Can you see the heart? By serendipity, this tsutsuji grew into a shape resembling that of a heart, right at the heart of Ritsurin Koen.
Author Archives: Marjorie
cholesterol talk
Want to lower down your cholesterol level? Here’s one drink to help you with your feat. Soybean milk otherwise known in Japanese as tonyu.
Those red characters on the left actually advertises that this drink can help lower down cholesterol level.
Before we left Yokohama last week, hubs has started to try and lower down his cholesterol level. He has been drinking tonyu almost everyday this week. Let’s see his cholesterol level on his next medical check come end of the month.
Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu!
It’s an overcast day; clouds big and heavy and low; seemed like they’re brimming with water vapour and about to shower what it has been keeping anytime now. But I smile as I look at them clouds. Because it’s like the year is brimming of promise, full of blessings.
The December count-thy-blessings blogging surely was fun (35 posts! And to think there were still a number of blessings received that we just kept private!); reminding us again that there sure are many blessings that He showers as every day, so long as we just acknowledge it and not focus on the negative side.
And so here’s to another year of counting the blessings He’s given us (note of the past tense, because He already has it in store for us; it’s just a matter of us being willing to receive it and count it as a blessing).
But just as we are getting ready for the goodness that is in store for us, let us also, even in our own little way, be a blessing to others as well in that even when we may not directly affect the entire world and make this a better world, at least by touching lives and being a blessing ourselves, we somehow create a ripple of goodness.
Happy New Year everyone!! ๐
cheers for 2012!
A few years back, I welcomed the new year in Japan with friends and colleagues. When we raised our glasses for a toast, before anyone could utter cheers and well wishes for the year, Gali enthusiastically and selflessly exclaimed “to Ate Marj’s love life!!!”. With a cheers as enthusiastic as that, even when everyone had their own wishes for the new year as well, everyone raised their glasses for the toast; a toast for my love life for the new year.
Funny. Because whaddyaknow? It was actually the year Atsushi and I started to become an item.
And so for this new year’s toast, after having had raised our prayers for the new year, I raise this imaginary toast to Gali. Gali, this is for you as my way of saying thank you.
Cheers to Gali’s love life!!!! ๐
new year tradition
Being a member of a regular Philippine household, I grew up accustomed to the flurry and mad dash during Philippine new years with all its tradition and superstitions. There’s the preparations for offering 13 fruits on the family dining table, the thorough planning of what to serve during Media Noche – no dishes with chicken to avoid a hard life come new year, serving sweet and sticky dessert for great relationships, boiled eggs which equal the number of family members for unity the whole year next year, fish and seafoods and pork for prosperity, faux gold candies for prosperity, hanging of grapes on doors and windowsills for further prosperity und so weiter.
Even when I was away from home and spent the new years in Singapore and in Japan for four consecutive years, me and my friends and colleagues still try to uphold the Filipino tradition, at least by not serving chicken and by coming up with the 13 fruits although in Japan, it can be quite expensive haha.
Last year, hubs and I spent our Christmas with my family whilst we spend our first new year with a private party in Boracay watching the fireworks display in the party crazed island. This is my first time therefore to experience and really immerse with the Japanese tradition of welcoming the new year. The celebrations itself will be featured in a separate post. This here is for the preparations.
The habotan (่็กไธน). Cabbage looking flowers to ring in luck and prosperity.
The kadomatsu (้ๆพ)which are placed in front of establishments again for luck and prosperity.
Of course we just had to pose beside one ๐
Mochi or Japanese rice cake (้ค )!
And yes, the mikan/mandarin orange is considered auspicious as well.
These dragon charms are just so cute!!!! Though a bit expensive.
Let’s ring in a great new year everyone! ๐
in-laws
We’re staying over with Hubs’ family for the new year holidays. The past three days had been really interesting and fun that it’s just but right to have this post for them, which I know is not enough to express how thankful I am to them.
As we go drive around for a road trip, my chest swells with thankfulness. We have received a lot of blessings this 2011. But one of the biggest blessings is that Atsushi’s family warmly welcomed me as a new member of the family that leaves me with a feeling of wanting to be a better daughter-in-law because of all the good things they’ve done to me.
Ojichan, Obachan, Otosan, Okasan, Mayumi, ใใใใจใใใใใพใใ. I’ll do my best to make your son even happier.
Will feature later on the places we’ve been to the last couple of days once I’ve downloaded the photos. Here are some teasers for now.
Free milk from Shionoe (ใใใฎใ), the dairy farm we went to yesterday. Their milk jam is just so delicious!!
A stopover at Osaki no Hana (ใใใใฎใฏใช) in our road trip earlier for this beautiful view.
By the loooong Seto Bridge (ใใจใใฏใ).
For most part of this evening, we watched videos of when Atsushi and his sister were still kids, with Atsushi as young as four years old (gee that’s almost 28 years ago!). One thing I learned: like how he is as a grown up, hubs was definitely NOT a boring kid as we had tons of laugh with Atsushi’s antics. As Otosan has said, he sure was a comedian. ๐