I loooooooooove to go get a massage.. i mean who doesnt?
compared to Taiwan or Thailand, getting a massage cost twice as much here in Japan, and normally their skill is nothing compared to South East Asia, every massage place you go in Taiwan its really really good.
BUT, since i experienced a lot of places- there is the right place :)
When my face(head), neck is tired (when i have headcahe) - I go to
"iyashima senka" 癒しま専家 near Hanshin Amagasaki station-尼崎駅から徒歩1分★ 三和商店街の入り口 just at the entrance of Sanwa arcade street :))
they are really good, angreat acess from train station- you get off, and walk for a minute!
They have 眼精疲労コースa face massage !!!!! THIS IS so good. people are so nice there and very quiet and relaxing mood. they also have nail salon, only by appointment :) i think its pretty convinient, you can give yourself a whole relaxation sometime. get your massage, then nails done!!!!
and the foot massage.... i went to a place in COCOE Amagasaki,
a big shopping mall near JR amagasaki station ココエあまがさき- JR尼崎駅
Natural Garden ナチュラルガーデン
I got a reflexology, 30 min- my reflexologist was Awesome, she hit every points that needed to be hit, like she could see the points written!!!!!!!
and... When you wanna have your WHOLE BODY relaxed- this is the place for you!!!! Enjoy the conversation with the "master", my friend, YUKO chan!!!!
全身疲れてるとか、腰が痛いとかとにかく大きいパーツをリラックスしたいときは
ハナカンナ Hana Canna- in fact this salon is quiet new, my friend YUKO chan used to be one of the busy "OL" - a japense word for office lady and determined to start something new, what makes her realy happy. And did she love it? she is great at it..... :)
she has all different kind of flavored tea, and the salon always smells sooooooooo good- love it how she puts some essencial oil under the massage bed so as you breath it leads you to "the other side"- literally, everything about the place is 120% relaxing!!
She is so freakin good with using her "elbow" and beats each "origin of pain" or what i call "it" and omg, after the massage you feel like you are 2kg lighter.
心斎橋駅か四ツ橋から歩くー★わからなかったら、電話したらYUKO ちゃんが優しく教えてくれます。
06-6536-1808 ハナカンナ
OK, to finish this entry, i just wanna say-
GO GET A MASSAGE
before
your body is entirely crying for help, like me.
Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.
おなじ内容の言葉をしゃべっても、その人物の口からでると、
まるで魅力がちがってしまうことがある。
人物であるかないかは、そういうことが尺度なのだ。
translation
--------
even if spoken the same content, when done so by a particular person
it can mean totally different.
(im sorry for my poor translation, if anyone has any good suggestion, please tell me)
"Be a friend to yourself, and others will be so too."
After using soybean flour
for my cooking program in my home class
, i had some left over soybean flour and
thought i should make a good use.
So, i made this.
Soybean honey milk :)))))))
soybean flour + milk+honey = delicious and healthy
It is NOT soymilk. its my special drink mix of regular milk + soybean flour :)
its more like... milkshake with soybean flavor?
in wekipedia, kinako, soybean flour is written like this
also known as soybean flour, is a product commonly used in Japanese cuisine. Kinako is produced by finely grinding roasted soybeans into powder.
Kinako, being composed of soybeans, is a healthy topping and flavoring which contains B vitamins and protein.[citation needed] It can also be used as a drink. One example of its use in popular foods is warabi mochi, which is a famous kinako-covered sweet.
it is rich in nutrition!!!! kinako is good for mainting intestance, controlling cholesterole, prevents aging- ihave also heard kinakos are good for hair!!
recently im more careful on my hair care since it is getting really long, so its a good news
you should try it!!!!!!!!
soybean honey milk mix (below is my case, so you can add more honey or soybean flour, just adjust how you like it)
3 table spoon of soybean flour
1 table spoon of honey
1 glass of milk
mix all together! its also good when you shake it up in a tambler!!
Today we made dumplings :))
apart from that, we practiced a song for our little "performance"
day, which someday to be here.....
