Cold days on summer in Sapporo

I dunno why it is so cold today!!! >__< it was raining 2 days ago, but it was quite ok yesterday. This afternoon the weather was fine as well, but it's getting colder and colder when the sun set. For the first time after few weeks I really feel that I miss my (working) kotatsu again. I was tempted to turn on the heater again ... O___o ... end of June! Imagine!

My kotatsu is not broken, by the way. I still use the kotatsu but as a normal table. It's just when thesummer came, I took out the kotatsu cover, washed it and kept it inside the storage until the time when I need it again comes on autumn. In this case, I unplugged the electrical cable too, of course.

Okay, it's time to go to bed! I'm curling on my super comfy futon under my down blanket (on summer?? ^__^v) now, trying to post from my phone for the first time. I hope the layout will be ok.. o.O

Anyway... I'm getting more and more relaxed and sleepy while enjoying the warmth, haha.. So glad that I decided not to keep the supposed-to-be-for-winter blanket so early! I'm still using it everyday, in fact =P, although sometimes only to cover my legs up to my waist. ^_____^ 

Good night!

Beer Hour Cold - A new way to enjoy drinking beer (and other drinks too) !!

A new fun way to enjoy drinking your beer! You can serve your beer like a pro with Beer Hour Cold, while its cold insulation feature also keeps your beer cold outside the refrigerator. :) It may work with other drinks too, as long as the cans fit well.

Beer Hour Cold - serving beer like a pro

We were at Homac buying soil and fertilizer for the plants (yeah.. summer is here! we are so in the mood to do gardening again! ^^), and we found this item for 1980 yen each. Based on the info from online stores, it seems the original price is more than 2000 yen.

It seems to be a popular item this summer. I roughly checked some stores online and they don't have many stocks left for this item. The compact design makes it recommended for personal use at home or travelling.

It is said that Beer Hour Cold can keep the coldness of the beer since it was taken from the previous container (fridge, cooler box, etc) for about 30 minutes! Of course, it will also depend on the temperature and performance of the refrigerator, etc we use to store the cans before. We can switch the pouring mode from liquid mode to foam mode, which let us serve a beer like a professional beer server! ^___^

The main points of Beer Hour Cold (picture taken from takaratomy-arts.co.jp)

It is compatible with can beers from at least the 4 largest beer manufactures in Japan: Asahi, Kirin, Sapporo and Suntory. It also works with both 350ml and 500ml cans. One AAA alkaline battery is used with this item (not included in the package).

All pictures except the first one were from Takara TOMY Arts official website. Some were further edited by me to fit my page. :) The complete guide in pdf can be found HERE. It is in Japanese, but there a lot of pictures which are informative enough to make us understand the main concept.

Fanta Grapefruit is back!

I saw something "new" at the shop few days ago!!

Fanta Grapefruit

By the way, as you can see in the picture, Fanta ume (plum) was also in the market, but I didn't take any good pictures of it earlier. =( When I came back to the shop the other day, it was not there anymore. Only Fanta Grapefruit and Grape were there instead. Bad luck!

I'm sorry that I won't be able to tell you how the taste of Fanta Grapefruit is, because it is definitely not the kind of flavor I will buy!!! hehe =P I'm scared of grapefruits in general, because they are so sour (for me, at least!). I also do not drink grapefruit juice. I'm aware of the nutritional value of grapefruit, but what to do? I was tortured each time I ate it. By the way, grapefruit has tons of nutrients and is said to be able to prevent various health issues such a high cholesterol level and constipation. It contains vitamin C and antioxidant, and it may help in weight loss programs.

I like to see grapefruits actually, especially the ones with red pulps inside. How can they be so bright in yellow outside and also have such striking red color inside?! My impression everytime I see this type of grapefruit is like as if I see watermelon, hehe. They look so sweet ... but yah... >_____<

In fact, Fanta Grapefruit is not new, as well as some other Fanta flavors. It was in the Japan market before on 1993 and 2002. It must be exciting for all the grapefruit lovers to be able to enjoy this special edition Fanta flavor again. :) This blog shows great collections of Fanta from all over the world! Although it might not be the complete list to date, but it was interesting to see that at least Fanta has been around since 1968!

I coincidentally was wearing yellow that day!  Perfect day for the finding. :)

Nori chocolate from South Korea ♥

My friend, Kira, went to Korea and she brought some chocolates as souvenir for us (yuhuu... thanks, Kira! ^_____^ ♥) One of them is this one:

Nori chocolate from South Korea

NORI (seaweed) CHOCOLATE ! ^^

OMG! nori : a bit salty somehow, plus chocolate : sweet! o.O ... How will the taste be ?!?! ^___^ I couldn't miss the chance to try this unique combination, definitely! I'm quite adventurous in trying food and drinks actually, except if they are some kinds of insects, bloody, or slimy, hehe. 

