Daisy goes for a bike ride

Daisy in my bike basket riding along the Edogawa riverside in Tokyo (the entrance to Tokyo Bay is behind us, just beyond the bridge).

Today was a beautiful early summer day in Tokyo. Not too hot, not too cold, a sun shiny day with a little cool breeze. We took Daisy for a ride on the bike to enjoy the Edogawa riverside. It was the first time she rode in the bike basket with the basket cover I'd made for her. She was a bit wiggly going down the road at first, wanting to jump out and sniff around like she does when we go outside for a walk, but after a few minutes, she just enjoyed breathing in the air as we rode along. She sat pretty well, and when she didn't after I told her "Sit" she would pretty quickly. I guess all the times we go to the home center in the shopping cart got her used to sitting in a basket. The pet shopping carts there have a kind of basket/box on top of where a child seat would be (on the shopping cart) and she is used to me telling her to keep seated in that while we shop.

After we got to the Edogawa riverside, I enjoyed sitting on a towel in the sunshine while Ken took Daisy for a jog. The riverside is very nice and grassy with a paved bike path from Tokyo Bay (where the Edogawa river dumps into) all the way up the river for miles and miles. Many people are jogging, biking, walking or enjoying a relaxing time in the grass with their families and or dogs. Today we even saw someone with a pet Pot Bellied Pig!

People also enjoy to bar-be-que along the banks of the riverside and there are places to rent boats for fishing etc along the river. Further up from where we were today, which is where the Tozai line train crosses the river (Myoden area of Gyotoku on the opposite bank from us), there is a place where there are ponies for kids to ride and many baseball and soccer fields. It's nice that the riverside is only less than a 10 minute bike ride from our home.

I was able to relax and have a real quiet sit in the sunshine, enjoying a feeling of peace down to my bones, the kind of peace that has eluded me for a very a long time....

I look forward to more bike rides with Daisy and Ken soon.

Here are some pictures.

Coming back from a jog with Ken, heading towards me full speed ahead!

Relaxing in the clover/grassy area after jogging.

Daisy watching the train pass by (this is the Tozai subway line in Tokyo which runs above ground in our area).

Watching the goings on around the riverside.

Some people enjoying different types of boats on the river and on the opposite riverbank, some people BBQ'ing can be seen.

Ready to go home.

Indoor Electric Composter - Made in Japan

A photo of the composter from Hitachi (Hitachi BGD-V18 Kitchen Magic)

This past week, Ken bought me the neatest new 'toy'. It's a composter. I have wanted a composter for a while, not having much space out in the garden for a pile, I have been looking for a good small barrel that could be turned easily. I was not that enthusiatic though since outdoor compost piles or containers can be pretty icky and attract unwanted 'visitors' (such as cockroaches and rats). That might not be such a big deal if you have a large yard and can place it far from the house. However, probably because most people in Japan have small or no gardens, here in Japan, they have made the ultimate electronic composter that can be used indoors or on your apartment's balcony! Several companies make one, Hitachi, National (Panasonic), etc. We got the Hitachi BGC-V18 model from Amazon Japan (and it arrived at our door less than 24 hours after placing the order!). I used it last night for the first time. I think this is a great machine!

First of all, it is nearly silent! Unbelievably quiet, I can only hear this or that being turned around inside. Last night I'd put some bits of a corn cob in there and I suspect those were responsible for most of the sounds I heard.

Second, it doesn't generate heat around it like I thought it might. The casing of the machine itself gets fairly warm to the touch, mostly on the back of the machine, but that is it.

Thirdly, it composted the things I'd put into it in only 4 hours and without any smell.

All this and it has a very minimal footprint!

Supposedly, it uses only a few pennies in electricity to run a full course (something like around 50 US cents/50 JP yen a month), which is drastically less than it ends up costing (in money and in the affects to the environment) to throw the material to be composed into the garbage/landfill instead. Because of this, our city will give us some money towards the purchase of this machine once we fill out a form they have. They pay for 1/3 of the cost of the machine. Pretty neato huh?

I am looking forward to seeing how my garden responds to the composted material this summer.

