New Dog Food

gocchin@gmail.com — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:00:00 +0100

We decided to try new brand of dog food. Great thing in Japan is that there are many foods made specifically for the needs of Shibas. Dog food is also relatively cheap. This new food has been very good, it greatly reduces waste and any poop that does come out is nice and solid... yes easy to pick up and keep those parks around Kiminomori clean!

Here I go posting more food!

gocchin@gmail.com — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 11:00:00 +0100

Well here is the food post for this week! We have buta (pork) kimchi, katsuo sashimi, Japanese hambagu (hamburger), fried miso pork and cabbage, grilled shitake and katsuo salad and home made shiyo ramen.

Prolimatech Megahalems CPU Cooler

gocchin@gmail.com — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:00:00 +0100

As the temperatures rise in Japan, so do the temperatures in my computer. I decided to give the highly rated Prolimatech Megahalems cooler a shot for my Quad Core. This cooler is humongous. Installed in my Abee case with dual HD3870 using Acclero coolers has made space very very tight! I had to squeeze in my Pixela dual Hi Vision (HDTV) tuner (pictured below) between the cooler and top video card.&nb [...]

Taro-chan came to visit today

gocchin@gmail.com — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 11:00:00 +0100

Early this morning Saku's friend from a few streets over, another Shiba named Taro came to visit. We heard Taro-chan outside the front door and woke Saku up to go see Taro-chan. It took a while for Saku to wake up and snap out of his dazed mood before they went exploring together. Saku frequently visits Taro-chan's house as well and steals his food. Taro-chan is far too nice and always lets Saku eat right out of his bowl. I'm glad they get along and that since Saku has come to Jap [...]

June's Home Cooking

gocchin@gmail.com — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:00:00 +0100

Here's a collection of pictures of some of the meals we cooked at home in June including, karage (fried chicken), hiyashi chuka (cold ramen style noodles with vegatables, fried egg and goma sauce), natto, maguro don, shitake grilled, hotate, grilled green peppers with pork, and goya champuru!

Shiba Rain Coat

gocchin@gmail.com — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 11:00:00 +0100

There has been quite a bit of heavy rain lately as Japan is in the Typhoon season. Saku absolutely hates the water and rain so we decided to get him a rain coat as some days would rain from morning till night. The thing is Saku also hates clothes. Surprisingly he did not mind the new raincoat. I guess as long as he could stay dry, he didn't mind wearing it!

Mizu Manju, Warabi Mochi and Pon de Ring

gocchin@gmail.com — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:00:00 +0100

We had the urge for sweets today... well we have the urge everyday but it wouldn't be very healthy if we were eating sweets everyday right?? We picked up some yokan and mizu manju which is very refreshing in the summer and also got some warabi mochi and Mr Donuts Pon de Ring which is nothing like Westernized donuts. These Japanese style Pon de Ring donuts are very mochi mochi and delicious!

New Triple Monitor Setup

gocchin@gmail.com — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 11:00:00 +0100

They say that multiple monitor setups increase one's productivity. I have always believed so and used 2 x 24" monitors for work and play. Lately though I have found that even 2 monitors is not enough especially if I want to watch golf in my home office while working [...]

Furminator to the rescue...

gocchin@gmail.com — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 11:00:00 +0100

A very nice neighbour lent us a furminator to try a few weeks ago and it was very good at cleaning up Saku's very thick fur. With the temperatures again rising and getting hotter each day, Saky has started shedding his winter coat... again. We went to Cainz to look for a furminator and they had some furminator like brushes that pretty much did the same thing. Using the furminatory style brush is like giving a light shave everything so we don't use it that often, only when Saky i [...]

Inba Numa Visit

gocchin@gmail.com — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 11:00:00 +0100

Yesterday we went to Inba Numa to visit my wife's brother who works out there farming the land with fresh vegetables. Lake Inbanuma is a natural fresh water lake located in the northwestern part of Chiba Prefecture. The total surface area of the lake is 11.5 square kilometers, spanning the cities of Yachiyo, Sakura and Narita and the village of Inba. It is the largest lake in the prefecture. About 1,000 years ago, it was connected with Lake Teganuma and Lake Kasumigaura and formed a [...]

