osuimono (soup), and KFC (who brought KFC chicken!?)

I was the first one to arrived my friend’s house, and started to prepare the food on the plates.  I was munching on the pupusa and edamame, with lemon lime n bitter, so by the time everyone arrived I was pretty full.  

As friend told me that her house might get stuffy and hot, I told everyone to wear bikini on the day.  I could be fun, right?  It’s a gathering of just girls anyway.  But, no one did. :p  Maybe next year?  We could be wearing yukata too. 

Itadakima~su!  

Merry Christmas to everyone (^0^)/

What to Give This Christmas…

Deciding what to give on the Christmas and birthdays are sometimes hard job for me.  For some people it’s easy – for example, for a friend who likes taking bath I will give her a set of bath salt or something she can use in her bath time.  For some people, on the other hand, it’s difficult to imagine what will please them.  

My in-laws suggest to do secret santa each year on Christmas.  It’s actually a good idea as I don’t need to worry about buying something for everyone (my husband has 7 sisters, brothers and nephew).  But, it’s bit hard if I pick brother-in-laws because I have no idea what he is interested in and would like.  One sister is also a difficult one because she seems to have everything.  If something becomes a trend on the year, she has it.  

But, the person who I find it’s most difficult to get exactly what he wants is D, my husband.  He knows so many things than I do – if there is an earthquake in Japan, he knows before I hear from my family.  It’s because he is always online and check news and other geeky stuff everyday.   So, he knows where to buy some stuff at cheapest price, and which product and brand is nice and works well.  He likes computer stuff and I always think I should buy him something he can use, but I’m not really familiar with these things and have no idea where and what to buy it.  And, as he can get lots of information on the internet, he always find an unique gift for someone else.  This year he is the secret santa for his brother-in-law, and he bought this:

Bacon band aid…  very unique, and I think it’s a perfect gift for the bacon-lover.

It’s kind of a funny story, to think about it.  I start planning around September what to buy for D for his birthday and Christmas each year (his birthday is on December), but I always end up rushing on deciding one or two weeks before his birthday.  Few years ago, I planned so hard that I got confused, and in the end I gave him a cushion.  I don’t really know why I bought a cushion for him, but that’s what I did.  This year was also terrible.  I had a list of “things I may buy for his birthday and Christmas”, but as closer it gets to his birthday all the things on the list started to seem boring.  In the end, I bought him a cleaner kit for glasses.  Why!?

There are still 2 weeks till Christmas, and I still have a chance to regain his love.. (* Ŏ∀Ŏ)  This time I decided to write down a memo whenever he talks about things he wants or is interested in : anything, e.g. last night he was browsing a site about space invader game and pacman.  Yeah, right, he likes retro stuff.  And, I remembered he likes bonsai and vespa.  This list will be kept for next year in case I forget what he likes (I really have a short memory).

Sunday Lunch and Heartburn from Oily Food

This is one of my favorite lunch – bihun sup ayam (rice noodle soup with chicken).  Mother-in-law makes lunch on every Sundays and it has been this family’s tradition (?) for a long time -since my husband was a baby.  Sometimes the food is chicken porridge, sometimes it’s egg noodle soup, but I like this bihun sup ayam the best.

If someone asks me what noodle I like, I would say “bihun”.  I don’t hate egg noodles, I just prefer rice noodle.  I also like kway teow noodle.  Some rice noodle is thick – like those you get at Vietnamese noodle house.    I’m not really a big fun of the thick rice noodle as it’s easy to break (different to udon noodle which is supposed to be chewy).  Rice vermicelli noodles doesn’t fill my big stomach enough, but I like eating it as snack.

Still now, oily food (e.g. deep-fried food) and garlic make me feel sick.  I don’t think it will go away while I’m pregnant！  It’s one of the things that I feel uncomfortable about living with in-laws, as they like eating Chinese food very much (everyday) and you know Chinese foods often contain lots of oil.  Besides the fact that I am Japanese who loves plain Japanese food, I’m an extreme on-oily food lover.  (tempura, karaage, only once a month!)  I really appreciate D’s mum cooking every day as I don’t feel like cooking at all these days, but she cooks deep-fried stuff almost everyday and if the food is in front of me I’d eat anything.  Afterwords I suffer from heavy heartburn. (*_*)

Hearty rice noodle soup is what I crave for quite often.  As I don’t cook myself much now and eat Chinese food often (e.g. chicken stock based soup, not udon soup), I’m thinking my baby may like Chinese food when he grow older!  There is a saying that what you eat during pregnancy could be baby’s favorite food.  I’m not sure if it’s true, but 85% of what I eat is Chinese food now so I’m guessing it could be true! (@_@)

Happy 4th Birthday!

