25th Feb-29th Feb: Family of Pigs...

25th February 2008:

A colleague returned from England and bought tea from Harrods.. Look at this beauty.. There is ceylon and English breakfast.. The tea is kinda strong for my liking, and the absence of sugar didn;t help me enjoy the tea.. But the aroma of the tea was really fantastic..

26th February 2008: Breakfast
I've always felt food taste best when eaten right away.. So I had to eat a big good and heavy breakfast.. But I think I over ate, cuz it took me hours to relieve the satiety I had from my breakfast.. Lunch was totally unnnecessary for me.. So I had curry stew with bread and omelette..

27th February 2008: Last heavy breakfast

After my second consecutive heavy breakfast, I decided this was the last heavy breakfast I would eat.. Bread with meatballs and fried toufu.. More like tau kwa.. :)

I went over to the MAzda plant today for a talk by the company.. I had lunch with Ian, Tat-chan, Sakata-san, Choon, Choon's supervisor.. But I was reluctant for lunch since I had a breakfast.. But it seemed rude to not eat when everyone is eating. Too bad Ian insisted on taking us for Korean food since I dislike korean food, there was nothing much I could eat...
So I ordered something 'light'.. a Pig tail soup.. But it was unknowingly a set lunch which even had rice.. So the meal was kinda too heavy.. I had to give the rice to Choon.. Guess how much was my big bowl of soup and rice? 1000 yen!!! That's like $14!!!!! Roar!!!! I was simply pissed the entire day that I had to pay so much for something I din like just because someone simply wanted to eat Korean food, oblivious of what everyone else wants to eat... Oh well, This issue was two months ago.. I simply bear grudges too much...

I was sad the entire day cuz I could no longer buy the apples I wanted to eat because apples are so expensive.. :( So I simply remained in low spirits.. Tat-chan was really nice.. he offered to give me 500 yen because he could sense my sadness.. Well, I should have asked for price before ordering.. It happened to be the special of the day and the poster was blocked from my sight by Choon.. Hiromi-chan heard about my sadness that I can't buy apples anymore that she bought me four apples and brought it to my office!!!! Ain't that sweet? I was so touched.. It simply drived away my sadness for the entire incident...

ありがとうひろみちゃん。。。おリンゴくれていただきました。。。

However, there were things worth rejoicing about.. I was going to meet Sakata-san for dinner because I was supposed to pass him the cupcakes I made... :D Akiko-chan was nice to come along to join us!! Yeah!!! So she was so nice to translate for me and Sakata-san... Thank you akiko!! After a treat of okonomiyaki from Sakata-san, I headed for Maison Rabelais.. Sakata-san, his friend and Akiko-chan went to a sushi restaurant.. I promised to return to the sushi restaurant to find them after I'm done at Maison Rabelais... And for doing that, I was rewarded by Sakata-san by leftover sushi!!!! It was actually wrapped like this.. Totally doesn't look like left overs... But thanks to all the shaking and bumps from my bicycle, look at what happened to the poor sushi.. :(
Nonetheless, it was still really taty.. I'm sure I would hate the sushi in Singapore when I return.. Freshness is so importantly.. There was totally no fishy smell from the sashimi on the sushi..

28th February: Ice cream treat from Tat-chanTat-chan worked really late.. So we agreed to meet at Fresta for ice cream.. Ice cream was still kinda cheap den.. :D But communication breakdown led poor Choon and Tat-chan to go different places to look for me.. :S They went to MR which was closed by then, our apartment in Tokaichi, and finally they found me at FResta.. I found this at FResta.. It seems to be different colours of chocolate used for cake decoration.. It looks very user friendly... :P

I felt so bad.. Although I was waiting for some time, But I enjoyed groceries shopping as ususal.. Sorry Tat-chan... Wasted ur petrol looking for me.. :S

29th February: Meet my Brother Pig!! Mido-san!!!

Akiko-chan bought some mini cream puffs that was the speciality from Kyoto.. She was so nice to save two for me to try.. I was so hungry after my pathetic lunch.. Akiko-chan.. Thank you!! Akiko-chan wanted to take me out for dinner this night.. While I was talking to my Finance manager, Mido-san during our afternoon walk, we happened to run into Akiko-chan when we were reaching the office.. So we talked to Mido-san about our dinner tonight and invited him along.. Too bad he was likely to be busy.... So it wld be just be just me and Akiko-chan...
But.. In the late afternoon.. Akiko-chan and I had a super surprise from Mido-san!! He could joined us!!!! SO the three of us made our way to Kappa-Tei..

