Bento Corner

Nakayoshi (trans: friends) bento with umeboshi onigiri, edamame, meatballs, wakame and chirimen salad.

I meant this bento to be representative of my daughter's classmates. She's only been at this particular kinder for one month but she has managed to make friends and the kids are all super nice in helping her adjust to the new school. Not sure if it's just the cold winters here (cold compared to sunny California), but she has been a bit under the weather and generally lacking in genki-ness. Her teacher has also been telling me that she also likes to be able to speak English with some of the other bilingual kids. Maybe a bit of homesickness as well?

My daughter thought this bento was representative of her, her younger brother, and me. Dad is not included since he's been away for one month on business, but will return home shortly. Hopefully his presence (and presents!) will bring the girls spirits up. Last time the mister returned from a month long business trip, the girl said, "Hi, Daddy! Now where is my surprise!!!!!" Poor, poor, daddy. Completely underappreciated in our household sometimes...

Buta soboro maki with egg, edamame picks and Anpanman sweet potatoes.

Soboro is usually made with ground chicken or egg, but this is made with ground pork. And it came in a jar from my beloved Pal Systems. I just mixed up some rice with soboro and rolled them with  tamagoyaki. Thought it may make it easier for my girl to eat it this way. The flowers on top of the soboro makis are made of ham.

The Anpanman sweet potatoes are also from Pay Systems but they didn't come out in the pictures. I'll try to take a better picture of them next time I add them in the bento. You can kinda cath it from this angle:

Or maybe not. OK, next time I'll get it, promise!

And bottom tier of fruit -- strawberries, kiwi, apples, and oranges.

It is totally snowing in Kanto region today. My kids and I were soaked walking through the snow with our tennis shoes/clogs...Obviously we were not expecting this weather while we visited my parents this weekend. I am so over snow fascination in Tokyo...

Chibi Maruko is a cartoon character that is popular amongst kids and adults (well, I like her as does my mom). My daughter looked at this bento and said, "Eh-, nani kore?!" (trans: Ah-, what's this?!) No big deal said in an ordinary voice, but she said it like it was more tragic. And there was a moment of silence followed by, "Is this Chibi Maruko~?" And if you read between the lines, she was actually saying, "Are you kidding me?!"But she was being really polite about it, at least.

My daughter ended up being sick on this day because of the snow play the day before, so she ate this at home. Since my daughter was eating bento at home, I made one for my son too:

I see no improvement as far as Chibi Maruko resemblence in the second bento and neither did my kids. My son totally didn't recognize who it was meant to be either. But they both finished it off without complaint so I guess that's more important, yes?

Bento contents include: Umeboshi onigiri for my daughter, son's onigiri has marinated clams, min-hambah-gu, stir fried carrots and zucchini stars, tamagoyaki with kanikama, and sweetened kidney beans for my daughter.

Here is a picture of the back of our condo in Tokyo. You have to look really carefully but the white roof in the foreground is not usually white -- that is snow. And if you look at the brown house behind said roof you can see specks of white snow flakes.

Now to those of you living in snow country, you may be scoffing at what little snow there is, but for us Tokyo-ites, it was indeed a moment of wonderous joy as we gleefully looked out our windows that morning to discover snow...

And it was indeed glorious until we had to walk in the snow to the kindergarten...while carrying the 3 year old son because he was quite sluggish and sick...walking uphill, mind you, while trying to balance an umbrella to keep the snow from blocking our vision...and then to discover after school that the kindergartners were allowed to play in the snow even though they weren't really dressed for it -- which resulted in the girl getting sick...

So in retrospect, it was really more a "disillusioned form" of glory.