other January food

New Year's Day late dinner at Nihonbashi Tei, Arnaiz Ave. (Pasay Road), Makati City

(double date with A&C after catching a Metro Manila Film Festival movie earlier that evening)

katsudon and miso soup 

cold tea in a San Miguel Beer mug :D

January 2 lunch

inihaw na liempo from the neighborhood Andok's

with salted eggs & tomatoes and leftover vegetables from our anniversary dinner 

snacking on shawarma and bibingka while catching the C.O.D. display in Greenhills

despedida dinner with SFC friends, at Kanin Club

clockwise from top-left: sinigang rice, crispy dinuguan, pinakbet, laing

got upgraded to business class for the Manila-Hong Kong leg of my flight to Japan

fresh seasonal fruit; pan-fried Mediterranean sea bass with tomato concasse, parsley mashed potatoes, asparagus, fennel, and pumpkin; and hazelnut and chocolate cake with raspberry compote

economy class meal for the Hong Kong-Haneda leg 

I enjoyed this meal more though :)

And when I got to Japan, I came home to this! Cooked by the man of the house! ♥

(Ronjie left for Japan a week before I did.)

prawn sinigang

chocolate snacks

green tea Meltykiss Fran 

Lotte Charlotte (dark chocolate)

chili-garlic chicken with blanched broccoli 

lettuce-tomato-Bacos-parmesan salad with deep-roasted sesame dressing

pork fried rice

kiwi

Sukiya lunch

gyuudon and miso soup set meal

Kuya G's birthday feast!

there was dinuguan, puto, spaghetti, roasted chicken, bibingka, and adobo

Happy Birthday, Kuya Gian!
(his Baskin-Robbins ice cream cake) 

Kuya G's yummy homemade leche flan (using his mom's secret recipe)

flattened octopus at Enoshima (during our Kamakura-Enoshima day trip)

chicken macaroni salad

kinulang ako sa mayonnaise :D

sausages and scrambled eggs with onions and tomatoes 

orange

the peel is still one piece!

supermarket-bought frozen siomai which we steamed at home

fruits!

the Philippine papaya was really sweet!

tortang talong in the house!

we fried them on our stovetop grill, hence the grill marks :D

mixed nuts (nuts are supposedly a good source of folic acid)

walnuts, cashew, almonds, and pistachios

tinolang manok with just pechay 

Chinese noodle soup lunch

While in Kamakura, we had lunch at a Chinese restaurant along the main road (the one leading to Tsurugaoka Hachimangu). Some of the Chinese guys we were with saw the restaurant on our way to the shrine and wanted to try its dan dan mein (Szechuan noodles), a spicy kind of Chinese noodle soup, which was the restaurant's specialty.

the boys checking out the menu and food display

cold tea while waiting

Neither Ronjie nor I tried dan dan mein (we weren't up to spicy that day) but our Chinese friends did and they loved it. (Sorry I forgot to take a photo of the dan dan mein.)

Ronjie got a white sesame something noodle soup (¥880)

I tried their barbecued pork noodle soup (¥980)
(looks and tastes like Japanese ramen!)

restaurant interiors -- it's narrow but long inside

Busog at masaya naman kaming lahat pagkatapos. I'll try dan dan mein next time. :)

Kamakura

Last week, we visited Kamakura with a few of Ronjie's friends from school. Kamakura is a few hours away from Hon-Atsugi by train; we got a ¥1,140 Enoshima-Kamakura train pass which allowed us unlimited rides on the train routes to & from Hon-Atsugi and Kamakura (and in between stations) for a whole day.

snow on the mountains
(the view of the mountains from the bus stop near our apartment)

tulips at the Fujisawa station
(at the Enoden line, waiting for the train to Kamakura)

Kamakura!

the first of many torii I would see that day

First stop was Tsurugaoka Hachimangu, Kamakura's most important shrine.

torii on the walkway to the shrine

the path is lined with cherry trees
(gusto ko bumalik dito pag sakura season na!)

saw an Our Lady of Perpetual Help church along the way

rice cakes for sale along the sidewalk

another torii

Tsurugaoka Hachimangu

barrels of sake

temizuya

had to climb a flight of steps to get to the shrine

prayers

more prayers

After visiting the shrine, we had lunch in town. We tried this Chinese noodle restaurant which specialized in dan dan mein (Szechuan noodles). I didn't have dan dan mein (didn't like spicy); I had barbecued pork noodle soup, which tasted and looked like regular Japanese ramen. (Will be blogging separately about the Chinese noodle restaurant. Wait for my next post!)

saw these Japanese pancakes for sale along the sidewalk during the walk back to the train station

Headed back to the Kamakura station and took a ride to the Hase station, where we would be getting off to see the Kamakura Daibutsu (Great Buddha).

the temple grounds where the Daibutsu is located is a 15-minute walk from the Hase station

The centuries-old Kamakura Daibutsu has a height of 13.35 meters. It stands (sits) in open air as the temple building which used to house it was destroyed by typhoons and a tidal wave in the 14th & 15th centuries. The Kamakura Daibutsu is the 2nd tallest bronze Buddha statue in Japan.

for ¥20 you can enter the Daibutsu and see how it looks like from the inside

We stayed just a while to take photos and sit a bit then headed back to the train station. Last leg of the trip was Enoshima Island. I was already tired by that time so didn't join the group anymore when they walked up and around Enoshima for the island tour. :)

But still managed to goof around on the way home. :D

at the Katase-Enoshima station