I asked Javier if he wanted to share the chocolate with me, coz.. c'mon, it's chocolate! It cannot be wrong! he loves chocolate so much, anyway! .... but then he said no, hehe. Javier doesn't really like nori. He is also not into onigiri because of this reason. Well, he loves sushi and he can eat nori with sushi, but it is still not his favourite. 

However, if you know me enough, of course I cannot let him live without trying this incredible invention!!! ^_^ So, I managed to catch him off guard and slipped a small piece of nori chocolate to his mouth. ^___^ and... he survived!!! I told you it's not bad at all! ^^ javier, now you can tell people that you have tried nori chocolate! =P hehe. 

In fact, I think the orange flavor in orange chocolate, for example, tastes stronger than the nori flavor in nori chocolate. It might depend on the chocolate brands though. When I just started to munch the chocolate, I couldn't taste the nori. The chocolate was quite sweet enough to cover the immediate taste of the nori.  However, after the chocolate and nori were mixed inside my mouth, I could finally taste the nori, and yes, sweet nori =P haha! It was amazing, surprisingly!

Some korean seaweed I received from my friend

Nori is the common Japanese term for a group of seaweed species. It is rich in protein, dietary fiber, iodine, and iron, not to forget that it is also an important source of vitamins A, B, and K. This makes nori a popular nutrition source for vegans. 

The way to make nori sheets is similar to papermaking. It involves shredding of nori, creating thin layers of it, and drying them on the racks.

I found this video showing how to make home-made nori sheets. Very interesting! I feel like trying it myself, but probably I should practice with pulp first. =P Check it out! :)

The beauty of shibazakura at Takinoue, Hokkaido

Be prepared to see the whole page in PINK !!!! ^^

We had a road trip to Takinoue and Kamiyubetsu to see shiba zakura and tulips on June 1, 2013. I had been dreaming of going to these two places but the time was never right. There were total 15 people in our group, so we rented two cars for the trip. ^_^ I will write another post about Kamiyubetsu later.

Earlier we wanted to join tour package instead of driving there on our own. However, finally we decided that going there by car would be a safer option, since the flower blooming schedule seemed to change a lot this year! The money we spent was about the same with the tour price, anyway. 

The tour packages to Takinoue and Kamiyubetsu were available from May to June 3, while surprisingly the shiba zakura just started to bloom on around end of May this year... o.O What did the people who joined the tour before the end of May see? >____< The tulips, maybe... but no shiba zakura, definitely. In fact, the shiba zakura flowers weren't fully bloomed on July 1. Javier saw some pictures online showing that some parts of the park was still covered by snow when the opening ceremony was held, haha! ^_^

As I have always said to everyone asking me about the best time to visit Hokkaido, prepare your trip well and decide what you want to see, because, although Hokkaido has tons of amazing flowers, the sceneries with precious flowers do not last the whole year!

Yuhuuu! the 8 persons in our car! We had 2 drivers in this car: Javier and Adriano. Javier was the driver at that time, so he wasn't in the picture. In addition, the small blue pattern on the back left side of the picture was Wang-san sleeping, hehe.. ^^

.... I love it when the snow seemed to appear in the wrong place at the wrong time... __ __ !!

Finally we arrived! ^^ Hmmm... is it really as good as in those posters or images in websites?? Reallyyy?? ^_^ We were so excited, as well! From far away, it looked like as if the grasses around there were painted in pink...

The main carpark was so full, so we had to park at the additional carpark area which was quite far from the park. However, no need to worry because they provided some free shuttle buses, so we didn't have to climb to reach the place * fiuh! luckily .... o.O *. We had to buy the tickets before boarding the shuttle bus btw. It was 500 yen per person, but it became 400 yen per person for groups with 10 people or more.

It was really so pink! ^^ The flowers were not even fully bloomed yet. I'm sure it would be even prettier if we came around 3-4 days later.

It was such a hot day full of sun! I became a bit dizzy actually because the sunlight was too striking. I really regretted of not bringing my summer hat... Anyway, we arrived just around the lunch time, so we had lunch first before starting to walk around. Everyone brought our own lunch, except Fayna and Xavi: they brought tons of garbanzos salad for everyone... o.O hehe!

We used the self timer feature to take group pictures, but I'm not sure why it was quite difficult to take the perfect pics ... =P Well, I guess taking jumping pics is never easy *excuses...* hehe.

Now it's time for the real group picture! =P 

*many attempts, as well... *