Waiting for your plane in HK heaven

No, this isn't an entrance to a Hello Kitty playground, but the entrance of a waitingroom/lounchearea at the Tao Yuan International airport in Taiwan!















Everything is covered with this famous kitty and at the airport you can also buy kittystuff. So imagine having a delay of 3 hours or something, well i don't really mind waiting here :)

Docu: Kintaro walks Japan

Yesterday I saw a funny documentary about an American guy, Tyler Macniven, who made a journey from the southern tip of Japan to the north (by FOOT!) A reason: He wanted to find the birthplace of his dad, somewhere around Hokkaido. He doesn't know the name of the birthplace (dad doesn't remember it either) and he only has a drawing of that place. Travel along and experience the journey with Kintaro/Tyler Macniven!

Click here to watch his video (for free!).

Couple married by robot

Its a fact that we live in a civilization that will be more and more controlled by computers, electronics and robots. You can order your grocery just from your computer and it will be delivered, robotarms that do surgery, controlled by some sort of joystick and just now i found out that a couple in Tokyo have been married by a robot, called I-Fairy. How futuristic sounds that? They both love robots. The bride worked at a company that invented this special robot and the groom is a robotprofessor, so why not getting married by a robot? Watch the video here at Jumi (subtitled in dutch hihi).

Hairstyles overseas

Many hairdressers from overseas want to share their haircreations to the world through Rasysa. So check out the latest hairtrends from overseas at Rasysa.com. Print out the hairstylepic you like and show it to your hairdresser and you will have the cutest, coolest hairstyle of 2010!

Crepes

I was bored so I decided to make crêpes. It's a good and easy way of wasting time and your tummy will love it.
I used:

- Prima Crêpe Mix
- 3 eggs
- a little butter
- 400 ml water

To fill the crepes i used:
- chocopaste, coconut shavings, fruitjelly, fruit, whipped cream etc.

Directions:
Follow the steps on the back of the Prima Crêpe Mix package.
And you're done!!

Now how easy was that!!! :D

When your crêpes are cooled, decorate it with whipped cream toppings, chocolate sprinklers and some fruit or candy.

Mine were delicious!! :9

Norwegian Wood: the Movie

One of Haruki Murakami's bestsellers Norwegian Wood has been adapted into a movie. It will be released in december 2010 (Japan)...still 7 months...
With great actors, such as Kenichi Matsuyama (Death Note, DMC, Nana) and Tamayama Tetsuji (Sunao ni Narenakute, Nana, Casshern) this movie must be(come) Jumi's blockbuster!

The story:
When he hears a song of the Beatles, called Norwegian Wood, it reminds Toru of a girl Naoko, the girlfriend of his best friend. He travels back in time when he still was a student, adrift in a world of uneasy friendships, passion and desire. To a time when a woman, Midori, walks into his life. He has to choose between the future and past.

Dorama tip: Coffee Prince

Imagine this as a girl: having crappy jobs, working really hard and just earning 5 ct or something, but you have to, you don't have a choice, because you have to take care of your family. Then you bump in to someone, a rich guy. Because of your tomboyish look, he thinks you're a guy! And now he has a really strange request... His family wants him to get married soon, so they arranged blind dates for him with some ladies. But he doesn't want to get married! Now he 's asking you if you can pretend to be his boyfriend (even though you're a girl, but he still doesn't know that) during his datingsessions and 'accidentally' show up as the boyfriend, BUT you can earn a lot of money with this 'job'. Would you do that?

This is just the start of a new crazy, funny adventure of a girl who gave up her 'being a girl' to become a boy (no no not with a gender transformation, it's still a drama for 12+ :)). Watch Coffee Prince now at Jumi! (provided by mysoju.com)

Japanese garden in NL

Strolling in a quiet, peacefull, paradisely park, surrounded by many beautiful cherryblossoms of all cute pinkish colours, while walking towards a nice red wooden bridge, that reminds you of postcards and pictures you've seen in travelbooks. Well, if you can afford a ticket to Japan, Jumi recommends you to visit Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden in Tokyo.

But if it's too far away (because you live in NL or somewhere else in Europe), you can still experience the beauty of Japanese Gardens. In spring and autumn 'Estate Clingendael' in The Hague (NL) will open its door to the beautiful Japanese Garden. Free entrance!

Open
spring 30 april till 13 june (09.00-20.00)
autumn 15 october till 31 october (10.00-16.00)

Address
The main entrance is at Wassenaarseweg, reached by bus 18 and 23.

Check the brochure for more info

We will visit the Japanese Garden this spring, so photo's coming soon, here at Jumi's!

Mochi part 2

Yes! I found another recipe for Mochi (yes i didn't gave up on Mochi :)) And i want to share it with you! First you need the ingredients ofcourse:


- 2 cups of glutinous riceflour
- 1 cup of water
- 1/4 cup of sugar
- cornstarch








Mix the riceflour with water and sugar







Put the paste on plate, after you've mixed the ingredients. Wrap the plate in plastic foil and microwave for 12 minutes







While waiting for the paste, prepare for the afterwork. Get all the things you want and need for the filling of ricepaste. You can fill it with whatever you like: pieces of fruit, peanutbutter, syrup, honey etc. Because the warming paste gets really really sticky, put a plate filled with a layer of cornstarch. This powder prevents its stickyness.






