Tokyo: Shopping and Sushi Making (Charlotte and Sam)

Last week we traveled to Japan to ski. However, because our ski resort was not close to an airport, we flew into Tokyo and spent a night in the city before and after our week skiing. 

One of the places I wanted to visit was the big Hello Kitty Sanrio store. We rode the subway from our hotel. It wasn't far. The store had a huge wall filled with Hello Kitty stuffies. It was shaped like a heart and my dad took a picture of me. 

 

One of my favorite things about the Hello Kitty store was seeing all the stuffies. I got to bring one home. It was a Hello Kitty stuffy that has a zippered pocket behind her head. Inside the pocket is a pink Hello Kitty reuseable shopping bag. It is practical and cute. Hello Kitty is dressed in a Japanese kimono. The stuffy also has a clip to attach to my purse. (My purse is special because I made it in Taipei at a kids craft station. I used a sewing machine for the first time and a lady who spoke English helped me),

Another experience we had in Tokyo was making sushi by hand. We made two kinds of sushi: maki and nigiri. First, you weigh the rice, then spread it on your seaweed sheet. Then you layer strips of fish on the rice and roll everything together into a tube shape using a plastic or bamboo slotted mat. 

Then you gently press the roll to shape everything. Finally, you unroll the mat and cut the sushi into slices. This is maki. 

To make nigiri, you weigh the rice and use your hand to shape it into an oval shape; it looks like a cloud. Then you place one slice of fish on top of your rice cloud. This is how you make nigiri. In the picture below, the nigiri sushi is on the outer edges of the board.

 

After we made our sushi, we ate it for lunch! I like sushi, but this sushi wasn't my favorite. We had tuna and not salmon. Salmon is my favorite. For dessert we ate fish cakes. These are not cakes made out of fish. The cakes are baked in the shape of a small fish and stuffed with different sweet fillings. There was red bean, custard, and sweet potato. We tried the red bean and custard. The custard was very hot and I had to eat it carefully because I didn't want to burn my mouth. Custard was my favorite flavor. Red bean was my mom's favorite flavor.

Nozowa Onsen

Last week we traveled to Japan. On our trip, we visited Nozawa Onsen. Nozawa Onsen is a small village in the mountains about two hours away from Tokyo by bullet train (shinkasen). Nozawa Onsen is very special because it has an amazing ski resort and roughly a dozen onsens. 

An onsen is a natural hot spring or local hot tub. It is free and many people, visitors and villagers alike, go there daily. To prepare for an onsen, you need to bring certain items with you, to include: a towel, a bar of soap and a bottle of shampoo. 

 

When you arrive, you first take off your shoes and socks. These go into a little cubby on the bottom shelf. It is important to put your shoes and socks in the bottom cubbies. The top cubbies are for clean clothes and other belongings. 

After you put your shoes away, you have to take off all of your clothes (even your underwear!) and get a bucket. Buckets are provided at the onsen. You don't have to bring your own. Once you're naked, you use your bucket and pour water from the onsen onto the tiled floor. Then you sit down next the onsen on the warm floor and get used to the hot water temperature by pouring buckets of water on your body. Once you're warm, you soap your body, shampoo your hair and rinse off using the bucket. Once you're totally clean, you can hop into the onsen.

The sides of the onsen are made of wood and the floor is also wood. There is a wooden divider that separates the hot side from the super hot melt-your-face-off side. Once you're in the water, you can choose to soak on the hot side for a bit, or if you're brave, you can test the super hot side and decide if you want to move over. Not all onsens are the same temperature. The onsen that was closest to our hotel was pretty hot. After you feel satisfied with your soak, you wade out of the onsen and dry off with your towel. Then, you head over to the cubbies and put on your clothes. After that, you put on your shoes and socks and exit the onsen building. 

When you leave the onsen you are likely to feel like Mario, super energetic and ready to do anything!

Lunar New Year - Lion Dance (by Ansel)

For Chinese New Year in Taipei we went to the Grand Hyatt Hotel to watch a lion dance. My family (myself, Mom, Dad, Natalie and Charlotte) were able to get seats on the floor above the dance floor so we could get a better view. We couldn't see the first act because it took place outside. However, we knew the show had started because it got really loud with a lot of drumming and we also caught glimpses of two lions outside. We also heard the incredibly loud pops of firecrackers exploding.  Charlotte had to cover her ears because it was so deafening!

Now, when I say lions I don't mean the kind of real animals that you would see in a zoo. For Chinese New Year performances, the lions are giant puppets with people inside. Inside the lion puppet there are several switches that are used to control the lion's eyes, eyebrows, ears, and mouth. The lions at our performance were yellow, red, and orange.  

When the lions eventually came inside the hotel, they danced a bit and then one lion jumped onto some elevated pedestals and stood on its hind legs. After that, a dance assistant arrived with a large red bin full of candy. The lion pretended to eat the candy and then threw it into the crowd. Unfortunately, we were seated too far away and could not reach the candy.

