pilipit

Mama used to buy this for us as omiyage/present when she came back after being out the whole afternoon; omiyage for us to munch for our afternoon snacks.

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The one above is not the 5-peso pilipit that mama used to buy for us. It’s the one I bought earlier in Pompador, at 130yen, roughly 70pesos at the current exchange rate. And the taste is EXACTLY the same. Such a world of difference in price, in a matter of 5-hour plane ride.

Enoshima (food) trip

I love it when Hubs plans our trips. There’s always that “surprise me” aspect and that I can always be confident while following his lead that we’d be going to an interesting place.

Heard about Enoshima quite a lot but in my four years stay in Japan before, I haven’t really gotten around to going here. Glad it was so; glad to have hubs leading the way.

There are at least three different train routes that can take you to Enoshima but hubs opted we take the monorail to go to the place. With a surprise, I realised this is my first time to take the monorail. I didn’t like it much. Don’t like the idea of a big train being suspended in air like that. True it is much the same as cable cars and cable cars are even suspended waaaaay higher than monorails. But even so, I still find monorails scary especially when we had to make a turn and the train had to tilt at some angle!

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Our destination is the last station on the line.

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Enoshima is an island and you’d have to cross a bridge to get to the island. This point marks the start of the bridge walk.

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The most popular delicacy in the area is the shirasu しらす which looks quite a lot like the fish we always fry with eggs back in Philippines. This shirasu is just so cute! Albeit they might look like worms at some point hehe.

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Different variations of shirasu dishes in the restaurants lined both on your left and right.

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But eating them raw is pretty interesting.

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They tasted so fresh and tastes very good with shōyu (soy sauce).

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The other treat that’s distinctly Enoshima is the beer. Quite pricey than normal though, at least more pricey by 200yen.

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The walk around the island is more or less uphill.

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You’d see a lot of these in Japanese shrines and temples. Wooden slates for couples to write their wishes on.

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Relaxing view. Sun seems to promise us a beautiful sunset.

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Yachts moored in the distance, and some out at sea, with people enjoying a day of fishing.

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Some were content to fish on the island’s rocky boundaries though.

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Beautiful,don’t you think?

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Had a late lunch at 2pm hence we pretty much had this traditional restaurant to ourselves.

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Of course we opted to take the traditional table. Perfect chance to stretch.

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Hubs’ boiled shirasu meal.

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Of course we had to enjoy Enoshima beer.

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Loved this Enoshima cider as well.

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Drinks aren’t usually sold in glass bottles in Japan so I guess drinking it from a bottle is part of the novelty. And well, drinks are more delicious when taken from a bottle. Drinking coke from an 8-ounce bottle is much more delicious than drinking from can, right?

We chose to go to the cave first.

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Noctiluca used to abound in the area and leave these shining pebbles around.

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Loved the local people’s idea of giving us candles to light our way inside the cave.

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As is expected, the Japanese are really amazing when it comes to safety.

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They have a number of sacred statues inside the cave. One of them is that of Mi-Zo the Snake who likes to curl around in a……..very unusual way.

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Hope you didn’t get to read this just before having a meal. 😀 Mi-zo’s eyes look so real though!

The cave also featured the love story of the area’s folk tale.

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The statue of the infamous dragon.

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This is the dragon’s temple. There were ladies praying every now and then. I wonder if they were praying for a one true love, just as I’ve prayed for it back then. 😀

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Didn’t have the courage to take a photo of the inside. Even then, and even when I’m a Christian, the place felt so solemn.

Enoshima also have a Lover’s Hill and true enough, EVERYONE who went there were couples. There was also a place for couple locks just as how it was in the Seoul Tower and in Praha near the Lennon Wall.

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The green phone booth-like corner visible in the background houses the Bell of the Dragon’s Love. Wasn’t able to take a picture of it as there were a lot of couples milling about who I figure might want to have some privacy. We did clang the bell though. Giggles.

Cats in Japan are sooo fat and Enoshima practical abounds with fat cats lying about.

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It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a dragonfly up close!

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And as I say, this is more of a food trip. ~sheepish grin~

Grilled shellfish and scallops.

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Soft ice cream with different flavors.

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More grilled food options!

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Churros!!! This was particularly fun for me as I had a chat with the lady selling these, in Japanese! She told me she has been to Cebu and what a beautiful place it was.