I smell something burning....OOOOOW NOOO, IT'S MY RICEPASTE IN THE MICROWAVE!!!!! Oh no, oh no, it's too tooo hard now and it smells really terrible :(





Well, today is the day that i need to make the perfect mochi. Let me try it again with another recipe...(Sorry, for recipe i gave you before..)
This time you need the same ingredients but with another amount of each ingredient:
- 1 cup of glutinous riceflour
- 1 cup of water
- 1/4 cup of sugar

Mix the ingredients and put it on a plate again wrapped in foil. Microwave it for 4 minutes.



Well, this is the paste after microwaving it, hmm..it looks a bit better huh?
The next step is slicing the sticky paste into pieces






Now fill the pieces with whatever you like. Bleh, the paste is getting too sticky. It sticks on everything! If so, wet your hands a bit with water. After filling the pieces, close them ofcourse really really gently. The filling shouldn't been seen. Just a white riceball.








Dust your riceball with some cornstarch to prevent it from sticking






The result
Ugly, misshapen, miscreated Snotchi :(
But well, this time it was actually edible and it tasted a bit jummy. But still, i want to make the perfect mochi. Unfortunately i don't have (and didn't found) the right recipe...







Do you have the perfect mochi recipe?

Mochi

My mochi-disastrous-adventure began last week...One thing i ate the most is Mochi, when i was in Japan. This is rice-cake filled with sweet red beans, ice or other delicious sweet stuff. Because i'm in a cook'n bake-mood, i wanted to make my own mochi. I found a lot of recipes and last week I started (feeling really excited) to make one, strictly following the steps mentioned on the recipe website. It really seemed easy to make. Just mix glutinous riceflour with water and sugar and fill it with something you like.......
The result was horrible: the ricepaste felt like sticky, glue-ish, halfslimy wallpaperpaste! After that i tried it again and it came out too hard to eat. Help!!! What went wrong? Why does it get so sticky or hard and inedible! I bought the ingredients, did exactly what i had to do according to these recipes. Who has the answer to make the perfect Mochi????

Dorama tip: 素直になれなくて

I luuuuuv this fresh new Japanese dorama!
Sunao ni narenakute (素直になれなくて) is about a couple of people who became friends through Twitter! Now how 2010 is that?!
Right now Jumi's favourite!

Umbrella

I'm in pain.
My bananayellow umbrella from Japan was blown apart by the heavy Dutch rainy weather yesterday. I was forced to leave my broken umbrella between two ripped open garbagebags in a dirty corner.
Our memories together flashed before my eyes, how I bought it at Hatagaya station in Tokyo for just 300 YEN. How it protected my hairdo during pouring days in Japan. How well it fitted in my suitcase back home to Holland. How carefull I was not to bring it outside during heavy wind.
I'm sorry, yesterday I was not carefull enough.
Now, I have another reason to visit Japan again.

Lastminute-I'mbroke-Jummysweetrecipe: Daigakuimo

OH NO *peeep* your friend called that he/she will visit you today, unannounced! *stress*stress* You don't have anything jummy at home, and you just spent your last money on grocery buying stupid healthy stuff such as vitaminpills, crackers, oranges, apples, carrots, lettuce, anti-cellulitelotion etc. You can't give your guest slices of apples or a leaf of the lettuce..Let me see what else i've got in my kitchen. Hmm just sugar, sesameseed and soysauce...While stressing what to feed my guest, my mind slipt more and more away to my holiday in Japan last year...Jummy, I miss the jummy-delicious-sweet-snacks...snacks THATS IT! In Japan they had a sweet potato snack, Daigakuimo. I searched on the net for the recipe and i found it! After buying just 1 extra ingredient for 1 euro the sweet potato, I made Daigakuimo. My friend came and she loved it. Want to try it for yourself? Well here is the recipe:


Ingredients:
- 750 gram sweet potato
- Oil (sunfloweroil for example)

for the sauce:
- 4 tbsp water
- 1 tbsp soysauce (I use kikkoman Soysauce)
- 125 gram sugar (or less, if u don't like it too sweet, because the potatos are ofcourse sweet of itself :)
- white or black sesameseed.

1. Peel off the skin of the sweet potato and cut in pieces. You can also leaf the skin on, if so, make sure you clean it very well, just like a normal potato

2. Heat the oil in a pan, when it's hot enough, put the potatos in it

3. When the potatos are well baked, put them on a plate covered with papertowel. Just leave it there while you're preparing the sauce

4. Stir and mix water, soysauce and sugar well in a pan and put the pan on low heat.

When the sugar has melted and the sauce gets a bit sticky, remove from the heat and put the potatos in the sauce

5. Then put it on a plate and sprinkle the sesameseed

6. Jummy, lets eat!

Tsukiji fishmarket

As a real sushi and sashimi fan, Jumi had to go to the place where it all begins: the fishmarket in Tsukiji (Japan). Although feeling really uncomfortable walking around as a gaijin in this market, where people just do their stuff working hard, Jumi managed to film the market briefly.

Open for business

This is our first post. Please feed our fish and have fun on our page.