… I know I’ve been writing similar topics over and over!  There are so many people born this month around me… (^^;)

Last Friday was D & D’s nephew’s birthday.  (Yap, uncle and nephew born on the same day)  We had family dinner at a Chinese restaurant, and shared a birthday cake together at home.   This is one of the thing I admire about his family –  they always get together for family’s birthday, and shoot a video of cake-cut each year.  (with candle-blowing and singing “happy birthday”.)

I made the birthday cake, as usual.  As D requested, I made a simple sponge+cream+little fresh fruits cake.  Just for a change, I made it into a dome-shape : just like a snow mountain!

Each year, nephew’s birthday party change its theme : for the first birthday it was Ratatouille, on 2nd birthday it was Elmo, and third birthday was jumping castle (sister-in-law hired a jumping castle for kids).  This year, it’s fire truck.  She hired a fire-fighter Kevin to come to the party (not a real fire fighter, of course!).

Kids rode on the fire truck and circled around the house.

Nephew taking a photo in a fire fighter costume.

Kevin gave nephew a certificate as well!  

Happy 10th Birthday!

On the weekend I made a birthday cake for 10 years old girl!

As it’s for a girl, and she is turning 10, I made the cake into “10” shape and decorated with pink cream.

It’s a sponge cake layered with fresh fruits and whipped cream.

It was very rush, actually.  I told the father to come to my house to pick it up around 11 am, but I woke up at 9 am!  All the ingredients were ready – the sponge cake was baked, cream was whipped, and the fruits were washed and dried already – I just had to assemble all of them and create a “10” shaped cake.

When I was covering the sponge with cream, I realized I will need more cream- the amount I whipped last night wasn’t enough to cover this huge cake!  I was panicking a little, but tried to calm myself down and whipped another pack of cream.  Lucky I had bought 2 packs of cream!

I layered lots of fruits inside.  I wanted to make the surface simple so I just decorated the side of “0” with sliced strawberries, and I decorated the top of cakes with pink cream flower.

Hope she had a wonderful 10th birthday 😀

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Bagels and Bamboo Restaurant

After week 20, my belly started to grow bigger and bigger very quickly.  I’m at week 24 now and I can’t see my bikini line!  People can notices that I am pregnant and I have to wear very big clothes or maternity clothes, otherwise it’s too tight and very uncomfortable.  

I won’t be able to wear my normal clothes this summer, so I have packed all the summer clothes in the closet.  Maternity clothes are quite pricy, so I’m wearing some of my wide clothes or D’s T shirts everyday… (π´®†¥¨ˆ∂ƒ©˙

As the belly grows, I can feel bub’s movement very strongly now and sometimes I have to support my belly with a maternity belt when I have to move around or keep standing up for a long period of time. 

Especially while making bagels…

This week I had a special order for a baby girl’s 1 month birthday (?).  It was my first time to make bagels with icing!

I wouldn’t think about putting icing on bagels, but it was the special order for a special girl…

White and pink icing 🙂

Ahhhh… my stomach is still full…   In-laws and I went to Bamboo restaurant last night, and ordered quite a lot of dishes.  

I really like the style of the restaurant, but the food is pretty average to me.  I’ve been there only for dinner, but some food are nicer at South Ocean in Kardinya.  

We ordered fried fish with crabmeat sauce, seafood and tofu claypot, and Thai style chicken.  

The flaming Thai style chicken was quite entertaining, but we had to wait until the flame goes off… for about 3 minutes.  The chicken was beautifully roasted, and the sauce was spicy – lemongrass, coconut and other spices and chili.  

I felt all the dishes were quite salty.  It helped me drinking lots of water though…   

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Mood for Beauty

My friend recently had eyelash extension and she kept saying that she now loves looking at her face (eyes) in the mirror.  She had the extension by a Japanese lady – friend gave me the information about the lady but I’m not sure if I ever get eyelash extension.  It sounds very interesting, but I’m not sure if it’s 100% safe, and it is also pricy and not permanent.

But, after hearing from the friend I looked at my eyelash and realized that my eyelash has been falling off quite a lot!  I believe I had more eyelash when I was younger (>0<).  I never cared (I should…) about these things, and now I think I should do something about it.  

I bought L’Oreal Lash Boosting Serum to help my eyelash grow! L’Oreal brand seems to be quite popular among Japanese girls too.  Let’s see how it goes… 

I’ve been wearing the serum on my eyelash for 2 weeks now, twice a day.  I haven’t worn mascara for the last two weeks, and I think that my eyelash has became stronger –  less failing.

By the way, one of my friend in Japan is also pregnant (around 3 months) and they are having the wedding party on January next year.  She is already married to her husband, but they didn’t do any party or ceremony. (which is quite common thing in Japan these days)  They chose the following dress:

… yes, not white.  Wine color!  These days people in Japan don’t really care the color of the wedding dress much…  I’ve seen many brides wearing pink, blur or red dress in their wedding, not white.  I really like the dress and I think she will look great in this dress 🙂

These days my appetite has been strange.  I feel hungry, but don’t know what I feel like eating.  And, I get heartburn very often now.  If I eat a lot in the morning, I can’t eat anything until late night.  So, I just eat light food or snack little by little during the day.  