UPDATE June 21, 2009:

Well we have been using this composter for a year now. I really love it. There is some noise once in a while such as a squeak or tumbling sound, but hardly noticeable. I think it depends on what matter is being composted. There can be a slight smell when you open the lid to add things, but it is not repulsive. It smells something like burnt coffee in the bottom of the coffee pot (when someone has forgotten to turn off the coffeemaker). Again, it's not a horrible smell but I do try to pop the items into the machine all at once and close the lid quickly because my husband likes to comment that it's stinky. The final composted material works great in my garden and it seems my tomatoes this year are benefiting from it so far! What is really great is you can take out alittle compost at a time (after the machine has run it's approximately 4 hour cycle). You don't need to wait longer than even one day to use some of the compost, on the other hand, if you prefer, you don't have to use any of it for quite a while (in our 2 person household), just keep adding the matter to be composted and let it run a cycle, and on and on. I did empty all the compost out and give the inside a full cleaning about a month ago. I then had to add a new starter bag of compost accelerator. Very simple and easy.
Seems like these type of composters are STILL not available outside Japan. What a shame! I'm sure they would be wildly popular in the USA as well as many other places. Get smart Hitachi, Panasonic...start making these for the overseas market!!!

Here are some pics.

Here is the machine parked in our kitchen, next to the refrigerator.

The control panel on the top is easy for me to use even though it's in Japanese. Ken helped me with some translation which I have written on the protective plastic covering that it came with. I think I can memorize pretty quickly and remove the plastic and notes later on.

View of the inside after I had run the machine once. In 4 hours the corn cob, lemon peels, cuttings from the garden and other kitchen compostible wastes I put in, have turned into what you see here. The paddles turn around so quietly I hardly knew the machine was on.

Another picture from Hitachi showing how, once you open the front panel, you can have the machine expel the finished compost easily into a bucket.

Daisy is a golfer

Watching intently as Ken gets ready to hit the ball

This weekend, we went up to the mountains in Tochigi to an area called Kinugawa. In the wintertime, there are lots of skiers at the resorts there but from now people enjoy golf, hot springs and nature there.

We stayed at Kinugawa Kogen Country Club which is a very nice golf resort and they allow guests to bring their dogs with them, even on the golf cart. Daisy had a great time! We stayed overnight in one of the log type cabins they had there too.

At first Daisy didn't realize a 'ball' was involved in what we were doing (golfing). But after she figured that out, she watched all the balls fly and wanted them real bad! We gave her one to play with at one point for alittle bit. She was surprisingly well behaved for the 5 hours it took to get thru 18 holes!

We all enjoyed the outdoors at the top of this beautiful mountain range. The snow had just melted recently and everything was starting to get green and blossom. I hope we will go back there again someday. The facilities at the Kinugawa Kogen Country Club (where we stayed and golfed) were excellent. They had a wonderful onsen (hot springs bath) that was absolutely heaven after we finished golfing each day! Also, the staff were all so friendly and the food was good too! Highly recommended! Click here to go to their website (sorry, it's in Japanese only).

As we were packing, Daisy wanted to make sure we didn't forget to bring her too!

Getting ready to start golfing!

Ken and Daisy pose nicely.

Daisy 'begging', hoping to get a ball to play with.

Sitting up worked, she got her own ball.

Daisy waits nicely while Ken tees off on the last hole, it was his best drive of the day!

The cabins we stayed in (photo from the Country Club's website).

View of the mountain range from the golf cart path near the Clubhouse.

Tofu Lettuce and Tomato Egg Drop Soup

TLT Chicken Soup (Tofu, Lettuce and Tomato)

Here is a new soup I've been making that has turned out to be a hit in our home. I call it TLT Soup. It is a chicken broth based soup. In the photos here, I used cherry tomatoes. I usually use just a regular tomato or a Roma tomato which my husband and I decided today are much better in this soup than cherry tomatoes, which turned out to be a bit 'sour'. But it's all up to you which tomatoes you like best!

Also, I used Romaine lettuce but Iceberg or any other kind of lettuce would work fine as well.

Enjoy!

TLT Chicken Soup

1 block of firm or extra firm Tofu (Momen in Japanese)
1 Egg
1 Tomato, sliced into small wedges
4-5 Lettuce leaves, torn into bite size pieces (about 1 1/2 cups)
4 cups of Chicken Broth
1/2 tsp. Salt (or to taste)
2 tsp. cooking Sake
Dash of white pepper (or to taste)

Put chicken broth into large saucepan. Turn heat on medium. Cut tofu block into small/medium pieces and put into the saucepan with broth. Bring to a boil.

When it starts to boil, reduce heat to simmer and add tomato, salt, sake and pepper.

In a small bowl, beat the egg until completely mixed.

Add the lettuce to the saucepan. Stir briefly.

Slowly add the egg to the soup. The best way is by spoonful, drizzling a little bit at a time around in the soup. This will cause the egg to cook in a 'stringy' manner instead of ending up with one lump of egg in the soup (which will happen if you pour the egg too much, too quickly).