And more and more reviewing on
"in" "on" and "under"- they seemed to be pretty sick of it already, but repetition is the best when it comes to kids- ^^
The big sis. is learning Piano from me too in our 90 min. class- so i decided to teache her the song she can actually perform with her little bro. who is really good at singing- because they have never learned english before, it is had to teach them a song with many words so I picked
"Days of the week" and "Mary had a little lamb"
They come to see me only once a week, sothere isnt much time to practice singing- but they are really excited and today we did our first session, they loved it!!!!!!
Big sis coating Dumplings with Kinako (Soybean flour)
I lover her serious face! so cute.
We tried making 3色団子 3 color dumplings
(green, Pink, and white)
but since we couldnt find cherry blossoms for the pink (its not the season)
I tried coloring the flour with strawberry tea leaves, but we failed.
So, we did white, green(using Green tea powder), and kinako dumplings.
Kids loved it :)
I gatta do more lessons on Phonics!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
apart from that, we practiced a song for our little "performance"
day, which someday to be here.....And more and more reviewing on
"in" "on" and "under"- they seemed to be pretty sick of it already, but repetition is the best when it comes to kids- ^^
The big sis. is learning Piano from me too in our 90 min. class- so i decided to teache her the song she can actually perform with her little bro. who is really good at singing- because they have never learned english before, it is had to teach them a song with many words so I picked
"Days of the week" and "Mary had a little lamb"
They come to see me only once a week, sothere isnt much time to practice singing- but they are really excited and today we did our first session, they loved it!!!!!!
Big sis coating Dumplings with Kinako (Soybean flour)
I lover her serious face! so cute.
We tried making 3色団子 3 color dumplings
(green, Pink, and white)
but since we couldnt find cherry blossoms for the pink (its not the season)
I tried coloring the flour with strawberry tea leaves, but we failed.
So, we did white, green(using Green tea powder), and kinako dumplings.
Kids loved it :)
I gatta do more lessons on Phonics!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I saw something interesting on TV the other day.
A woman who is known as カリスマ主婦 "Carisma" housewife says
she only spend 6000yen a week and still can have wonderful, delicious meal, (they showed what she actually cooked and it looked amazing)
家族四人 6000円以下でおいしくて素晴らしい料理ができる方法
As a foregin exchange student from China once asked me
" Why do Japanese TV always talk about food? there are quiz shows particularly about food, and so many commercials features food."
I answered... "because we loooooooooove food and we love it to be delicious and still reasonable."
I admit, we love food. we love of course, the eating part, cooking part, and even "growing vegis for the ingridience of varieties of dishes" part.
日本人は、食べるのが好き。作るのも好き。
おいしいものを食べるためにおいしい野菜を育てることさえも好き！
There are so many blogs and websites made by "house wives"- on "how to make delicious meals -for only less than 6000yen (about 50 dollers) for a week, for a family of four" some blogs got so popular it even got published recently.
最近では、そういうカリスマ主婦たちによる料理のブログが増えて本に出版されたりもしています。
"Everyday meal @ Takahashi's"
If I were a full time housewife, I dont think i can put my 100% commitment to housework like cooking, looking after the children, cleaning and writing a blog about how good my dishes look.
もし私が主婦なら、掃除や料理など家事に対してそこまで一生懸命やれないと思う。
but these days there are so many Japanese women who decided to share this wonderful cooking skill with others.
Because a lot of women quit their jobs after marriage, I am sure, they have been dealing with the feeling of anger and frustration for having no choice but home making every single day- maybe at first it's great to take care of precious baby and cook dinner for a wonderful love of her life- but when noone knows how hard they work and get nothing in return? It's sad!
