Japanese Sushi Lunch

Long weekend with Hari Raya Haji falling on Friday. It has been a while since I last make sushi. So far, I have been rolled sushi (maki) with the nori outside. Decided to try the reverse method which is nori on the inside and rice on the outside. Did some research on how to do it and finally settled on California Maki. Seems pretty easy from the video I saw on the web.

After getting all my ingredients ready, I started on my 1st california roll. It was terible...I didn't realize I was supposed to use half a sheet of nori. Instead I use the entire piece. I ended up with a "jumbo" size California roll....plus my rice could not cover the nori completely and I literally had to cut off the excess nori that was "hanging" from my maki roll....:(

2nd attempt was much better after I stick to half a sheet of nori only. My rice was able to cover the nori completely and I was able to roll the ingredients tightly inside the maki roll. After topping with the fish roe, I was very happy and satisfied with the end product. It looked quite close to the california maki I buy from those sushi joint....not too bad, right? hahaha...

I also make some sushi pockets and topped it with tuna mayo and fish roe. That is much simpler compared to california maki.
Finally, after boiling the endamame, I can sit down to a filling and fulfilling lunch. Cheers!

Cookies Mania

My two favourite cookies of all time..Chocolate Oat Cookies and Chocolate Chips cookies. Planning to bake them for my friends during Christmas and wanted to try out the recipe before I make a bigger batch. So that's how I started baking them now.

The chocolate chips cookies is from my trial and tested recipe. Chocolate oat cookies is my 1st attempt but they turned out pretty good and it has a chewy texture to it. My mum like this better as it is a softer cookies and less harsh on her teeth. :)

Chocolate Oat Cookies (makes about 20 big cookies)
Ingredients
90g butter
70g caster sugar (I used brown sugar to give it a more brown coloured look)
1 egg, beaten
80g Cake flour
1/4 tsp baking powder and baking soda each
40g chocolate bits or chocolate chips
90g rolled oats

Method
1. Cut butter into small cubes.
2. Sift flour, baking powder and baking soda onto a bowl. Set aside for later use.
3. Using a hand held beater, cream the sugar with butter till sugar is completely blended into butter.
4. Add beaten egg in 3 portions and continue to cream till egg is completely used up.
5. Fold in the sift flour/baking powder/baking soda in in 2 to 3 batches using metal spoon.
6. Line baking tray with baking paper.
7. Drop spoonful of the mixture on the baking tray, making sure to leave adequate space in between (This is to ensure your cookies don't stick together after baking).
8. Bake at 180 degrees for 20 mins till it is golden brown. Remove from tray. Cool and store in airtight containers.

Easy Homemade Pizza

Wanted pizza but unwilling to fork out money for pizza with little toppings? The best solution is to make your own pizza at home. These days, with so many choices of ready-made pizza bases to choose from at the supermarket, whipping up your own pizza with your favourite toppings is really a breeze. Best part is you get to choose what you put on the pizza (usually lots of toppings and they only cost half the price of the pizza you ordered.....:)

Easy Homemade Pizza
Ingredients
1 ready made pizza base (I got mine from Cold Storage supermarket)
2 to 3 tblsp Tomato paste
Canned mushrooms (sliced)
Green pepper (sliced)
Picnic Ham (sliced)
Morzarella cheese (shredded)

1. Pre-heat oven at 200 degrees celsius.
2. Place ready made pizza base on a baking tray. Spread tomato paste onto pizza base. Sprinkle some morzarella cheese ontop. This will help to "stick" the ingredients onto the pizza once it is baked.
3. Add the other ingredients onto the pizza. You can add other ingredients or your preference e.g., pepperoni, olives, pineapple, seafood etc.
4. Top generously with morzarella cheese making sure all the ingredients are covered.
5. Bake the pizza at 200 degrees for 15 - 20 minutes till the base is brown and cripsy and the cheese has melted.
6. Serve with chilli flakes and grated cheese.


It's really easy and highly recommended when you don't want to spend too much time and effort whipping up something elaborate. It is also a good choice for friends' gathering at home. Just make sure you prepare beer to go with your pizza...it will definitely be a hit!

Oaty Banana Muffins

My second bake of the day. Recipe is from a cupcake recipe book I borrowed from the library. I can't remember the title of the book already but I have used this recipe a few times already. This recipe is definitely a keeper. Not only is the muffin easy to make, the results are always consistent, so you can be ensured of a good bake each time :)

You can bake these as small cupcakes or big muffins. Both yielded about the same result and texture. I use these cupcakes case with little strawberries on them and filled them about 3/4 full. After 15 to 18 mins of baking, a beautiful dome shape cupcake is born!