Once all the egg has been added and has 'cooked' (it will be cooked less than a minute after it has been added to the soup), it's ready to serve!

I used cherry tomatoes on this day, and squeezed them a bit before adding them to the saucepan to get some of the seeds out (after this photo was taken). However, I don't recommend cherry tomatoes unless you like a little sour taste.

The finished soup in the saucepan ready to serve.

Cherry Blossoms -Sakura in Tokyo 2008

A beautiful night view of the cherry trees in full bloom in Naka-Meguro Tokyo, photo from the Japan Today website.

Cherry Blossom season has arrived early in Japan this year. This weekend (March 29/30) is the peak in the Tokyo area. In addition to arriving earlier than usual, the blossoms have opened fast and are not going to last as long as they usually do, because we are having some nice warm weather (warm for this time of the year, yay! I think winter is done!).

Today, after lunch, we took Daisy for a walk alongside a river nearby us that is lined with Cherry trees. It is a good place for us to see some cherry blossoms with out too much effort/traveling and it is void of any of the drunken crowds you might find elsewhere in Tokyo, such as along the Sumida river. Traditionally, Japanese enjoy sitting under the cherry trees to have an afternoon picnic, which may include quite a bit of alcohol for some. This area near us tho is quite subdued and a nice walk around. Daisy had alot of fun and she ate a few cherry blossoms that had fallen to the ground.

Hope you enjoy the photos!

Miss Daisy Ipo, cherry blossom girl

The 'weeping' style branches of this tree is so pretty! The traditional chochin (paper lanterns) are hanging in the trees to announce the cherry blossoms (as if you didn't notice them), it is pretty at night when the chochin are lit up. Can you see Daisy walking on the sidewalk in the right side of the picture?

Some picnics going on alongside the river under the gorgeous trees.

Some vendors selling food and drinks from their temporary stalls.

Me and Daisy, she is sniffing the air, trying to figure out the smells when we just arrived.

Ken and Daisy standing under the pink 'umbrella' of the cherry trees.

Daisy and I standing on one of the old wooden bridges that crosses over the river. She is standing up to try and see a dog that was on the other side of a hedge. She often stands like this to try and see over things or to reach something. She can stand like this for quite a bit of time! We are thinking of trying to teach her to walk upright!

Baked Rosemary Lemon Turkey Meatballs

In the oven, ready to start baking.

Here's a recipe for some meatballs I have been making lately and really enjoying. They are very versatile and can be frozen for a quick meal later!

Serve plain or with a sauce such as hollandaise or a cream sauce like Ikea’s Graddsas sauce (which I used today). You may also use these meatballs in pasta dishes such as spaghetti.

Rosemary Lemon Turkey Meatballs

16 oz. (450 grams) ground turkey meat
1 1/2 cups panko (Japanese bread crumbs)
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 garlic clove, minced
1 1/2 tsp. chopped fresh rosemary (or 1 tsp. dried rosemary)
1 tbs. lemon zest, plus
1 tbs. fresh lemon juice
Coarsely ground salt and pepper
Olive oil spray

In a large bowl mix turkey meat, panko, egg, garlic, rosemary, lemon zest & juice, salt and pepper (add salt and pepper according to your taste, I use about 1/2 tsp or so of each, maybe alittle more of the salt).

Mix just until combined (do not over-mix). Using your hands works best.

Roll into balls (sized about 1 ½ inches/3.5cm around). Place, slightly apart, on baking sheet (use one with edges so juices don’t mess up your oven while cooking). You can line the baking sheet/dish/pan with aluminum foil or a Silpat mat if you like.

Spray very lightly with olive oil (I use a refillable oil sprayer from Williams-Sonoma, click here to buy online) and bake in the oven at 180 C/ 350 F for about 20- 25 minutes.

All the ingredients, ready to mix together.

I have a handy spout that screws into a fresh lemon, just squeeze the lemon and pour the fresh juice out, keeps the seeds out of the juice too!

Mango Coconut Tapioca dessert

Have you ever tried those stands/kiosks in the mall or somewhere else that are selling the fruity, tea or coffee drinks with huge tapioca balls in the bottom of the cup and a big fat straw to suck them up with? Usually called Bubble Tea or Boba Drink, here is a picture:

There is a little shop selling these drinks now at the mall near us (LaLa Port at Minami Funabashi), and we got some a couple weeks ago. That got me thinking about tapioca, even though, as a kid, tapioca repulsed me, or perhaps it was just tapioca rice pudding I didn't care for.