We had so much fun eating this spread of food.. Recommendationw as by dearest AKiko-chan.. She really knows where the good food was.. there was charcoal barbequed chicken... The picture on the top right is actually horse meat.. Its horse sashimi.. It tasted pretty good.. :P Sorry to horse lovers.. Please don't hate me.... Bottom right is Mido-san..

The three of us ate s o much that we felt like pigs.. So we called ourselves the family of pigs, or 豚三人家族... :D This was one of my most memorable dinners in Hiroshima.. Not because we had a $140 over dollars of treat from Mido-san, but we really got close after the dinner.. We felt like siblings after the meal.. We even gave each other names for the pig family.. So Mido-san is our Ton-kei豚兄、Akiko-chan is Ton-shi 豚姉、And I'm Ton-mai豚妹.. In case you are wondering why there are no picture of AKiko-chan, she refused to photos with us again.. :(

http://s195.photobucket.com/albums/z304/iverylamemeh/Hiroshima%2025th%20Feb-29th%20Feb%202008/?albumview=slideshow
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=109646&id=651105233

19th Feb 2008-24th Feb 2008: Knowing new people...

19th Feb 2008
This box of cute strawberries found its way to my table.. It happens to be another box of sweet memories from my Japanese best friend, AKIKO!!!! :D

This day is special cuz its my two years anniversary with Dave... but yet we're spending it apart...

20th Feb 2008
I finally met Sakata-san, the man Elvin has been bugging me to meet... After meeting Sakata-san, I finally knew why I had to meet him.. He's a really nice man.. Believe me.. If i told you this man's age, you wouldn't believe.. Hint: Sakata has five grand children.. We went for an expensive dinner at a restaurant near Hiroshima station.. Thanks to Ian, our tall and handsome sports car driving senior from ntu and Sakata-san, we had a nice meal...
Left to right: Jackie, Choon, Me, Ian, Sakata-san and Hiromi-chan

After our meal, we went for karaoke.. You would be surprised by the range of chinese and english songs on top of the japanese songs they provided.. shock**

Japanese Karaokes are different because they have tamborines and that shaky thingy.. what is it called? Maracas? ITs quite some fun making a whole of of noises.. Here's me and Hiromi-chan! This is the wireless tap machine for you to search and select the songs...




Say Chex!! Oooops.. Looks like someone got fat... Time to lose weight!!!

Here's Sakata-san and Claire who got mad... Lol... You wun believe this man's age manx....

22nd Feb 08: 大久保さんのアパート(OOkubo's apartment)

If there was one thing that Japan can sell cheaper than Singapore, it would be strawberries.. I was lucky to grab a punnet from pro-mart for 198 yen which is just $2.80? They're sweet, pretty and tasty!!!

Work is tough, but worth it.. cuz I could look forward to going to visit Ookubo's house.. Hearsay news is he has the biggest TV and homiest apartment.. Looks like I will fin out the truth for myself.. :D

I met Hiromi-san at Tenmaya.. And we agreed to meet back at my beloved suncourt while ookubo aka oh!kun aka tatchan drove hiromi-chan to his place.. After picking me from suncourt, we made our way to Fresta where Hiromi bought ingredients to cook for us...

And as expected, Ookubo-san does have a very nice house!!! It has a nice toilet, which has the lavatory separated from the bath.. And ookubo's house smells as good as his car.. I love the smell cuz it makes me feel like i'm on the aircraft.. Lol... Look the the two rabbit looking things on the right, second from the bottom... Those are slt and pepper grinders.. Aren't they cute? :D And we had cakes from Maison Rabelais which tasted absolutely fantastic!!!



23rd Feb 08: Snow Snow Snow



Its a sat, and i spent an entire day at Maison Rabelais.. Well, afternoon jap lessons in Hiroshima gokusai centre... One of my fave teachers here..



Amazing thing is i saw Mirai senpai doing something... Looks like another chocolate drawing masterpiece... Voila!!! She drew this with chocolate on chocolate!!! Ain't it amazing?
Spot the difference!!!
And by the time I headed home, it was snowing really heavily.. It was so cold... and torturous to cycle...

Look at what snow did to me... :(

24th Feb 2008: Maison Rabelais..