Oaty Banana Muffins (makes about 21 small muffins)
Ingredients
200g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
75g porridge oats (I used Quaker instant oats)
3 eggs beaten
175g caster sugar or brown sugar
pinch of salt
250ml corn/sunflower oil
2 medium ripe banana (mashed or cut into small pieces - depending on your preference)

Method
1. Sift flour and baking powder into a large bowl and add the oats.
2. Beat eggs, sugar and oil and salt in another bowl till pale (sugar has dissolved). Add this to flour mixture and stir till all the flour has been completely mixed. Do not over mix as your muffins will turn out to be hard.
3. Fold in chopped bananas.
4. Spoon mixture into cupcakes/muffin cases (about 3/4 full).
5. Bake for 15 mins at 180 degrees. Bake for another 2 mins at 200 degrees for a golden brown crispiness.
6. Cool the muffins and store in air tight containers.

These should be consumed within 2 to 3 days to ensure the freshness.

Almond Cookies

It's only after I logged on my own blog that I realize I have not been blogging for almost a year now :p Actually, I have been baking and cooking every now and then. Just that I usually did not take the extra effort to take pictures or post the pictures.

Today after my bake, while waiting for them to cool down before I pack them into the container, I decided to take out my camera and that is how this blog "materializes". Almond cookies are something that most of us usually bake during our traditional chinese lunar new year, but since my ground almonds is expiring soon and I love to have some, so I got down to baking it anyway!

These cookies are really easy to make. I got this recipe from Aunty Yochana (http://auntyyochana.blogspot.com). No beating or creaming required. Just mix all the ingredients and mix it into a dough. Roll them into small little rolls and they are ready to go into the oven. I am pretty happy with the results and how they turn out in the pictures. My happiness is complete when I bite into these tiny little cookies.....yummy! This is definitely the recipe I will use if I want to make almond cookies again!

Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookies

Just got a book on cookies from the library recently and was inspired to try making some of them inside the book. What is great about this book is that it has a pictorial step by step section showing how to go about doing all the steps so for an amateur like me who seldom make cookies, this book really motivated me to give those cookies a try....:) although it is in chinese so I had some problem understanding what are some of the ingredients on the recipes....:(

Anyhow, I decided to try my hand at the walnut chocolate cookies which looks simple enough. I was quite happy with the end results since most of the cookies turn out almost the same size. It would seem that the effort to roll them into small little balls before placing them on the baking sheet does help to ensure the size does not differ too much. Don't forget to ensure there is sufficient space in between as the biscuit does expand quite a fair bit. My nieces and nephew are the happy recipients of these cookies and they immediately polish off 8 pieces at one go......I am glad they turn out well enough and it does gives me some additional confidence to try more cookies in the days to come....:)

Fruit cake

I had always wanted to bake a whole cake but never had the opportunity or the motivation till I came across the cake recipe book from the library [think it's called Alex Goh Baking Class]. The cakes inside the book are really beautiful and since I am most confident in baking butter cake, I decide to bake a fruit cake which also is a favourite cake for my parents at home.

It's a pretty simple cake yet great for everyone old and young, big and small...:) I made some adaptions to the recipe though...instead of adding the glazed cherries, dried apricots etc, I bought a batch of mixed fruits instead (had raisins, mixed peel, green red glazed cherries) and use that in the fruit cake and I added almonds and walnuts instead of macadamia nuts. But I felt that the cake is a bit dry and in my next attempt, I will definitely add in some milk to make a smoother texture cake.


Fruit cake
Ingredients
200g butter
150g brown sugar
3 eggs
2 tblsps golden syrup
180g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
100g almonds
100g macadamia nuts (I did not add this)
100g walnuts
150g dried apricots
50g glazed red cherries
150g raisins
4 tblsp orange juice

Method
1. Mix all the dried fruits with orange juice and set aside for 1 hour.
2. Cream butter and sugar till light. Add eggs (1 at a time) and golden syrup and continue to cream till smooth and creamy.
3. Sieve in flour and baking powder and mix until well blended.
4. Add the fruits and nuts and mix until well incorporated with the batter.
5. Pour into a oiled and lined loaf tin and bake at 170C for 1 hour.