Overall, I thought the dance was a little crazy because the lion moved around so frantically and threw so much candy. I'm glad we went because the dance was very entertaining and unlike anything I've ever seen in Seattle.

Animal farm (Natalie) Part 2

                                                           The Animal Farm

    On our second day in Yilan we decided to visit Zhang Mei Ama's farm. For breakfast we went to the hotel's buffet. They had all the normal breakfast foods including fruit, eggs, sausage, bao, vegetables, and congee. For drinks they had beer, chocolate slushie, fresh squeezed orange juice and much more. The orange juice was made by inserting 2-3 oranges into a machine and then turning a wheel to squeeze out the juice. The biggest selection of things were the sweets. There was a long shelf covered in candy jars which were filled with every sweet you could imagine. There were lollipops, hard candy, chocolate coins,

chocolate soccer balls, that was just 1/5 of it! They also had a soft serve machine, and a cooler full of Häagen-Dazs ice cream.                                                                                                                                                     

Mom tried a traditional Chinese dessert combination, we added shaved peanuts to cilantro and red bean ice cream and wrapped it up like a burrito. Not bad!

                

 The farm was in a rather remote area, so transportation was the only real challenge we faced during our farm experience. We initially planned to save money and take a train to a bus to the farm, but when we got off the train, we waited at the bus stop... and the bus never came, so we decided to take an Uber. Mom had purchased the DIY package for the farm in advance. Our tickets included four separate events: cooking, animal petting and feeding, vegetable harvesting, and selecting a free dessert from the food court.

    When we first walked into the farm, we were ushered into the kitchen for our cooking experience. The package is designed so that you first have your cooking class. Then, while your food is being cooked, you can visit with the animals. The recipes are seasonal, so we made scallion pancakes.

                                                    

The county of Yilan is famous for growing scallions and making tasty fried savory scallion pancakes. A staff member demonstrated to us and another group how to assemble the pancake rolls and then gave us the ingredients and set us loose. 

                                                                                                                                    

When we finished making our pancakes, we washed our hands and headed out to the animals.

                                  

    There were two adjoining animal pens. Staff met us at the entrance and briefed us on the rules. No petting the animals' heads or posteriors and no running or loud noises. Once you go through the first  enclosure, you can't go backwards. The staff then gave us 6-7 long blades of grass each to feed the animals.

 This is all the food you get, but if you post a picture of the farm on social media, they give you more leaves in the second pen. 

The first pen's animals were the biggest. They included alpacas, deer, a shetland pony, and several sheep. 

They are all roaming around freely and did not hesitate to walk over and take your food. The alpacas are quite tall and it's hard to keep the food away from them unless you are adult size and hold it over your head. 

              

              

Mom was the keeper of the leaves. The sika deer were regular size and very nice and tame. They were my favorite from the first pen.

                                         

    In the second pen there was a selection of more exotic animals including capybaras, tortoises, reeve's muntjac (looks like a mini deer), kangaroos (albino and regular), and patagonian maras. 

            

This was our family's favorite pen. The reeve's muntjac was a feisty little animal who liked to sneak up and grab leaves from your hand and from other animals mouths.

 The capybaras were very chill. They would sit next to you and enjoyed being pet. There were also fake oranges that you could try to balance on their heads. I'm not sure why, but people in Taiwan think the image of an orange on a capybara's head is super cute. I have seen loads of stuffies, pins, stickers and even backpacks featuring this image. The capybaras spent most of their time sitting, and swimming in a pool. Among the adults were two baby/teenage capybaras who were quite active.   

We also enjoyed feeding and petting the exotic white albino kangaroos. 

They were so cute. The patagonian maras were very skittish. Lastly, in the corner the farm had a special large bird section where you could hold macaws of all colors and cockatiels. 

Tortoises are now Ansel's favorite animal.

When we got out of the animal pen, they sanitized our hands and told us to return to the kitchen for our freshly fried scallion pancakes. They were delicious. The DIY kit also came with a free dessert which was a wheel cake. A wheel cake is a small cylinder pastry (shaped like a hockey puck) with a filling. 

                               

Ansel got a cream filled wheel cake and the girls all got ice cream filled wheel cakes. They were pretty good. After we finished, the farm staff suited us up in pretty ridiculous farm hats and sent us down the road to a field to harvest some crops. When we arrived the farmer was with a different group, so we walked out to him. He instructed us to put on gloves, grab shovels and start digging up sweet potatoes. 

             

We were thankful for our hats, which shielded us from the hot sun. We left the field with a bag full of about 10 small sweet potatoes. The farming experience was definitely a success! As an aside, Mom added the potatoes to our soup noodle lunch the following day. They were pretty tasty!

           


                                              

Over all, we thought that Zhang Mei Ama's farm was a really great experience due to all of the animals, food and fun. We would recommend Yilan and the farm to anyone who has a couple of days and wants to take a day trip outside of Taipei.