One-day-trip to Kamakura from Tokyo!

 One day in the late Autumn of 2017, my friend and I visited an old town Kamakura (鎌倉), located just one hour riding on a local train from Tokyo. Despite its convenient location, Kamakura is amazingly different from the huge metropolitan city Tokyo: the city centre is filled with cute tiny local restaurants as well as souvenir shops, deep forests behind the city sit just next to the Pacific Ocean. What’s more, fascinatingly sophisticated cafes are available like everywhere. But first, why don’t we just drop the train off at Kita-Kamakura (Northen Kamakura) station to start a casual trail hiking which lead us to a big statue of Buddha?

 On the narrow local way, we found a lot of temples here and there. In most cases, the admission fee was 200-300 yen, just a couple of dollars. Since Autumn leaves had still on the tree, fascinated us, we went to temples one by one, walking on the gardens and around.

 As we climbed up hills, we discovered an ocean view beyond trees. The air surrounding us wasn’t that cold, perhaps the temperature hit 10 degrees at that point. I always love those modest weather, you know :)

 So, here we are ;) If you pay additional fee, which is just for 20 yen,  you can make it inside the statue like we did :) You want to know what’s inside? Well....NOTHING XD

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 Okay, it’s time to have a nice meal. We found a local restaurant on a narrow street, and had a Shirasu (small, steamed white baby fish), soul food in Kamakura along with fresh Tuna. Soooo nice :)

 Before it gets dark, we strolled around the city centre, had some sweets while doing window shopping. It was truly a lovely day ;)

Coming soon...

:)

Turn into a new page.

 Every Autumn, I enjoy taking a long walk in and around Shinjuku Gyoen park, where is a famous place for painting-like scenery with lots of leaves turned dark red and bright yellow. This year, however, I found it difficult to have such a long walk. Things are getting complicated around me, and I'm planning to work a full-time job in the near future, probably, from early January.
 For many years, if not a decade, I've lived relatively peaceful calm life: reading old novels day after day, cooking three or more meals a day, visiting a local tiny park to sketch. These are my long-time favorite, and I truly love them all. But gradually, I turn my eyes to something new, something I've never experienced yet.

 I don't know if it works... well, who know? But I'm going to do my best for the time being. And of course, I continue to keep coming back here to make posts ;)

cooking blows my daily frustration :)

 It was Saturday when I was so exhausted from work, and I thought I need to create something good in this world. So I rushed to a local supermarket, bought a variety of vegetables, then head back to home. Within minutes, I stood the kitchen, began to cook. Two types of jams (banana with caramel sauce, and freshly harvested grape jam) comes first, then baked a bread. As I kept cooking  so many food and see them accumulated in the refrigerator, I felt deeply content. It reminds me of a famous spy film "Munich", which, in the story, the star actor cooked excessively as he felt frustrated chasing the targets. Well, for me, cooking is something fulfilling my heart :)

All I need is a fine meal.

  Last weekday was extremely busy ones, with endless chores, backlashing and criticising here and there in the workplace, I hate it all. I really felt like being home, doing something with my hands, such as cooking hot meals or drawing on my sketchbook... So I took days off, cooked many treats, slept well, then I came back on track.

 Fresh raw fish sashimi (刺身) along with steamed rice, soy soup miso-shiru (味噌汁) with tofu and green onion, and  green salad with boiled pumpkin and sliced maribo cheese from Denmark on top :)

 Yeah, I need flower in my life, you know!

 As ever, nice meals made me feel content, and I do love what I cook. It's quite important for me to create something I love :)

food, food, food!

 I've been under a huge pressure for the past several weeks, and sometimes I was really in need for getting out of everything, and head to a nice restaurant.  Like always, I love eat out for sushi. Sitting on a chair while sushi chefs behind the counter cook sushi, take care of whole fresh fish to cut, slice with care, then put them in the fridge. I always like every move sushi chefs do. And sushi itself...it was gorgeous!

 It came along with an egg custard dish chawan-mushi (茶碗蒸し). It looks like pudding, but it's a meal with Japanese soup dashi, a shrimp, a chopped chicken and Japanese herb in it.

 The next day came with B.L.T. sandwich in a cafe HARBS in a fancy district Roppongi. Long thick sliced bacons were well grilled, and its oily taste was the best combination with tomato and bread! Chatting with my friend, I also enjoyed a big portion of cake. (HARBS is a famous for its huge size cake)

 And that's not all: I joined a dinner party held nearby. I visited earlier so to help cook. He said he was going to cook a pot dish with pheasant from Shikoku island, and I made up my mind to cut variety of vegetables while he was making soup from the scratch. (The soup eventually took two hours to cook, for the record!)

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 As well as eating out, cooking myself is so much fun for me. Well... I cook too much,  I know it!
 Sure, we have plenty of annoying thing in our life, but as long as fine meals are there, I would be okay ;)