So, as usual, missing tropical flavors while in Japan has lead me to come up with another recipe. This one is a dessert using mango and coconut with small tapioca pearls. If I could have found the huge tapioca balls like in the photo above at the supermarket here in Japan, I would have made this dessert with those, but just finding regular small tapioca pearls here was a bit of a hunt, finally found some at the 3rd supermarket I tried. If I ever do find the huge ones, I will try this again with them, I think it would turn out to be even more 'fun'.

So, here is my recipe. Hope you enjoy if you try it.

Mango Coconut Tapioca Pearl dessert

1/2 c Tapioca, dry
2 cups Water
2 1/2 teaspoons Somersweet (or to taste) or other sweetener which equals approx. 1/4 c. sugar
4 oz/150 grams canned Evaporated Milk (or if using Sweetened Condensed Milk, reduce sweetener above to taste)
1.5 lb fresh Mango (or frozen chunks)
1/8 teaspoon Coconut extract/flavor
1/4 c Shredded Coconut (optional)
Mint leaf (optional)

Soak the tapioca pearls in 1/2 cup of the water for 30 minutes. Cut the Mango into large cubes/chunks or if using frozen Mango, defrost completely. Place into a blender or food processor and process VERY LIGHTLY to a chunky sauce consistency.

Boil the remaining 1 1/2 cups of water. When it begins to boil, add the tapioca pearls, including the water they were soaking in. Stir and cook for 10 minutes or until the tapioca becomes translucent. Turn off the heat and add the sweetener and milk. Cool to room temperature. Add the mango, coconut extract and shredded coconut. Pour into an attractive serving dish or into individual serving dishes, cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Top with fresh mint leaf when serving if desired.

Yummy!

Hawaiian Flora and Fauna photos

Here are some more pictures of the beauty of Hawaii, flora and fauna. Especially dear to us is the Nene, the Hawaiian Goose which is endemic to the Hawaiian Islands. It was named the state bird of Hawaii in 1957. The Nene is the world's rarest goose.

Once common in Hawaii (prior to 1778, when Capt. James Cook arrived, it is said that there were about 25,000 Nene), hunting and introduced predators such as mongooses, pigs and cats reduced the population to 30 birds by 1952. The Nene's nest is particularly vulnerable as it nests rather haphazardly on the ground. Thankfully the Nene breeds well in captivity, and has been successfully re-introduced. In 2004 it was estimated that there were 500 birds in the wild (and good numbers in wildfowl collections). It is easiest to see wild Nene flocks on Kauai where there are no mongoose (the only island void of the mongoose).

The "Nēnē" gets its Hawaiian name from its soft call. My husband and I think it sounds like such an endearing tired and sad little 'honk'. We LOVE to meet Nene and hear their voices. We met one at the Pana'ewa Rainforest Zoo in Hilo (on the Big Island) that came up to the edge of it's enclosure and just honked up a storm for us for quite some time. She/He was such a sweet little goose, very friendly but probably because it was being kept in captivity.

These Nene can be seen enjoying living at the inner gardens at the Kauai Marriott Hotel. We went there to eat at one of our favorite restaurants in Hawaii, Duke's , named after the famed 'father of surfing' and all around super interesting Hawaiian guy, Duke Kahanamoku. We recommend you try Duke's Kauai location if you go to Kauai. Say hello to the Nene for us!

Anthurium in a beautiful pink color.

Some fishes we were snorkeling with one day while on Kauai (image caught with my new and fun underwater camera). The darker fishes are Black Triggerfish, called Humuhumu'ele'ele in Hawaiian, and are cousins of Hawaii's state fish, the Humuhumunukunukuapuaa (Humuhumunukunuku for short, ha ha ha).A gorgeous tree on a golf course on Kauai

One of our favorite little doves in Hawaii, the Barred Dove (introduced to Hawaii in 1922). They have such a sweet little call, that is nice to hear in the morning. We think it sounds like they are sometimes saying "not at all". This is one of the things I miss when I am in Japan. There is something soothing to me having these little doves around everywhere.

Sweet smelling white plumeria flowers, filling up the air with loveliness, another thing I miss when I am in Japan.

A very colorful Gecko which I have only seen in the Kailua-Kona area of the Big Island(where this photo was taken) but it probably lives elsewhere unbeknownst to me . Doesn't it look like it's smiling?

Hibiscus flower photos from Hawaii

While in Hawaii, I often take photos of flowers. Here is a collection of Hibiscus flower photos that you might enjoy. The varieties seem to be endless!