Moist Walnut Banana Cake

Cake recipe dug up from old recipe file kept by my sister...apparently it has been a tried and tested recipe many years back by my sister so I am pretty confident it will take out well. :) The cake is really simple to bake and the cake is really soft and yummy. I already had an order to bake this cake....:) this recipe is definitely a keeper.

Banana Walnut Cake
Ingredients
250g butter
1 cup caster sugar
2 cups self raising flour
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
3 large ripened banana, mashed
100g walnuts, chopped

Method
1. Cream butter and sugar till light. Add eggs one at a time and continue to cream till light and creamy.
2. Sieve in flour and mix until it is well incorporated.
3. Add in mashed banana and milk till a dropping consistency is obtained.
4. Pour the batter into a bundt cake tin (or any cake tin of your choice). Smooth the top with a scrapper and top with chopped walnuts.
5. Bake at 180C for 50 minutes.

Yakitori Chicken Bento Lunch

Have been busy at work lately and with all the hectic travelling on the job, I did not have the time and energy to go groceries shopping and cooking. However, after having canteen food for the past few days, I am really really quite sick of it and was wondering if I could put together a simple lunch for tomorrow. A quick glance at what is in my fridge "uncovered" my "withering" broccoli and baby carrots which is growing "old".....thought I better "finished" them off rather than to see them ended up in my rubbish chute....:p

Just had a very nice yakitori chicken don yesterday at Sushi Teh and was wondering if I could put together the same item.....:) A quick stir-fry of the onion, chicken slices, a few tablespoons of yakitori sauce, soy sauce and black soy sauce and my yakitori chicken bento is completed!

Yakitori Chicken Bento
Ingredients
100g chicken, diced (my mother sliced the chicken instead!)
1/2 onion, sliced
3 tblsp yakitori sauce (available in Japanese section of any major supermkt)
1/2 tblsp soy sauce (to marinate the diced chicken at least 15 minutes before)
1/2 tblsp black soy sauce
1 tblsp water
1/2 tsp Cornflour (to be dissolved with some water to form a cornstarch solution)
Blanched broccoli and baby carrots

Method
1. Heat some oil in a pan and stir fry onions till its fragrant and soft.
2. Add the marinated chicken and quickly stir fry till its almost cooked.
3. Add all the sauces and water and continue to stir fry till chicken is cooked.
4. Stir in 1 tblsp of cornstarch solution to thicken the sauce.
5. Remove chicken from heat and top on white rice after it has cooled off.
6. Add blanched broccoli and baby carrots (or vegetables of your choice)by the side.

Teriyaki Meat Balls Bento

I am back into making and packing bento again! This is the two bento I brought to office today. This one is for me (I love the cutie bunny bento belt).....


And this is lunch box I prepared for my lunch kaki.



This is two of my new bento box from my bento collection. Over the past 1 and a half year, I have accumulated more bento boxes than I can imagine in the course of my travelling. Ever since I started bento-ing, I just couldn't resist buying new bento box each time I see one although I will usually use the regular 2 - 3 boxes. However, I have decided to put most if not all of the boxes to good use instead of allowing them to accumulate dust in my kitchen cabinet. So here they are.

The boxes are actually pretty small in size (only about 470ml each) so it's quite amazing I managed to "squeeze" everything into the tiny box! Sure can help to control my food intake if I consistently stick to using these bento boxes :) The contents of the 2 bento lunches are the same. Teriyaki meat balls and stir fried broccoli, carrot and bamboo shoots.


I shall have to chew slowly to make my lunch last longer given that the proportion is smaller than my usual lunch....hahaha......

Stir fried broccoli and cauliflowers with carrots and tofu

This is the dish I cooked to complement the sweet and sour fish. Not only is broccoli and cauliflower low carbo food, they are also great fat burning food! Of course not forgetting that they provide lots of fibre too. This is one of the dish I like to cook when I want lots of fibre.

Stir Fried Broccoli Cauliflowers with Carrot and Tofu
Ingredients
Broccoli flowerets (about 200g), separated into small clusters
Cauliflower flowerets (about 200g), separated into small clusters
1 carrot, sliced
1 tube of tofu, sliced
Handful of cashew nuts
2 tsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup water/broth
cornstarch mixture

Method
1. Blanched broccoli, cauliflowers and carrots in hot boiling water for 3 to 5 minutes. Drain and set aside for use later.
2. Heat some oil in wok. Pan fried tofu on both sides till crispy on the surface. Remove and set aside.
3. Heat oil in wok, adding broccoli, cauliflowers and carrots, salt, soy sauce and water. Bring to a boil, cooking for about 2 to 3 minutes. Add tofu.
4. Stir in cornflour mixture till sauce is thickened.
5. Sprinkle cashew nuts on vegetables before serving it with white rice.

