happy halloween!

I just wanted to share two pictures from a Halloween party. #1: Minnie Mouse is scared of skeletons.

#2: Minnie Mouse and her hero: Sailor Moon!

Happy Halloween! Who did you dress up as this year?

wishlist: heart elbow patches

Loving these from ASOS:

1. ASOS Heart Elbow Sweater
2. ASOS Cardigan With Heart Elbow Patch

sukiyaki!

I bought a hot plate at my school's bazaar because with winter coming, I knew I would make a lot of nabe, or hot pot food. Today I had a sukiyaki party with a friend! It was my first time to make sukiyaki, and luckily, my friend is Japanese, so she knew what she was doing.

Ingredients:
The whites of leeks, cut into diagonal chunks
Tofu, cut into rectangles
Enoki mushroom (the long stringy ones)
Shiitake mushroom (the round ones)
Konnyaku (some kind of potato? not sure what this is, but it's some kind of starch substitute with no calories!) cut into rectangles. We slit the middle and twisted it through to make it pretty.
Napa cabbage, cut into chunks
Sliced beef
Raw egg to dip the ingredients into (you can do this in Japan because the eggs are fresh! I wouldn't want to do this in the States...)

Sauce:
Equal parts soy sauce and mirin (rice wine), add sugar to your taste, then add half the amount of water to dilute.

It's really easy and really fun. You cook as you eat. It was my first time to eat honest to goodness raw egg like that and it was really delicious.

Have you had sukiyaki before?

noms

I'm really not looking forward to winter, but I was at my local grocery store today and was delighted to find this:

It's Melty Kiss! If you haven't had these before, they're flavored chocolates that literally melt in your mouth. They're so delicious and I really missed eating them, because they only come out with these flavors in the colder months! (Also I don't buy chocolate when it's warm, because it'll just become a huge sticky mess in the Japanese humidity.)

kyushu day 4&5: yakushima and kagoshima

If you're a Mononoke Hime fan, you should definitely check out Yakushima! Yakushima is an island about a two hour ferry ride away from Kagoshima. It's a UNESCO reserve and a natural World Heritage Site. Since we only had a day on the island, we decided to go hiking around the Shiratani Unsuikyo, which is the ravine that is said to have been the inspiration for the scenery in Mononoke Hime.

It was really beautiful and the hike wasn't too strenuous! We hiked for about three hours. It was funny because all the Japanese people who were hiking were super prepared with gear and walking sticks and raincoats...and we looked like we just came off the streets. I felt super out of place, but to be honest, I don't think the gear was necessary for just hiking. Maybe they were camping! In which case, yes, you need gear.

We came back in the evening to Kagoshima. This is a picture of Sakurajima, which is across the bay from Kagoshima. It's another active volcano!

Kagoshima is famous for all kinds of potato, so we had a sweet potato and yam gelato. Yum!

Our last day in Kagoshima was a bit...interesting. Sakurajima decided to spew out some volcanic ash, so we were basically walking through a cloudy haze of the stuff. It was horrible for my eyes especially since I wear contacts. You can see in this picture that cloud of ash coming towards Kagoshima.

Nevertheless, we tried to endure it as much as we could and went through a park that commemorates the Meiji Restoration.

I recently watched a Japanese period drama called Atsu-hime, which was set in Kagoshima! This house was where one of the characters lived.

Our flight was in the afternoon, so that was all we had time for. It was a really good trip, and if you are thinking of going to Kyushu, I definitely recommend going to Yakushima if you can fit it into your schedule!

kyushu day 2&3: kumamoto and aso

We went to Kumamoto castle first--doesn't it look impressive? The picture on the right is a view of Kumamoto from the top of the castle.

Then we went to the Hosokawa residence, which is a restored samurai house. Earlier this year, I visited samurai residences in Akita, which is up north, but most of those houses weren't open for visitors to walk through. The Hosokawa residence is though; I definitely recommend it!

There was a festival going on at night too that involved a lot of candles...not sure what it was for, but it was beautiful!

Day 3, we took the train to Mt Aso, which is an active volcano about an hour away from Kumamoto. The sad thing was they wouldn't let us near the crater because the volcano was showing signs of activity. Hence the sad face!

It's okay though; the scenery was beautiful!

As we walked through Aso town, a man in a pick up truck stopped us to give us tomatoes! I guess he knew we were tourists. Japanese people are so sweet! The tomato was delicious.

The last thing we did in Kumamoto was visit the Suizenji Gardens...it was amazing. The grounds were pretty extensive and the landscaping was really breathtaking.

Next up, Yakushima and Kagoshima!

kyushu day 1&2: nagasaki

Our first stop was Nagasaki, which is famous alongside Hiroshima for being one of the cities that was hit by an atomic bomb. We went to the Peace Park and museum. The museum had a beautiful reflection room.

 

I randomly saw a fruit store and I had to stop in! You can also see outfit #1 here.

We also went to Nagasaki's Chinatown and had some Chinese food.

Also stopped by a sweets shop and they gave us castella for free! Japanese hospitality is so amazing. Castella is a cake brought over by the Portuguese way back when and is now a special of Nagasaki.

Day 2 (and outfit #2!): We saw a cathedral (there were a lot of secret Christians/Catholics in Nagasaki--they were the first to open their ports to the outside world), and the Glover Garden, which was where Europeans built their houses. They also had a section with floats from different Japanese festivals.

Then I saw Totoro! Love.

We went to the Confucius Shrine, which is curiously owned by China! Then we stopped at the Suwa Shrine.

Then, equipped with ice cream, we boarded a train to Kumamoto!