But, yesterday I really really wanted to eat chicken rice!  I couldn’t do anything but thinking about it.  It was around 3 PM, and D and I headed to Ten Ten.

I ordered Hainanese chicken rice, and D ordered roasted chicken rice.  We must have had looked like two starved little kids….   I ate it up all and so did he (^^).  It was very satisfying afternoon!

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Christmas Shopping and Yum Cha

Although it was very very hot during the week, the weather was pretty comfortable on the weekend.  Cloudy and little shower, but it’s better than 40 degrees!

Parents-in-laws went to Bunker Bay from Saturday to stay over night with sister family, so it was only me and D at home –  yey ♪

After making some bagels, we headed to Northbridge for lunch.  I felt like something dry – something similar to gyoza.  The thing I could think of was Yum Cha… 

D ordered the usuals – chicken feet, pork spare ribs, fried squid and ginger tripes.  GInger tripes are my favorite!  I usually eat chicken feet and squid, but I couldn’t eat any fatty stuff (especially deep-fried food) so I ordered some steamed prawn dumplings and prawn rice paper rolls.  I ate sooo much… as usual.  I always overeat when I go for Yum Cha.

On Sunday, it was raining and there were many people at Borders in the city.  You can get $20.00 voucher when you sign up for the Border V.I.P membership – so we both signed up online on Saturday and headed to Border on Sunday to browse what to buy.

I love the goods sold at Borders – not only the books, but also some gifts and zakka things.  I saw some cool stuff, but I couldn’t decide what to buy in the end…  We decided to come back next week, as I can’t stand walking around for too long now: my body gets really tired and I feel very sleepy afternoon.

I say this every year, but I really miss Christmas in winter!  Next year…

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Cot and Moon

I haven’t been cooking lately: just eating in-law’s food at home (^^)  Eating Indonesian/Chinese food everyday does make my stomach upset sometimes.  In that case I just make salad or eat fruits.  I don’t have a big appetite at night anyway..

Last night was shumai – … well, it doesn’t look like the normal shumai we eat at dim sum restaurants, but it’s how they (my in-laws) call this dish.  In Indonesia, shumai can be like this steamed meatballs with spicy peanut sauce and sweet soy sauce.  In-law attaches the meatballs with boiled eggs, tofu and potatoes and steam together.  The photo looks very messy, but that how you are supposed to eat (^^;).  Pour sauce, and mix all together!

After a cot arrived, our “spare room” started to look more like a nursery room.  I got this cot from an online shop on a 1-day-free-shipping-sale.  This walnut coloured cot can adjust the height, and has hidden drop sides and is convertible to a toddler day-bed.  The thing I appreciate the most is the removable casters.  This cot is pretty heavy, but I can easily move it around thanks to the lockable wheels.

The mattress and IKEA changing table is from in-law.  We’ve got some nappies, baby wipes, wraps, pacifiers, cot cover, sheet, clothes, etc etc, but need to buy more things – a cushion for the changing table, mattress protector (as this mattress is not mine), bottles, etc etc.

We bought some junks too.

This remote controlled Moon In My Room shows 12 lunar phases of the moon automatically/manually, lights up when it’s dark, and shuts off automatically.  It certainly is not a toy for a baby, it’s just for us to enjoy..

(The actual colour is more whitish)

When I browse nursery rooms online, they look so cute and most of them have the theme –  yellow, blue, princess, ocean, etc.  Our room looks like just a room!

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Massage and Hair Cut

My craving for this week is laksa noodle!  I had laksa last week, and I just can’t stop thinking about the creamy spicy soup…  I think I will get takeaway tonight.

Most people (especially women) love getting massage, I think.  I actually got two vouchers (one for me, one for husband) from my friend for a massage few months ago.  Around that time I already knew I was pregnant, and I also knew I should avoid getting massage during the first trimester (just to be extra careful).  So, I kept the vouchers until today.

Now, although I can’t lie face down on the massage table anymore, I can still get massage on my neck, shoulders and legs, I think.  My body is really stiff now.  I really need a massage.

I was about to make a booking for the massage.  The massooth is Japanese who does mobile massage in Perth.  When I was about to phone her, my friend told me that she is actually pregnant now!  Oh no… then she can’t do the massage anymore?

I also recently had hair cut by a Japanese lady.  She does mobile hair services in Perth, so I asked her to come over to my house to cut & color my hair.  I could go to her house instead, but I thought it’s better to do it at my house so that I could do all the housework and start roasting the chicken in the oven before she comes.  Then, the chicken would be done when my hair is done!

I cut my hair to medium length, and colored to light brownish color (not too light).

If you are interested in having hair cut by this lady ↓↓

Name: Nao san

Mobile: 0430 927 880

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