Unique Japanese Drinks

Suntory, one of Japan’s leading beverage companies, is selling something that some people were looking for…..  All Free!  This All Free is a drink with no calorie, no sugar, and no alcohol.  Yap, all free.

Some may ask what’s the reason of drinking this…  Why don’t you drink water or herval tea instead?  Well, this All Free is actually a non-alcohol beer.  It tastes like beer, but has no alcohol, sugar, or calorie.  This is selling well in this busy drinking season…

Georgia, a popular brand of coffee-flavored beverages sold by The Coca-Cola Company in Japan, sells this unique can of coffee.  It’s a mixture of “coffee” x “green tea”.  It’s not green tea latte.  It still has color of coffee, brown, and contains matcha powder from Uji in Kyoto.

Pepsi in Japan sells these unique flavour drinks.  Azuki, Cucumber and Shiso!  I’ve never tried these, but I think shiso may taste better than others.  It’s just my guess…

I love that cute little tirol chocolate – love the cute little square shape, and their variety of flavours.  But I didn’t know that this popular chocolate snack “tirol chocolate” has its drink version!  Tirol chocolate drink tastes like its original chocolate.  It should taste very rich?

Koala-no-March Hotel Room

Lotte Koala-no-March, chocolate snack in Japan, is one of my favorite.  I’ve seen Chinese and Korean version of this snack in Perth, so I don’t know if it’s originally Japanese though.  Inside, each chocolate-filled snack has different face of koala – one is smiling, one is crying, and one is angry.  Some of them are wearing sunglasses, and some of them wear kimono.

If you like this snack like me, you’ll probably want to stay in a hotel room filled with this cute koala character.  Yes, there are in Japan!  Koala-no-March theme hotel rooms.

This Koala-no-March themed hotel room has koalas everywhere – on the wall, bed cover, curtain, pajamas, and amenities.  Not only children but also adults will be exited to stay in this room, I think

This Lotte City Hotel Kinshi-cho (Sumida-ku, Tokyo) has beautiful views of Tokyo Tower, Sky Tree, and also JR trains from some rooms.  And, there is a chocolate factory cafe on the ground floor where customers can enjoy chocolate making.  Curry, pizza and hamburgers contain chocolate at this cafe.

There is a chance of winning a night at this Koala-no-March hotel room.  Simply go to campaign site and answer the question, and submit the answer to the address shown on the website.

Royal Life Saving

Last week I could finally manage myself to undertake this one-day royal life saving training course.  This course was conducted by The Royal Life Saving Society – a non-profit, community service organisation that conducts training programs in First Aid, Resuscitation (CPR), AUSTSWIM, Bronze Medallion, Lifesaving and Water Safety. They run several kinds of courses, and I attended Heart Beat Club which teaches you the lifesaving skills of CPR, first aid for common child injuries including burns and scolds, choking, drowning and provides information on how to perform child resuscitation or CPR.

The re are child’s first aid courses run by other organisations in WA such as Australian Red Cross and St John of God, but I chose Heart Beat Club because the location was close to my house, they gave us Participation Certificate after the course, and it was just $20.00 per person for a 3-hour-course.

I actually should have taken child’s first air course before Hiro arrived so that I would have known what to do in case of emergency.  After the baby was born I didn’t really have time to do it (although it may be hard to practice CPR etc with a big tummy).  Last week, I left Hiro to D and his parents.

There’re 10 people at the class, and some of them were couples.  One couple brought their new born to the class, I think they didn’t have anyone to ask for looking after their baby for 3 hours.  Being apart from new born baby for 3 hours is quite scary.

The class was conducted by a retired nurse, and she was wonderful.  I must say I am very very happy that I attended this course.  There’re so many useful information about what to do when a child is burnt, choke, and injured.  As well as hearing her experiences and stories, I loved the practical part.  Each one of us got a manekin of baby to practice CPR.  Doing is so different from just reading about CPR on books.  And I learned so many new things, such as DRS ABCD (Danger, Response, Send help, Air way, Breathing, Cpr), and not tilting the head when doing CPR for babies under 12 months old.

Few days before I attended this course I had a terrifying moment while feeding Hiro.  He was coughing, and suddenly stopped coughing and seemed to be choking.  I was in panic, and I took him out from high chair, placed him on my lap facing down, and hit his back few times (as this was how to help choking baby in a book I read).  Then he vomited everything out. I don’t know if he was really choking but it was scary.   I told the nurse (course conductor) about it, and she said that coughing is a natural reflex and nothing to worry about.  If he was choking, his face should have turned blue or looked really tense.  So when he cough, it means he is coping with the lumpy food and is a good thing.

There was 15minutes break, and I just saw this vending machine which makes fresh squeezed orange juice.  I thought it’s cool

At the end of the course we all received Participation Certificate as promised.  I thought 3 hours was gonna be very long, but after the course was done I felt that it wasn’t enough.  I wanted to know more.  $20.00 for this was a really great deal, I think.  If someone is interested in taking the course:

website … location varies. You can check on their website.

Western Australia Only

Food Allergy Test

As I continue to introduce new food to my 8-month-old Hiro, I’ve been careful with acidic food (e.g. strawberries, tomatoes and citrus fruits) and some food that are more likely to be allergen (e.g. egg, cow’smilk) because of his rush on his face and body, but I feel that I’ve been feeding him the same food over and over again and need to explore more variety of food for him to try.  I don’t think his rash is because of food, but it may be and his skin/body may be very sensitive against some particular things.

My friend told me that I could check if he is allergic to food, and in that case, to what food, by sending his hair to a labo in QLD.  Hair test sounds much much safer than blood test – little amount of hair wouldn’t harm at all. (although he doesn’t have much hair :p )  I phoned the labo and found out some information about what I need to do in order to get him tested for food allergy.

Basically you just need to cut little amount of hair from your baby, and place it in a piece of tissue paper or plastic bag (it doesn’t matter) and send to the labo. Along with hair, you will need the followings:

• Baby’s name
• Baby’s birthday
• Your name & address (to send the result)
• $95.00 (by cheque, money order, or details of credit card)

Because I’m in WA, it may take around 2 weeks to get the result (considering the time to send the stuff).  The staff told me that as soon as they receive the hair they’ll put it to the next available labo and test it with 200′s of different foods.

For more information, here is their contact details:

Health Management Therapies
36 Marbella Drive
Benowa
GoldCoast
QLD 4217

ph(07)55970528

FOOD SENSITIVITY TEST

The Bus driver in diffenet country

I personally love Japan’s bus driver!