A Week of Food

I've been super lagging and have a bunch of pics to dump LOL. The week was a good week of speech practice with the kids. Some cuts had to be made (like Master Chef style) and some kids were cut from the team :( It was a very hard thing to do and I hope the kids don't get too sad because they were all great and have tons of potential. There is a limit of 1 student per school for each grade so it can't be helped. Next time though... I hope they will try again next time. All things set aside, the week was fun and I saw much improvement in the speech deliveries and I was very happy to be a part of it. The school week is beginning next week and preparations for sports festival are underway. The kids compete fiercely in groups of 5 different colors. Who will be the final victor... but I'll get more into that as the even nears~

 Bakin, the best place in Kamogawa (so far!) to get your ultimate ramen fix. Now you may be thinking, "Hey, it's just normal chashu ramen!" right? But behold the chashu that was sliced and then grilled again for extra flavour! This is the minami-boso style ramen (the area kamogawa is in) and it also has seafood as well. A must try dish!

 Dinner was pretty plain today, however the height of excitement lies in the hamburg! It came pre-packaged and all you have to do is microwave it. This particular one was quite disappointing as it literally tasted like a mushy piece of cardboard :( but I promise they are usually good! Just don't be cheap and by the lowest price one haha. If I learned one thing in Japan so far, don't buy the cheapest anything and just grab the next one up, because it will probably taste 9000x better LOL.

 My fail attempt at a parfait in Japan :( my first one, but I had trouble finding basically everything LOL. I couldn't get sliced raw almonds and had to chop them myself (which gets quite annoying as they shoot off like rockets every time you cut them). I also had trouble finding berries and ended up with kiwi and orange, which was good, but just lacked the overpowering sweetness needed to fight the plain yogurt flavour. I prefer greek yogurt as well, but due to it being super expensive or hard to find, I just settled with normal plain yogurt. I'd give it a 5/10 LOL but I'll try again next time~

 Still hunting for that perfect cafe, however the cafe in the Aeon mall is pretty nice. Good ambiance and very nice lattes and delicious desserts. It just lacks the proper hours to support my nighttime active lifestyle. 

 An amazing person at my work (Thank you Katou-sensei!) gave me this gigantic shrimp! I had a small idea of what to make with it, but no clear plan. Then it came to me! BUDAE JJIGAE!! So, I gathered up the million ingredients to make a fine soup out of this exquisite shrimp and went to work. I put them all in a mixing bowl with some custom sauce and prepared the nabe pot for some strong simmering work.

 The end product was quite delicious and bubbled puffs of mouth-watering scents into my apartment. I couldn't wait to taste this bad boy!

 Here it is ready to eat! It's a shame that I had to eat alone because this is definitely a dish to share. I will try to meet more people and hopefully we can turn cooking into a possible monthly/weekly event? Cooking is fun, but the best part is sharing with others. The taste and the look doesn't matter, only the hard work that goes into it~

 During the tail end of the week, Max drove us to work so I got to do a little sight seeing while on the ride in. The Doge right here is just chilling in front of the house... I want one >_<

 Another big news! Remember the little photo shoot Max and I had at the Mayor's office? Well here is the result! We made it into the September newspaper in Kamogawa whoop whoop!

 Without any reason I slept early the night before and woke up early with a huge appetite. I can't remember if I skipped dinner or not the night before, but I found myself wanting to eat everything the next morning. I was too lazy to make a bunch of nigiri, so I just made sushi rice and sliced the fish and dabbed a ball of wasabi onto each one. Together with some pour-over coffee and the ultimate breakfast was complete!

 It goes without saying that an ultimate breakfast would not be complete without an ultimate dinner right? I had been craving the spicy spinach soup that my mom often made at home. It used to sit around the house for days until I would eat it, but the craving for that soup tonight was strong. So I grabbed some spinach from the store along with many other ingredients and set out for another feast.

 Finished product again! Another delicious soup with tons of dark green veggies. I felt healthier just looking at it HAHA. The taste was amazing and gave me at least -100 points to my homesickness stat~ The kiwis here are quite large and I thought its be a nice accompaniment~ 

 No driving for meee~ So time for a quick mirror selfie HAHA

 I got to take many pics of the nice surrounding on the way in to work. The typhoon season is upon us and has been giving some muggy looking weather, however the cool air was much appreciated. 

Found an interesting new hobby by the end of this week as well. I tried to catch a little bit of water life by using the body board my predecessor left me, however the time after was even more relaxing. I sat on the beach and snacked out while reading Walden Two (a fictional novel about a man-made utopia written by B.F. Skinner). It was a most relaxing end to an easy-going week~