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As if all the eating wasn’t enough, we also bought dried products. The preserved squid that Hubs bought was just sooo good I’d gladly go back to Enoshima again and again even just to buy that squid. Too bad we weren’t able to take a photo of it.

Capping the day off, the sun was true to his promise. It was indeed a beautiful sunset.

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The place was bathe in a golden glow.

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Fuji-san also made his lovely appearance.

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More sunset photos. And of course, we just have to have our faces with the sunset. 🙂

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We took the ordinary train on our way back. The station though was far from ordinary.

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Gah. Suddenly I’m craving for that squid. 😛

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All photos were taken with Canon G-12 and unedited save for the watermark. 🙂

pudding endorser

Over the weekend, I have practically become a Marlowe pudding endorser haha. Since our trip to Takamatsu last weekend got canceled due to the typhoon, we decided to have Marlowe pudding delivered to our family in the west and eat instead the vanilla flavored ones in Hello Kitty mugs which we’ve bought earlier since shelf-life is only 3 days.

I’ve tasted the chocolate, coffee and maccha Marlowe pudding flavor. But this vanilla flavored one is by far our favorite. Them black spots are vanilla beans.

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The great thing with Marlowe pudding is that they come in classy especially-made Pyrex glasses with different designs. This year’s anniversary glass is by Sanrio with Kitty-chan.

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Great collectibles aren’t they? while we were queuing however (and it was a looong queue at that), we saw people returning the mugs and receiving something in exchange. Nice.

They have kabocha / pumpkin pudding as well but we decided to gift it to a friend – kabocha pudding is my favorite pudding. End result, I’m really curious how it tasted. I guess nature gives back to you what you gave away. This evening, I finally chanced upon the kabocha pudding in the convenience store that I’ve been searching for for yearSSSS! I almost panic-buyed haha.

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One thing though. I need to loose 2 kg within one week. But for three nights in a row, I’ve been eating pudding. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.

Marlowe Pudding

Learned of this pudding’s existence through Okasan. As It’ll be a good omiyage/pasalubong idea, I headed out to the ground floor of Sogo in Yokohama which is actually a haven for pastries and other pasalubong/omiyage ideas.

The place was practically teeming with stalls selling different kinds of cakes, jams, puddings, sweets, bentos, preserved side dishes, und so weiter. But it was only Marlowe’s pudding that has a long queue. The almost empty glass display attests to it’s popularity I think.

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When it was my turn, there was only one maccha left. Bought the maccha for us to taste and had the vanilla flavor in hello kitty mug as omiyage.

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The pudding comes in a Pyrex glass which probably contributes to why it is sold at a costly ¥750 per glass. It reminds me of glass beakers though back in University laboratory. Good memories!

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But oohhhhh I just absolutely love the front design! It features Mt Fuji, a torii, and a light tower which Hubs and I surmise must be the one in Kannonzaki (I’m yet to post our visit there this summer!).

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And of course it comes with an instruction manual. You don’t have to know Nihon-go to be able to follow it. Tee-hee.

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We were good in following instructions i think. 🙂

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It’s made out of fresh milk from Hokkaido, eggs rich in Vitamin E, sugar, naturally made vanilla beans), with no additives and no gelatin. It came out as the number one pudding choice on a survey by Nikkei back in April 2010.

Sure enough, the taste lives up to its popularity. YUM!!!

Do visit – Marlowe Japan

chahan champloo

Atsushi suddenly had the inspiration to cook chahan (fried rice) for us. He claimed it will be the best chahan in the world. True enough, it rivaled with my favorite chahan in Osho, a famous Chinese restaurant near Sakuragicho Station.

First attempt. Atsushi called it the “Rice of Chaos” because even he himself couldn’t understand its appearance. It may not look much but it sure is really good.

Yes, it-is-sticky. He added mochi kibi (glutinous rice additive) while boiling the rice hence when it cooked it was pretty sticky. We use brown rice at home by the way as (Atsushi says) it is healthier it being unrefined – philosophy is same as brown sugar being healthier than white, refined sugar.

First attempt was for dinner last night. Atsushi made his second attempt for lunch.

Love the taste. If I weren’t worried about my stomach getting bigger by the day (and no i’m not yet pregnant), I would have requested A to make another batch.

What made his fried rice better than the ones I did (and a rival or even better than Osho’s) is that he added this special soy sauce enriched with kombu (sea tangle) dashi which brought out the umami taste – salty and a teeny-weeny  bit sweet and sour. Truly delicious.

More chahan please!