So one stood up to brush up this wonderful skills and decided to share with people through blogs- which i think is great- some end up making money :)
日本人主婦は、頑張りすぎ？
育児や家事に追われて 誰からも褒められたりしない時が続くときっといらいらしたり悲しい気持ちになってどんどん閉じこもりがちになる人って多いんじゃないかな。 でもそんな人の中でも自分の料理は素晴らしいし、こんなに安くおいしいくできるのなら他の人にも見てもらいたいと
立ち上がって行動に移す人が増えてる。
So as Mrs Fujiwara revealed her secret on economizing the cost of gloceries-
買い物は週に一度だけ
Glocery shopping-only once a week
↑ well, thats pretty much what i call "Indiana Style" hehehe
In addition, discuss with your family what you wanna eat the following week and make a shopping list, only get what you need.
Now, THAT is extremely rare for Japanese housewife since local supermarket has special offer on certain items like every other days- it attracts customers to always want to come couple times a week, buy food for few days and come back again for some more. So you just go shoppin, then if fish happened to be on sale, then you kinda decide you will have fish for dinner that day of the next day. (In fact, at my local supermarket, Today was パンの日 "bread day" and all kind of bread was really cheap. tomorrow is "egg" day, sometimes there are fish day, fruites day, just one of the marketing strategy i guess)
i dont know well about other places in US and also maybe it was only
"my" style when i was in college- maybe people do shop every single day, but i found it more reasonable and useful to do glocery shopping every week, not every other days when i lived in インディアナ州 Indiana (my second home :). in Japan most gloceries are sold in small portion- especially vegis, you buy one of this and one of that to make something particular, but in US everything is so much cheaper when you buy in a box, a package etc, so i would buy a lot and shared or just freeze everything- the room is so much bigger, and the fridge.
だから私は今日1週間分！と思ってたくさんの買い物をした。
so I went to the supermarket today for one week gloceries!
Here they are -
it WAS around 6000yen. So let's see if we don't have to go back to the store any more this week and cool delicious food! and, no dining out!!!
and tonight menu was THAI CURRY, fried chicken, salad, and eggs :)
Yum Yum!
A woman who is known as カリスマ主婦 "Carisma" housewife says
she only spend 6000yen a week and still can have wonderful, delicious meal, (they showed what she actually cooked and it looked amazing)
家族四人 6000円以下でおいしくて素晴らしい料理ができる方法As a foregin exchange student from China once asked me
" Why do Japanese TV always talk about food? there are quiz shows particularly about food, and so many commercials features food."
I answered... "because we loooooooooove food and we love it to be delicious and still reasonable."
I admit, we love food. we love of course, the eating part, cooking part, and even "growing vegis for the ingridience of varieties of dishes" part.
日本人は、食べるのが好き。作るのも好き。おいしいものを食べるためにおいしい野菜を育てることさえも好き！
There are so many blogs and websites made by "house wives"- on "how to make delicious meals -for only less than 6000yen (about 50 dollers) for a week, for a family of four" some blogs got so popular it even got published recently.
最近では、そういうカリスマ主婦たちによる料理のブログが増えて本に出版されたりもしています。"Everyday meal @ Takahashi's"If I were a full time housewife, I dont think i can put my 100% commitment to housework like cooking, looking after the children, cleaning and writing a blog about how good my dishes look.
もし私が主婦なら、掃除や料理など家事に対してそこまで一生懸命やれないと思う。but these days there are so many Japanese women who decided to share this wonderful cooking skill with others.
Because a lot of women quit their jobs after marriage, I am sure, they have been dealing with the feeling of anger and frustration for having no choice but home making every single day- maybe at first it's great to take care of precious baby and cook dinner for a wonderful love of her life- but when noone knows how hard they work and get nothing in return? It's sad!
So one stood up to brush up this wonderful skills and decided to share with people through blogs- which i think is great- some end up making money :)
日本人主婦は、頑張りすぎ？育児や家事に追われて 誰からも褒められたりしない時が続くときっといらいらしたり悲しい気持ちになってどんどん閉じこもりがちになる人って多いんじゃないかな。 でもそんな人の中でも自分の料理は素晴らしいし、こんなに安くおいしいくできるのなら他の人にも見てもらいたいと
立ち上がって行動に移す人が増えてる。
So as Mrs Fujiwara revealed her secret on economizing the cost of gloceries-
買い物は週に一度だけ
Glocery shopping-only once a week
↑ well, thats pretty much what i call "Indiana Style" hehehe
In addition, discuss with your family what you wanna eat the following week and make a shopping list, only get what you need.
