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Eggstravaganza

Saturday, April 20th, 2019

JK visited today, and even though we all know she’s here mostly to see Zoffy I felt as a good host I needed to have an activity planned. And with tomorrow being Easter the obvious choice was this:

I don’t remember ever dyeing eggs at Easter, so I bought some of these inexpensive kits to try it. It’s very easy, toss a tablet into a mix of water and vinegar and dip a hard-boiled egg in. The kits come with crayons that you use to write on the eggs to keep portions undyed.

Naturally I went with the obvious design: Gudetama. My first attempt was a bit experimental:

But I got better with my second (see later). Other issues arose with the coloring for my Grimace egg:

And the fact that I dropped my K-Pop egg (that I had done for Bernard):

But overall it was fun and the eggs came out better than I expected!

We made a few each and here they all are. What do you think?

In case you’re wondering they won’t be wasted. KLS and I aren’t boiled egg fans, but JK will take them home and turn them into sandwiches 🙂

Posted in Art, Crafts, Food, Miscellaneous | Comments Closed

Tokyo Four

Thursday, January 17th, 2019

Today we visited ‘the happiest place on Earth’:

When I was planning this trip I’d wondered if Disney was even open in winter and not only is it very much open it’s also very, very popular! The lines to get in were much longer than I remember from previous Disney trips and the park was every bit as active and busy as a summers day!

Our first ride was Star Tours (the Star Wars ride) which had been updated to contain material from the current trilogy which was a pleasant surprise. We followed with Space Mountain which was significantly faster, darker and more thrilling than I recalled and sent Bernard into a spin! No more thrill rides for him!

No worries, there were still many more rides than we’d have time for: Pirates, Haunted Mansion, Peter Pan, Snow White, Pinocchio, Small World, Tiki Birds, Jungle Cruise and Pooh. As always happens at Disney the hours flew by and 7 hours after arriving with the sun setting and a great chill descending it was time to leave.

Bernard’s favorite was Pooh’s Hunny Hunt, and his least favorite was Space Mountain. For me today I loved Jungle Cruise since the captain of our boat was a young lady that loved to perform (in Japanese of course) and really hammed it up 🙂

And speaking of getting into the spirit…

Disney here is a bit different from in the USA in that there are very few kids. Most of the guests are young women who are more often than not decked out in Disney clothes with Disney accessories and wearing some type of Disney hat. There’s loads of different ones, and we couldn’t help but try some on:

Should we have bought them??

Anyway I’ll put a bonus photo in today’s only-five-photos-a-day Japanese blog series, and of course it’s the one you’re waiting for…

You’re welcome 🙂

Posted in Food, Trip | Comments Closed

Recipe Time!

Monday, November 12th, 2018

Once again I’ve heard the masses crying out for another of my recipes, and once again I will humbly respond. Here then, my original recipe for Chicken & Rice Soup with Gyoza.

Let’s start with the chicken and rice soup. The first ingredient is some chicken and rice soup, and I recommend this type:

Pour it into a pot and carefully remove all the vegetables (except potatoes). Veggies are for horses and we don’t want them marring the taste of this meal:

Cook it on the maximum setting for about 4 minutes. Don’t worry if you get bored and wander off and it burns over – I do this every time and it hardly matters:

Once done, this half of the meal is ready!

Now to the gyoza part. The first ingredient is some gyoza, and I prefer these guys:

Toss them into your air fryer and cook on the highest setting for 7 minutes. Don’t brush them with oil or anything, this recipe is best when they’re a bit overcooked:

7 minutes later, you’re all done!

Plate it all presentably and serve with an adult beverage for a sublime taste experience:

And some of you thought I couldn’t cook!

Posted in Food | 3 Comments »

The Great Easter Chocolate Battle

Tuesday, April 25th, 2017

I have fond childhood memories of large foil-wrapped chocolate Easter eggs, and this year I bought some for old times sake.

Here then, a brief review.

I’m a Cadbury fan from way back, and a maniac consumer of their ‘mini eggs’ so even at $7, the above was irresistible.

But as you can see, the reality was quite underwhelming. The egg contained only four mini eggs, and they were all broken! Even worse, the egg itself was awful, a criminal example of Hershey branding some of their own vomitous ‘chocolate’ as Cadbury. (Hershey licenses Cadbury brand here, and don’t use the Cadbury formula for all products they label with the name.)

In short: a terribly disappointing product and a rip-off to boot. A good amount of it went into the trash…

This was $10, a Lindt egg packaged with a generous amount of truffle eggs. The price was high (I could have bought two medium Lindt rabbits for the same money) but the packaging was lovely!

But the egg was delicious! Every bit as good as you’d expect; wonderful creamy Lindt chocolate with varying thickness depending on how it set just like I remember. I ate this like a fiend and loved every morsel. The little eggs were too rich for me, but the product was great even without them!

So a very clear winner here: the Lindt egg smashed the Cadbury one into the ground. What more needs to be said?

Well…

I also picked up the above (for $5). I was very hesitant upon opening it, recalling the evil taste of the ‘fakebury’ egg I’d cast into the trash the day before, but this rabbit was sublime.

Here it was: the beloved Cadbury taste. The best chocolate in the world in the shape of a lovely Easter bunny. Every bite was bliss, and even better it made me forget the awful egg.

So in the end Easter was saved! It was a lot of chocolate though. I may have to cut back next year 😉

Posted in Food, Miscellaneous | Comments Closed

Frozen Novelties (Part 2)

Friday, October 14th, 2016

The post on ice creams was unexpectedly popular! It led to some digging around on the interwebs during which I found these licensed Aussie ice blocks.

I’ll post them in more or less chronological order:

I can remember these! Apparently the license was so massive that more than one company made SW ice blocks over the years. This was of course in 1978.

Licensing was in full bloom by the late 1970s, although obviously the Bionic Man license was cheaper than the Star Trek one based on the cost of the ice block 🙂

The KISS ‘water ice confection’ came out in 1980 and I can remember the cola-flavoured back ice staining your tongue when you ate it. They sold these at school believe it or not!

Look at those flavours on this 1980 ice block! Lemonade, pineapple and bubblegum?!? I bet I loved them!

This delicious Flash Gordon ice cream was also 1980. I’d ruin one of these right now.

Collating these photos gave me distinct flashbacks of perusing the freezer cases in the days all this stuff was available. Happy times!

We’re into the early 1980s now. Orange and pineapple is my dream combination; here’s hoping they still market Donkey Kong when I visit 😛

The first one is a bit special since they came with glow-in-the-dark stickers. You can read about them here, and I strongly recall having a Spider Man sticker of my own! There other licensed shaped popsicles as well (such as Disney), but I don’t recall ever buying any.

Here things have just got a bit out of control don’t you agree? While this is a box from a New Zealand company, I read (although don’t recall) that Fame iceblocks were marketed in Australia as well.

All these are over 30 years ago, and there were virtually no licensed iceblocks before 1978. This is just another example of how Star Wars changed marketing entirely. Growing up in that era – where even The Bionic Man was a good license for the freezer case – was a privilege indeed.

Posted in Food, Miscellaneous, Retro, Time | Comments Closed

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