Sweet and Sour Fish

My nephew is a very picky eater. It is pretty hard to get him to eat anything unless they are his favourite food. However, he is a big fan of the sweet and sour fish at Jumbo seafood restaurant and can easily polish off a plate of white rice with just the fish. This being the case, I decided to give it a try so that I could cook it for him next round and save my sis loads of money. :)

Overall, I think the sweet and sour fish tastes alright although there is definitely room for improvement. The fish is not coated with sufficient batter and I think I did not add enough ketchup and vinegar. The sauce did not taste sourish enough and was also slightly diluted as I have added too much water at my mum's cajoling. :( Still, I like it pretty well enough and for those who are "courageous" enough to give this a try, here are the ingredients.

Sweet and Sour Fish
Ingredients
2 pcs of white fish fillet, sliced
2 - 3 tblsp plain flour
1 tomato, diced
1 onion, diced
chives, cut into 3-4cm length
8 tblsp tomato ketchup
2 tblsp sugar
2 tblsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp salt
4 tblsp water or broth
cornflour mixture

Method
1. Mix ketchup, sugar, vinegar, salt and water in a bowl. Stir till it is well mixed. Set aside for use later.
2. Coat fish with plain flour.
3. Heat oil in a wok. When oil is hot, deep fry fish slices till they are golden brown. Drain and set aside for use later.
4. Drain oil and stir fry onions till they are fragant. Add tomatoes and sweet and sour solution. When solution starts to boil, add the fish slices and chives. Give it a quick stir to coat the fish with the sauce.
5. Stir in cornflour mixture till the sauce thickens.
6. Serve sweet and sour fish immediately with white rice.

I will definitely be refining this receipe again, so do keep a lookout.

Is J Co donuts in Spore as good as those in Jakarta?

I finally got a chance to make my way down to J Co outlet in Raffles City this week to get a feel of the donuts selling in Singapore. There were about 5 to 6 people in front of me when I join the queue. Queue management is bad as there is only 1 active server who is taking the orders. This is partly due to space constraint at the counter as there is insufficient space for another server to move behind the 1st server. As such, the box gets pass on from 1 server to another when the customer has done his or her selection of donuts that is within the reach of the 1st server. Donuts that is out of the reach of 1st server will be added to the box by the 2nd server. This arrangement is alright but if the customer decided to buy more than 1 box (i.e more than a dozen), that is when the problem arises. After donuts selection for the 1st box is done, customer will proceed to place order for the 2nd box and 3rd box for donuts that is within the vicnity of the 1st server. All the while, the 2nd server is actually not doing anything as the customer has not moved down to her section as yet. This is actually the main reason for the build up in the queue.

On top of this, I have to say that the donuts are not as impressive as those I saw in Jakarta. The donuts I saw on display are not of standard size. You can see from the picture I posted that 2 different donuts I ordered looks different. One is round shape while the other one strangely is oval in shape. The donut topping is also not as nicely or professionally done. Fork is remotely missing from the counter and I saw many people ended up using their bare hands to eat the donuts. We also placed orders for 2 cappucino and it took 3 visit to the drinks counter before we got them. Weirdly, my friend's cappucino look whitish and tasted like latte while mine is brownish and tasted more like the genuine cappucino. Menu does not offer orange juice and nope, all transactions must be paid in cash, no NETS or VISA available at the outlet.

Overall, I would say the visit is quite disappointing and would definitely hope that J Co in Singapore would iron out the initial teething problems soon to ensure a more seamless and enjoyable experience at their outlet.

For now, I would still flex my hand muscle and lug home as many donuts as I can from Jakarta.

High Protein Bento Lunch

My high protein low carbo lunch. :)

Consists of the following:
1. Teriyaki Chicken Wings
2. Blanched tofu, endamame and baby carrots
3. Bacon roll with enoki mushrooms

Quite easy to put the items together although the bacon roll will take slightly a bit more time. But then they are so yummy, it makes the time spent all worth it. :) So if you keen to try, here it is.