Now, THAT is extremely rare for Japanese housewife since local supermarket has special offer on certain items like every other days- it attracts customers to always want to come couple times a week, buy food for few days and come back again for some more. So you just go shoppin, then if fish happened to be on sale, then you kinda decide you will have fish for dinner that day of the next day. (In fact, at my local supermarket, Today was パンの日 "bread day" and all kind of bread was really cheap. tomorrow is "egg" day, sometimes there are fish day, fruites day, just one of the marketing strategy i guess)
i dont know well about other places in US and also maybe it was only
"my" style when i was in college- maybe people do shop every single day, but i found it more reasonable and useful to do glocery shopping every week, not every other days when i lived in インディアナ州 Indiana (my second home :). in Japan most gloceries are sold in small portion- especially vegis, you buy one of this and one of that to make something particular, but in US everything is so much cheaper when you buy in a box, a package etc, so i would buy a lot and shared or just freeze everything- the room is so much bigger, and the fridge.
だから私は今日1週間分！と思ってたくさんの買い物をした。
so I went to the supermarket today for one week gloceries!
Here they are -
it WAS around 6000yen. So let's see if we don't have to go back to the store any more this week and cool delicious food! and, no dining out!!!
and tonight menu was THAI CURRY, fried chicken, salad, and eggs :)
Yum Yum!
It was last month i went to Nagoya to visit my Best friends :)
One came from Tokyo and i came from Osaka (well, Amagasaki to be exact)
and we decided to hang out all day together in Nagoya - of course, for lunch we wanted to have
kishimen- special noodle from nagoya , its a bit like Fetecinni
It's ebi tempura on top- its cold noodle, but you can eat it all season:)
We always climb to the top of this building for a great view :) it was cloudy- but who cares? it doesnt matter how we met, when we are together- we have so much fun!!
we hadnt seen each other (i mean, three of us together) since... 2007 or 8?
we really havent changed, but for sure we got a little older... hahaha
After lots of talk, we decided to go for a coffee, but ended up having this.
its like coffee but with lots of milk, and its kinda buddly^^
Humongus cake is also special here, everyone loves it
has a BIG ice cream on top- if you love sweets, it is so worth trying :)
it wasnt long before we went into "Izakaya"- Drinking bar with great varieties of food- especially
friend chicken wings!!!!!!!!!! i just looooooooooove those chickens in Nagoya, they are THE BEST!
sorry i dont have the pictures from drinking-cause we were too busy talking, and drinking!
after leaving nagoya on the late Kintetsu Train- Toru came with me to my home
Although it was late, my mom and he enjoyed talking about lots of things it was somewhat like
a "family reunion" hehehe
Next day, i took him to kuromon ichiba, a fish market in Osaka.
I had done a quick check on the net and i wanted to ...
eat maguro don (tuna don)
but we had trouble finding the market... after asking around, we got to...
Real fresh WASABI!!!!! 1980 yen!
Im so curious how it tastes, wether it tastes different from the tube one.
after eating some sushi at the fish market, (we couldnt find maguro don for a decent price, so we decided to have sushi instead, then we bought some snacks like takoyaki, fried chicken here and there- we were full..;;)
after some shopping and walking around..
we were running out of things to do, and just as we decided to go back to Umeda, we saw there was a
"Hokkaido fair" - we ended up trying out some samples and free tasting :)
before his night bus to Tokyo leaves at 10pm, we thought killing time in Spanish Bar was a great idea :)
nibbled on Tapas- which were amazingly delicious and couple glasses of Sangria !!
those 2 days was a great holiday for me, surrounded by my friends, great conversation, lots of lots of food, and few drinks- awesome time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!