Bagels from … Ham Company?

The Nippon Ham group established structures for large- scale meat production, processing, and export, and it operates subsidiaries around the world.  (English site)  Most of processed meat products you get to see at supermarkets in Japan are Nippon Ham’s.

.. I wasn’t searching for this meat company, I was actually googling “bagel shop in Japan”.  Then I found this “delicious soft bagels and pizzas online shop - Nippon Ham”   … Nippon Ham = bagels??  

I clicked the Nippon Ham site, then I found that this company now doesn’t sell only ham and bacon, but also salad, pizza, bread, curry, dressing, and even bento boxes! :p

You can see bagels are now getting to be one of common food people eat at home everyday in Japan.  These bagels from Nippon Ham are well-packaged for commercial sales, and of course Nippon Ham is not the only company which sells bagels in supermarkets.  Plus, bakeries, hotels, restaurants and cafes also serve bagels as standard menu.

I will try to eat many bagels in Japan for the next few weeks

Hinamatsuri

March 3 is Hinamatsuri Day in Japan.  It is also called “girl’s day”, and families with girl(s) celebrate this day with a display of ornamental dolls (Hina-ningyo).

It is one of Japanese traditional event, and my house also used to display a set of Hina-ningyo on the day of Hinamatsuri.  Since this display set is pretty huge, it takes few hours to set up the stairs and dolls on the right position.  (which is like setting up a Christmas tree)  And, on the day of Hinamatsuri we turn on the light called bon-bori and run the music of Hinamatsuri song.  

Nowadays people don’t set up the traditional display (which is kinda shame), but substitute with something different…

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…

I am going back to Japan

Just for 2 weeks, I will be in Japan next month.  This trip was planned just recently and I am sorry for such short notice to Bagelier customers.

One of the purpose on this trip is staying with my family on my dad’s special birthday - he is turing 60, and we are planning a small family trip to onsen (hot spring) to celebrate his kanreki.   In Japan, turning 60 is a major big deal.   It’s when your life has come full circle, when the clock resets and you start a new cycle of life. Interestingly it’s usually only a major celebration for males—I guess women don’t want to celebrate turning 60, not so much.

And actually my mum’s birthday is also on March, so we are celebrating both of them on the onsen trip  By the way she is turing 51!  Yap, 9 years age gap.

It’s just a short holiday, but I’m so excited about this trip.  I think I won’t be able to go back to Japan for a long time after this trip, so I will try to enjoy Japan as much as I can.  :)

I hope I can see sakura and ume over there.

To Bagelier customers:

I will be away from March 10, 2010 to March 30, 2010.  I am sorry for the inconvenience.  Please place orders by 8th of March

Funcy Japanese Drinks

As you may know, there is a wide range of products available in Japan.  Some of the products, you don’t even imagine that exist in this world!  Although I was born and grew up in this country, these things surprise me every time I go back to Japan.

Because of many businesses running across Japan, there are so many competitions going on between those companies.  Drink is an example.  A company produces a pet bottle of green tea named “oishii ocha” (delicious tea) and another company produces green tea named “ureshii ocha” (happy tea).  Naming of drinks is also a war, as company B can’t use a name which has been already taken by company A.  So, you get to see drinks named “o~i ocha” (hey, tea), “kore ocha” (this is the tea” etc etc

A drink company, Sangaria sells some unique drinks.  Standard drinks such as tea, juice and soda …

and …

Beer for kids! 

… NO, of course this is just a soft drink (non-alcohol)  :p  Looks like beer, and the name is “kodomo no nomimono” (kid’s drink).

Sangaria’s popular drink, Osaka’s cafe style mix juice drink is now available as sake (Japanese alcohol drink).  Sangaria’s mix juice is one of my favorite, and now I’m curious to taste this sweet sake drink!