Bacon Roll with Enoki Mushroom
Ingredient
Streaky Bacon, 4 slices
Half a batch of enoki mushroom, stems/roots cut and washed thoroughly
Yakitori sauce (available in Japanese section of any supermarket)

Method
1. Place streaky bacon on chopping board or flat surface.
2. Place 10-15 strands of enoki mushroom on bacon.
3. Roll up till bacon is fully used up, pressing down on the ends.
4. Brush yakiniku sauce on both sides of the bacon roll.
5. Heat some oil in a non-stick pan and place bacon (ends down) on the pan.
6. Pan fry bacon roll till slightly crispy.
7. Remove from heat. Packed into bento box with teriyaki chicken wings, tofu and blanched vegetables of your choice.

Enjoy!

J Co Donuts has finallly arrived in Singapore!!

Hip hip hooray! That's my reaction when I learnt that J Co has finally make its way to Singapore. Due to my work nature, I travel to Jakarta occasionally for business and each time I am in Jakarta, I never fail to "gorge" myself on J Co donuts and of course not forgetting to "lug" home as many donuts as my hands could carry. Although there are many donut chain in Jakarta like Crispy Creme, Dunkin Donuts, I-crave just to name a few, I still think that J Co donuts are the best cos of their texture. It is really soft and springy and of course the multitude of choices is also another reason why I am crazy over J Co donuts. The picture above is donuts from J Co Jakarta. I couldn't resist taking a photo of the donuts so that I could look at them (yup even though they have ended up in my stomach). :p

I used to lament why it is that there is no J Co in Singapore. I was even more upset when I learnt that J Co has "landed" in KL during my trip to Jakarta in Jan 08. Why in KL and not in Singapore, I thought. Why did J Co not thought of setting up operations in Singapore as well since we are so near to each other? So you can imagine my excitement and happiness when finally finally J Co donuts are available in Singapore.

I have not yet had the chance to "chiong" down to the one and only branch in Singapore to lay my hands on any of the donuts yet, so I can't tell for now if the donuts are as good as the ones I had in Jakarta. Hopefully, I can find the time this weekend. And hopefully I will not have to contend with long snaking queues found in other donut chains around Singapore. Well, guess I don't have to fear cos J Co is expected to open 13 branches island wide in Singapore with the 2nd branch opening in Bugis in May. So for now, I shall keep my fingers crossed and dream of sinking my teeth into J Co donuts every weekend! :)

Soba with Oriental Mushrooms

Today's lunch recipe is courtesy of Jan 08 Shape magazine. I had always wonder what I can do with soba besides making it into cold noodles. They taste great but after a whole morning "soaking" in the cold dry air-con in office, I am not that keen to have cold noodles for lunch. So when I saw this recipe, I was very keen to give it a try. After all, the ingredients are pretty simple to buy and prepare and the cooking does not require lots of complicated steps. And so here it is!

Soba with oriental mushrooms (Serves 2)
Ingredients
70g soba
50g shimeji mushrooms
50g oyster mushrooms, sliced
4 big shiitake mushrooms, sliced
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
100ml vegetable/chicken stock (I used chicken stock cubes and dissolve them in hot water instead)
1 tbsp sake
2 tbsp olive oil
Splash of soy sauce
Chilli powder

Garnishing
1 tomato, diced
Black sesame seeds
Parsley or chives, chopped

Method
1. Cook soba until al dente, then drain and set aside for use later.
2. Heat up olive oil in non-stick pan and saute the garlic and mushrooms.
3. When the mushrooms starts to wither, add sake, soy sauce and vegetable stock. Let the mushrooms continue to cook till it's fairly dry.
4. Add soba, chilli powder and toss together.
5. Top with chopped tomato, black sesame seed and parsley.

I really like this recipe. It is a very light dish with nice mushroom fragrance as you eat the soba. Great for those vegetarians as there is no meat in it. For those who is not a fan of mushrooms, this might not be the dish you want to cook though. I will definitely cook this again although I will reduce the cooking time for the soba. They were a bit too soft for my liking. And I will not toss all the garnishing into the soba the next round. Just sprinkle them on top and I am sure it will improve the visual effect of this dish. :)

Fried Rice Bento Lunch 080108

Fried rice paradise!! It's been a while since I cooked fried rice and it's such a easy lunch to prepare for the lazy me. Fried rice is such a versatile dish and you can add anything you want to leftover rice and voila! A new dish instantly. For this, I added imitation crabstick, luncheon meat, garden peas and eggs. I also added 2 teriyaki chicken wings to add some protein to the lunch. And isn't it luckily I had this ready today cos it was raining heavily at 12noon. I was really glad I don't have to brave the wind and rain and it make me appreciate the fried rice even more!!!*lol*

Tri-Colour Bento Lunch 03 Jan 08

A new year, a new beginning! I am back to packing my lunch to office and for a start, I make a very simple lunch for today - which I called it tri-colour cos it has 3 different ingredients piled on a bed of white rice. Added 2 chicken wings for extra oomph.....! Today's lunch is really very easy to prepare. So for those who thinks it looks interesting, do give it a try.

