Ahem~
Sorry this entry will be pretty random, but I just felt like ... being random, I guess XD~

First of all: Some of you might remember me totally crazy about a Japanese dish called "ochazuke" (お茶漬け), right?
"My" beloved Japanese host family served it to me. ( It looked like that )

And today I finally "made" ochazuke by myself for dinner!
Chachaaan~



( Recipe )


ahem ... which brings me to the next "topic":

( I killed Santa Claus!!!!~ )

Last, but not least: Ahhm, ... I was stupid enough to post at the JE STALKER MEME without knowing what it´s about XD ...
but it seems I have to post the link to my comment there in my own journal, so that other people can write s.th. down there?! XD *looool* ... don´t mind me! XD ... 本当にバカだよね！(￣▽￣)うへへへぇ～

.... (no, this is NOT a worm .... I think (@_@) ...)

*wants to eat another bowl of ochazuke ;o;*

こんばんは！~

First of all sorry that I haven´t been around that much lately. It´s a pretty busy week. I try to catch up with my f-list later!

Yesterday I made sushi, because we had a Christmas party @ my university. It was also s.th. like a goodbye party, because we won´t see each other very often now that we all graduated. (In Germany there´s usually not a graduation ceremony, although it depends @ which uni you´re studying and WHAT you´re studying)
Anyway everyone brought s.th. yummie to eat - and because I just came back from Japan, of course I made sushi (^^'')

My prof. wanted me to tell s.th. about Japan, so I did. She was actually in Japan 2 times as well (for work) and she totally fell in love with Japan + the Japanese food - just like me.
So we really talked a LOT about Japan while a lot of the others were listening to us ^^; .... aaahhh~ yappari ... I really love that country and I wanna go back (~____~) .....
Just some things we talked about:
In Japan you won´t see THAT many disabled people. Of course there must be a lot (at least not less than in other countries, esp. if you consider what happened during WWII, nee?). But Japan is a land of ignorance when it comes to this.
They seem to hide the disabled people and when they see some, they tend to ignore them.
This I find very interesting, esp. if you consider that the jdrama "1 Litre of tears" was pretty popular, no?
Another thing is that the contraception method #1 in Japan is not the birth control pill, but abortions!!! It seems that it´s pretty normal for a Japanese woman to have one abortion after another. (that´s why there are so many stone statues with bibs and stuff everywhere - remember I posted photos of them - their kind of mourning work, I guess)
And the rate of divorces is very high after retirement - perhaps because the man who was ALWAYS working till late ... is now suddenly at home all day .... perhaps some couples recognize that they don´t have much in common anymore etc. bla bla.
I thought this was very interesting. (Of course my prof. did some research - that´s why she knew - in case you´re wondering what nonsense I´m blabbering about ;P)

Ahhhhm~ ... anyway here are photos of the sushi I made ^^;

( sushi photos ahead! ~only look if you´re not hungry right now ;P~ )



Question (just because I´m curious): Do you prefer to eat your sushi "fresh" (when the rice is still warm and the sushi was just made) or cooled (when it was left in the refrigerator for a while)? ^____^



( Bento 21+22 )



My first tamagoyaki. Well ... it´s not perfect yet (plus I don´t have a rectangular pan, but ... oh well~ ^^ .. it was yummie!)

( 煎茶　が　大好き！　♪♪ )


Request - to my German f-list:
Hat jemand von euch gestern Heroes angeschaut und kann mir grob erzählen, was passiert ist? (;o;) ... ich bin erst kurz vor 1Uhr heimgekommen und dachte die Wiederholung würde wie JEDE WOCHE um 1Uhr kommen, aber AUSGERECHNET gestern/heute haben sie es auf 0Uhr verlegt (und zukünftig bleibt das wohl auch so) .... ;______; .....　

Hey there! ^-^/

I´ve ordered some new green teas online.
I´ve never tried out these, so I was curious! :)



I´ve ordered 3 different Kabuse teas: Bancha, Hojicha, Kukicha. I´ve only tried Bancha up till now. I love it a lot, so I´ve ordered it again this time. And I´ve ordered one Sencha (second flush).
Here they are:

( Read more... )



I´m curious: If there are any (Japanese) green tea freaks fans out there could you tell me YOUR way of making green tea?
What is the best way in your opinion?
Some Japanese people seem to do it this way:
Put the leaves in a teapot, pour water on it, brew it and then LET THE LEAVES IN THE WATER IN THE TEAPOT! ... Use a filter while pouring the tea into your cup.
It´s not very good if you try this with high quality Japanese tea, because it becomes bitter very FAST!!!!
So my way is this:
I use a filter for the leaves right away. I put the filter into the teapot and pour water in it. I brew it, then I remove the filter with the leaves and that´s it!!!
I usually don´t make a second or third extraction(?), do you??

I´m looking forward to hearing your opinions and experiences about this!
Thanks a lot in advance *bows* XD

So, ....I´ve finally bought matcha/macha !!! Oh man, I spent about 55€ on tea and accessories x___X;; (Ha ! This time I´ve looked it up: 1$ = 0,82€ right now XD ~ so I spent 66$ !)
The most expensive was the matcha stuff x___X But I don´t regret buying it ^-^;;
The 茶せん / chasen (bamboo whisk) cost 16€/19$, the clay cup 20€/24$ and the matcha itself 10€/12$ x___X;; (yeah and of course I bought some other green tea, too ^^;;;)


Preview:




( my green tea collection )


( mEh trying to make matcha x_X )


Jaa, that´s all. Has anyone tips or so for mEh ? .___.

Hn~ I´ve just bought a proper tea set ^-^
It was not so cheap, but well .... (all in all about 40€, must be a little more than 40 $ I think O___o;; ....)

Preview:




( more about it here +~ )
My favourites are:
[x] Shogun (green tea from Ceylon and Indonesia flavoured with raspberry, rhubarb and vanilla ~ with apple pieces in it ^^)
[x] Natsu Kaori [it´s Japanese and means: summer aroma] ~ (it´s really mild, green tea from India, Japan and Ceylon flavoured with strawberry and vanilla ~ with strawberry pieces in it)
[x] China Wuyuan Jasmin (from China, province Jiangxi)
[x] Japanese Sencha (I like this tea especially when eating sushi <3)


I would like to try Japanese Gyokuro soon, but that´s pretty expensive. Anyone tried it out already ?