Staycation - Long Weekend in Japan AKA our house
This weekend we decided to bring Japan to our house. Sure it's on the other side of the world, but we can't travel there right now, so the kids decided this would be the next fun place to travel to from our living-room.
The day started off with Tamagoyaki. This is basically an omelette with soy sauce, sugar and salt. However you cook the egg super thin and roll it. We did our best but ours didn't look like the picture, however I think it tasted the way it was supposed to. We all thought it had a maple flavour to it. Next up... decorations. We strung lanterns between the living room and kitchen. Pink, light pink, white, large, medium and small. While Brian hallowed out the cucumbers, Hadley stuffed them with rice and a carrot matchstick. This was the kid version of making sushi. I did a click and collect order at our grocery store and picked up fresh sushi. Ok, so it isn't the same as restaurant sushi, but it was actually pretty close and was made minutes before I picked it up. We had all kinds. Some with salmon, some with crab, some with seaweed on the outside, some with it on the inside, some with sauce, some without and wasabi on the side just for kicks! We even had some sake wine. We made home made Pocky which was basically breadsticks dipped in milk chocolate. I had fun putting my hair up in two buns with chopsticks and then later one bun with chop sticks. Hadley and I had dresses on that we ordered that had a lovely floral print, but unfortunately they were the most unflattering dresses. Good thing they only cost $6 each... and were shipped from the other side of the world! We had fun making Origami paper swans and paper planes. Hadley showed us an anime show that she found online. Then we learned a new game card game. Sushi GO! It took a few minutes to get the hang of it, but once we did, we played a few rounds. Its a fun quick game. We watched Japan from Above which was good on Amazon Prime and a History of Japan thing that Brian found online. We bought nori which we thought was a snack food, but turns out it was just the actual seaweed for making sushi. We had Japanese watermelon gummy candy and Green Tea KitKat ice cream. For dinner we had Yakisoba which is basically a noodle stir-fry with a Sappuro (Beer) on the side. This was the best way ever to serve asian noodles. We also had miso soup and tempura. This shrimp was so good in the air fryer! We even put pillows down and ate on the floor around our coffee table. Earlier in the week Hadley and I spent two days painting Mount Fuji with cherry blossoms swaying in the front of the mountain. I think I found this more relaxing than she did. We all tried writing our names in Japanese. We played Majong online and Pokemon Go and Easton and I completed a Suduko.
All in all a successful weekend staycation in Japan, aka our living-room.