Green
Garden peas, blanched in salt water and drained. Set aside for use later.

Yellow
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp sugar
Salt
Add the ingredients to beaten egg. Heat oil in a pan over high fire.
Pour in egg mixture and stir it with 3-5 chopsticks till egg resembles pieces of bread crumbs.
Remove and set aside for use later.

Brown
50g minced pork (can be substituted for beef or chicken)
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp cooking sake
1 tsp mirin
3/4 tsp sugar
2 tbsp water
Heat oil in a pan and stir fry pork till almost cooked.
Add the other remaining ingredients and continue to stir fry.
Turn down the heat and let it simmer till it is fairly dry.
Remove from pan and set aside for use later.

Glazed Chicken Wings
2 mid joint chicken wings
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp cooking sake
1 tsp mirin
1 tsp sugar
1/4 cup water
Place the chicken wing in a non-stick pan and cook till it's brown on both side.
Add water and cook for another 10 minutes.
Add other remaining ingredients and let it simmer till chicken wings are glazed.
Remove from pan.

Top the individual ingredients on the white rice. Pack chicken wings by the side. Enjoy!

Food galore in Kyoto n Osaka

I had intended to make a second post of the food I ate in Kyoto much earlier but was not feeling too well after my trip back. Guess too much food and cold air make me sick.......haha.....guess I have only myself to blame for eating so much. And then I am back home, I was caught up with the unpacking and cleaning up and before I know I am busy with Christmas shopping and eating again.....so this late post. Anyway, here are the food pics.

Most of the time, I try to take pic of the food I ate but on some occasions, it's actually quite difficult with the crowd in the restaurant and frankly speaking I am quite embarrassed to whip out my camera and snap away. So I actually took the pics with my camera phone instead (more discrete compared to camera), so that might explain why the resolution for some pics are not fantastic. In any case, if the pics can talk, they will tell you how wonderful they taste......haha.....hope my pics do the food justice.

This is what I had in an italian restaurant which we found "underground". It's a shop located in the basement away from the busy street. If not for the advertisement, we would not have found this place. They are also the very few restaurants that has an English menu which we could use to order our food. We were really happy to finally be able to order food without just pointing at pics and when the food arrived, we were not disappointed either. The spaghetti was wonderful, salad was crisp and dessert was not too sweet. Overall, it was a very enjoyable dinner.


I also managed to have okonomiyaki on 2 separate occasions and it was althogether an interesting and fun encounter cooking your own food right in front of you. Needless to say, I enjoyed the cooking as much as the food itself. :p Here are some of the okonomiyaki pictures.




And of course not forgetting the japanese food........udon and ramen.



Well....think that's all the food I can stomach for now. Enjoy the pictures! :)

Day 1 in Osaka

Wow! Finally touch down in Osaka Kansai airport after a six hour flight. Really cold the moment I stepped off from the plane. It's close to 11 degrees although the temperatures are expected to drop to 6 degrees in the night and in the early morning. As it is only 835am in the morning, there is hardly a very long queue at the customs and it took us less than half an hour to clear through the customs and get our luggage.

We locked up our luggage in a coin operated locker and then we are off to Rinku Town (a shopping mall with all the branded goods at factory outlet prices) which is a 15 mins train ride from Kansai airport. We took the JR train which is very fast and clean. The rail cuts across a wide expanse of sea and its just amazing fast and comfortable. We notice that before we board the train, the seats inside the train will be automatically "reversed" so that every passenger will be facing the front of the train and this will be done again once the train reaches the terminal station at the end of the journey.




This is Rinku Town. Very nice place and the best thing is it's not crowded being so early in the morning.


I was more of window shopping then doing any serious shopping here though and after wondering around the mall for about 2 hours, I decided to call it a day and make my way back to Kansai airport for my lunch. I was really hungry when I sat down and ordered my lunch and I really can't wait to eat them. Me and my colleague ordered a set each. I had sashimi set which is really very fresh and yummy.


My colleague had the sushi udon set.


Really enjoyed the lunch and I am really looking forward to the next few days ahead....:P