I woke up to make chocolate coated strawberries for some special people like Akiko, Hiromi, Ookubo, Chef, Hashimoto-san and wife.. believe me.. All wrapping materials in the picture below is recycled

Nothing special after that.. Just wrapped cakes at Maison Rabelais.. But our head chef received some presents from a desert stall named mikuni... Its a pack of macarons and corn cake..
Never expect corn to go with cake, but this somehow blended perfectly...

17th February 2008 Part 3: Daimon City

After the trip at Sogo, Choon and I returned for a little rest before we met Jackie, Ian and Ookubo for dinner at Daimon City.. Daimon City is pretty big.. Its a smaller version of our Vivo city though... :P

Ian bought us for this dinner at a Chinese style restaurant.. Choon ordered some Chinese set.. Think its some fried chicken set.. I din order since i was still full from my food samplings at sogo.. So, I ordered an almond tofu!!! Yummy!!!!
Ian and Jackie (the pretty gal in the picture below) had a Shabu Shabu buffet dinner.. Coincidently, Jackie stays two blocks away from me and Choon.. :P
And here's us after dinner.. This is the young Ford gang.. Hahhaa.. Everyone here is below thirty!! Hahahaha.. From left to right: Choon, Me, Ookubo and Ian.. Ookubo lives pretty near us, so we get to hitch a ride in his car sometimes.. Lol.. lucky us..
We went to this shoe shop.. And i spotted this Adidas shoe which I think Dave might like..I had some intentions to buy it though.. But just decide to keep my options open.. :D

Photobucket album:

Photobucket

Facebook album:

Part 1

Part 2

17th February 2008 Part 2: Sogo

Excuse me for another late entry.. Too busy to blog.. Plus I've gotten so lazy i need to eat a lazy-free pill.. Always sleeping more than 8 hours everyday.. As you saw in the previous entry, I went to Science Centre in the morning.. And now, I shall introduce you the nearest shopping centre from my apartment.. Just a 8 mins cycle..

SOGO is pretty much well known for their basement of food samples.. As usual, the display of food was bedazzling me.. Except its too expensive.. Look at the mochi creams!! ITs $2 plus for one of it!!! But its realy tasty.. The boss at Maison Rabelais treated me to it before.... On the 8th floor or whatever floor it is, I see a cute display of dawgs!!!!!!!!!! So cute!!!!!

17th February 2008 Part 1: Children's science centre

Chong and I woke up for another day of fun. Well, Choon Fei didn't exactly enjoy himself.. Cuz he thinks Singapore's Science Centre is better. I can't deny that, but the entry fee was free! And there is a planetarium like our omni-theatre, except that its not so action pack. It did picture a very nice stary sky though.. But Singapore Science Centre is indeed better in every way.. But I shall not complain because its free.. Haha..

The centre picture in the first row is actually me in a playground.. The playground stated its for kids under 8.. So big fat Claire had to squeeze in.. The top row right picture and centre row left picture is the planetrium.. The centre picture of the bottom row is the sports centre.. :D

15th-16th February 08 Ear doctor..

15th February TGIF!!

Well, as you notice in an entry previously, I had a ear injury. Since my poor eay refuse to stop bleeding, I had to see the doctor. It was a pretty comfortable ear cleaning session. The doctor gave me some medication and I recovered quickly within 2 days.

Uniforms are really pretty here. Look at the pretty nurses I caught photo with!!

After my clinic visit, I cycled back to office to meet my best friend, Akiko-chan. Akiko-chan brought me for okonomiyaki at Yokogawa. The surprising things was that I could actually cycle faster than the street train akiko-chan was taking. The okonomiyaki shop is called Lopez and its open by a man from guatemala. The okonomiyaki had a few special points to note. Firstly, the egg, as you see in the top right corner has two egg yolks. Secondly, the cheese used for the topping is mozarella (I didn't want it cuz it cost 200 yen ($2.80) for my extra cheese topping. But akiko-chan was so sweet to treat me to my favourite topping.. CHEESE!!!) The other special ingredient is Jalepeno Peppers(Hel-lo-pi-no not Je-le-pi-no)

After my fantastic dinner with Akiko-chan, I headed for Maison Rabelais. There was nothing much to do. But the Chef asked me to take a look at this. Its this special chocolate in a metal pan accompanied with a golden spoon. The words in Japanese says 'karuma Claire'... Isn't that nice??