Sweets day... again.

gocchin@gmail.com — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 11:00:00 +0100

We decided to go get more sweets today. We picked up our favorite cakes from SobuBert in Mobara and also grabbed some dangos. Saku is always jealous when we eat sweet stuff. If you have a sweet tooth then Japan is a great place to be. It's easy to eat a lot of yummy desserts because most of the cakes and snacks here are NOT overly sweet or rich. Just right.

Mikan Daifuku - Japanese Oyatsu

gocchin@gmail.com — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 11:00:00 +0100

We found a little shop by Kazusaichinomiya Station that sold Japanese style deserts like yokan and daifuku. A daifuku is is a Japanese confection consisting of a small round mochi (glutinous rice cake) stuffed with sweet filling, most commonly anko, sweetened red bean paste made from azuki beans. What was interesting about this store called 角八 (Kadohachi) was that it had not only the very popular ichigo (strawberry) daifuku but also Mikan daifuku! Very interesting taste a [...]

Getting a Credit Card in Japan

gocchin@gmail.com — Sat, 30 May 2009 11:00:00 +0100

When I first arrived in Japan I had brought all my Canadian Credit cards with me. Of course it did not make sense to keep them since they all were paid in Canada in Canadian dollars. So I needed to get myself some credit cards because I do a lot of shopping online. After doing a lot of research online, many forums for foreigners in Japan mentioned that it was very hard to get a credit card in Japan.

Luckily I had been a Gold Amex holder for nearly 15 years so when I came to Japan I cal [...]

Hand Made Soba in Togane

gocchin@gmail.com — Thu, 28 May 2009 11:00:00 +0100

We found a nice little teuchi (hand made) soba shop right by Togane Stagion called 手打蕎麦逸香. As always we found the restaurant on Tabelog. Its a bit on the pricier side compared to other soba restaurants but the soba is very good. Firm and fresh with no floury taste that can sometime be associated with teuchi. We had tenzaru (tempura) and kamo sero (duck). Both were very delicious but what really blew me away was the dessert they had (which I forgot to [...]

Chu-hi drinks in Japan

gocchin@gmail.com — Thu, 28 May 2009 11:00:00 +0100

I don't really drink much alcohol and while everyone tells me nama beer is the best in Japan, the taste of beer just doesn't grow on me. I do however love sweet things as you can probably tell from this blog. So for me if I have to drink alcohol in Japan it's Chu-hi.

Here's Wiki's explanation on what Chu-hi is: Chu-Hi is an alcoholic drink originating from Japan. The name is derived from "shōchū highball" and is usually flavored with fruit or sod [...]

Ginza Zaru Udon and Michael Sowa Exhibit

gocchin@gmail.com — Sun, 24 May 2009 11:00:00 +0100

We popped over to Ginza today to see one of my wife's favorite artists. Matsuya Ginza was having a Michael Sowa Exhibit. Before the exhibit we stopped to have some wonderful hand made Zaru Udon. On the way home we stopped at a very highly rated cake shop called Quil Fait Bon. You can check out the page on Tabelog here. They specialize in fruity tarts and cakes and while the prices are on the high side, (it is Ginza afterall!) the cakes are delicious!

More Kiminomori Houses

gocchin@gmail.com — Fri, 22 May 2009 11:00:00 +0100

Having been unable to walk much for the last month I have not posted any houses from the neighborhood here in while. We just love walking here in Kiminomori and usually walk at least an hour a day and sometimes even up to 4 hours!! Exploring the streets and houses and the forest and natural surroundings is more than we could have wished for. We still cannot get over how lucky we were to get one of the last houses here and how great this area turned out. Well here are a couple of more ho [...]

Gardening fun in Kiminomori

gocchin@gmail.com — Tue, 19 May 2009 11:00:00 +0100

With the summer weather in full swing, my wife and I decided to make some changes to the garden and dress up my office window ledge. She added a three planters right outside my second floor window which does add some nice color. The neighbors across the street have thanked us for adding something nice to their view. (^_^)

In the back we removed a bunch of the generic " [...]

Desk organization... I just can't do it...

gocchin@gmail.com — Wed, 13 May 2009 11:00:00 +0100

Since moving to Japan and working from home I just cannot seem to get my desk organized properly. Working around the clock and constantly referring to golf materials and doing picture taking just leaves my desk and office are a mess always after a day of work. My wife complains and I clean it up and the next day its messy again. I either need more shelves or just far less stuff. I guess its not so bad but with such a big desk I need to keep it more organized somehow!

Inpakuto Blog - All About Japanese Golf and Japan