Hakone 1 Day Getaway

Last Saturday, we went to Hakone. Due to my poor planning, we didn't manage to enjoy Hakone to the fullest. I bought a 2-day freepass (1-day free pass is not available) at the night before, which ended up the expiry date is the next day (how foolish I was, I should have bought it on the morning we were going). We did view the beautiful autumn leaves of different shades of colours, ride the ropeway and enjoyed the beauty of Mount Fuji and bubbling steam of onsen from atop and ride the pirate ship. What we missed were onsen experince (not that I dare to be naked in front of so many people though. If we had spent an extra day, we'd be able to go to private onsen in a ryokan), owakudani egg (which is said to be able to increase longevity - 1 egg equals to 7 years of life!) and visits to several museums and gardens.

Anyway, I managed to capture some nice views using my phone. Tadah!

Nice coffee at Naraya cafe

Naraya crafthouse

Isn't the railway awesome?

I did miss snapping a lot of picures as I was busy admiring the scenery. =p

Miette in progress

As the weather gets colder, I crave to knit my very first sweater and voila, I found the famous Miette. The pattern is extremely easily comprehensive and well written. It's a fast knit as well as I use approximately 3 weeks with unraveling and knitting again in between to reach up to this stage. Thanks Andi for the great pattern!

    Body on the way...

Crochet Items: Retrospective Documentation

Thanks to the lovely free pattern by Classy Crochet for the pixie hat and Red Heart yarn for the fingerless gloves. =)

Crocheted pixie hat for a friend's baby girl

Fingerless gloves for me

To Do List: Sewing

I received these 3 books I purchased online on http://www.abebooks.com three weeks ago. The delivery service was pretty fast and punctual. I must thank Megan Nielsen design for recommending the books as these books are very comprehensive, even for a beginner like me.

I plan to sew a beautiful scallop edge skirt as taught by Vivat Veritas using the pretty fabric I bought from Tomato at Nippori Fabric Town a couple of weeks ago. The fabric is extremely cheap given it's good quality at 100 Yen per meter.

How lovely the print of flying swallows on the dark blue background!

Yoyogi Park

Last Saturday, I went to Yoyogi Park. The best part about Yoyogi Park is free entrance! Yay! It is one of my to go list as I am a Japan cheapo. The scenery is superb with a range of orange-red leaves tone, accompanied by music played by some bands. Unfortunately, there was no flea market (one of my main motive, cheeky smile) but a lot of food stalls.

I love the ombre tone of green-yellow-orange and red colours.

There are many different types of flowers which really fascinate me, especially huge flowers with diameter longer than my finger. OMG!

Pansies of different colours

Huge rose!

Huge chrysanthemum!

Dinner For A Chill Autumn Night

Hi everyone. Typhoon Wipha has just moved away from Tokyo. As the place where my husband (aka Mr. S) and I stay is quite near to Tokyo, the typhoon hit our place too.

And to satisfied our tummy during this post-typhoon cold autumn night (well, it's considered cold as we are both from Malaysia where the only season is summer throughout the year), I cook porridge (top left), tamago (top right) (I bought from OK store, I just sprinkle some wolfberry and reheat using microwave, hehe), stir fried pumpkin and crab mushroom and stir fried soy-ginger chicken.

Recipe of Porridge
100 grammes of salmon
50 grammes of pork
Chopped pumpkin
A stalk of celery
Half stalk of scallion
Pepper & Soya sauce

Steps

1. I cooked rice first and pour the cooked rice into a pot filled with hot water (the reason being, firstly, gas is super expensive here compared to Malaysia, secondly I found it hard to have the porridge texture with Japanese rice compared to Southeast Asian rice).
2. Put the fish and pork and cook for about 5 minutes (just to ensure that the meat is well cooked).
3. Then, pour in the rest of ingrediant and season with pepper and soya sauce.

Stir fried pumpkin with crab mushroom

1. Heat up the pan and fry garlic until its aroma appears.
2. Then, pour in pumpkin and mushroom, add some water (over the pumpkin) and soya sauce and fry until the pumpkin is tender (usually when the water is almost dry, the pumkin is tender then).

Stir fried soy-ginger chicken

1. Heat up the pan and fry the ginger.
2. Then, fry the chicken until its almost cooked.
3. Season with soya sauce, thick soya sauce and sugar and you're done. =)

This is one of my very first cooking experiment. I kinda thrilled when the dishes have gain Mr. S's compliments. Please excuse me if I sound naively ignorant over cooking findings *blushed*.