Too bad, its not named becuz of me. Its name as indicated by the chocolate they used to make the world's best milk chocolate. Although its chocolate, its soft enough for you to eat with a spoon, but not soft enough for you to just eat it as though its ganache.
Its really cool the way so many things in Japan are named Claire. Remember the accessory shop? Well, this chocolate is from Swiss though. Too bad, I didn't have a chance to try it.

16th February 2008 Saturday

Well, I woke up as usual, and I headed for Mamachen to buy my usual cheap groceries. The only problem is I can't remember what I did after that(All thanks to my slow blogging)

I do remember I joined Choon Fei for his usual Soka Gakkai meeting. These girls are from the　女子部。 Which means they are the girls category. Its a pleasure to take photos with Japanese becasue they never give me the "What's with the twist/victory sign post" look. And its nice when everyone have hand signals with me!

And after that, we had a nice dinner with Hashimoto-san at 八剣伝 as usual. Hashimoto-san was again really nice to give us a really nice treat you see in the photo below:
Chong and I would be going to the Science Centre tomorrow. So, I prepared some food to consume there... I'll upload photos for Science centre soon!!

Meanwhile, please enjoy this weeks photos at photobucket and facebook:

http://s195.photobucket.com/albums/z304/iverylamemeh/Hiroshima%2012%20Feb%2008-16th%20Feb%2008/?albumview=slideshow

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=102557&id=651105233

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=102560&id=651105233

12th to 14th Feb 2008: Days to a lonely Valentine

12th Feb 2008: Akiko's return from Fukuyama

Akiko went to Fukuyama for the weekend. And she bought me this cute omiyage.. Its actually this sweet mochi, individually wrapped. You see that big round face on that card? Its about this boy called kibidanko. He gathered a dog, a bird, a pig and a friend? and they killed some monster.. The End. Well, its a much longer story, but i just shortened it. But Akiko was so sweet to buy me and Choon Fei each one omiyage. And mind you these things are expensive! So I shared my cream puff from Maison Rabelais with her. You can see the rejected macarons i brought back. Rasberry and lemon flavour! There were quiche too!

13th Jan 2008: Snow in Hiroshima

I woke up to find the playground near my apartment covered in snow. Apparently in snowed the night before and we found many parts of Hiroshima blanketed with snow.

The bottom six pictures show the Genbaku Dome which is also known as the Atomic Bomb. This building was preserved to remind the Japanese the pain of using the first nuclear weapon in the world and how important peace was. This building was one of the rare buildings dat remain standing after the A bomb was dropped in Hiroshima, just a few km in the air away from the Genbaku Dome.

And dearest sweet Akiko asked me out for Lunch!!! She brought me to this really nice Irish bar. And no, I have yet to like beer. I'm holding a pen holder. :P AND YES!! AKIKO-CHAN TREATED ME AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was served cheese and potato chicken gratin. It was so good!!! The cheese was fantastically good.. I love cheese!!! :D

14th February: Valentine's Day in Japan

Valentine's Day is quite a big thing in Japan. Its mainly about getting chocolate for the person you like or you could just give any guy. And if the guy likes you in return, they would give you something on White Day, March 14th. But usually you would get Ogiri chocolate, also known as obligation chocolate. Its just a little something they buy to return your kindness, since the Japanese culture is alot about givin and receiving. I spent quite sometime helping out at Maison Rabelais preparing for V-day. So I managed to get a Chocolate coated Baum in a nice orange box for Akiko-chan. Sorry.. No photos.. :P But I got a box of chocolate from Akiko-chan too!!! This was one of the best chocolate.. Its Nougative Lait. Really good!!

I didn't join the Fordwalker during Lunchtime today. Instead, I pulled Choon along to check out the Valentine's day products. But i thought these cakes and tarts look tastier than chocolates, maybe because of their colours. But some of them are plastic. Could you tell?
The bottom left two pictures are bread from Anderson. We ran into Kiyori-san, top right in the photo below. She treated me and Choon Fei each to a bread. I got myself an apple pie bread. It was really good! its 189 yen.. Choon Fei got the strawberry tart which was like 289 yen.. Kinda ex right? But Anderon bread is really good!!And one of the things I love most is samples!! They're free and because portions are small, I dun feel so bad.. :) Thse are popular Valentine's Day gift! It looks so good I feel like just eating them..


Happy Belated Valentine's Day to everyone!