Tea ceremony (very brief one)

Guess anyone who are interested in the Japanese culture sure know about the tea ceremony.
Well, to begin with, you are being welcome by a very friendly smile...
This is a very Japanese kind of smile, with proper Japanese traditional clothes (known as kimono), the Japanese female's posing (man, never do this! at lease not when in Japan), and the very typical Japanese looks and complexion...
Feel the 和 spirit now!!!

By the way, introducing tea ceremony to foreigner is only her voluntary service; She is one of the sensei teaching Japanese language at the University of Hokkaido, the intermediate level...
I am now at the basic level, if everything goes well, then by the next semester... : )
Opps, a little astray from the topic!

Alright, here we go, dress in the blue kimono (photo below) is my friend. He is preparing tea for me, under the guiden of one of the sensei.
1st of all, by using the bamboo scoop (known as chashaku), insert one and a half scoop of green tea powder into the tea bowl (as shown below).
Then, pour some hot water into the tea bowl.
This is the very tricky part as you should fill the bowl up to only about one-firth of its volume, which leaving you pondering "Errr, is it enough?!!"
See (photo above), the 'master' is saying "Eh eh eh! hoppp!" While my friend still thinking of to pour more...

Then stir the tea powder until it's 100% dissolve !

Ready to serve!
Before the tea are serve, you are 1st presented with some sweets place on a piece of very good quality tissue paper. The right order is to take the sweets before the tea.
Anyway, I have skipped many details such like the face of the bowl are suppose to be facing the tea maker during tea making (you might want to ask "does the bowl have face?" Yes, some does), then the tea maker have to turn the bowl tree times at each interval of approximately 60 degree, so that the face of the bowl is facing the guest, before serving it, then... bla bla bla...

To be covered in the next higher tea making level... :)

Snow Festival 2009

In winter, 5 to 11 Feb 2009, there is a yearly event at the city center of Sapporo, Hokkaido, called Snow Festival (Yuki Matsuri in Japanese).

Many ice sculptures are created for display, and many booths selling foods and drinks (mainly local special foods of Hokkaido).
There are also some concerts and games...

After taking some photos, I decided to settle my dinner there...
To begin with, well, isn't Hokkaido famous with its crab? So here my 700 yen crab meat baked in a crab shell. Emmmm... yammiiii....
Then, a stick of scallops (3 big one, each of the size of a mouthful) selling at incredibly 200 yen!!!
Finally, the very famous local food of Hokkaido, potato butter, at 350 yen each.
(Well, my dear Malaysian friends, please don't try to convert the price into RM, or the equivalent RM 11.70 certainly sounds too costly for a potato, isn't it?
Should think of it as if a Japanese, who is with the income like Malaysian, is spending RM3.50; Due to their relatively higher earning)

Chili paste recipe

In Malaysia, chili is one of the most favorite seasoning ingredients among Chinese.
It is served in variety of ways, picture below shows three examples. See, how Malaysian Chinese love them, there are three for just one meal! The one on top (picture above) is raw chili cut into thin slices and mixed with soy sauce.
The one on the right is chili sauce. Can easily be found in shops. As for Malaysian, we didn't consider chili sauce hot. It is in fact a sweet sauce make of mainly other ingredients like papaya or tomato, with only a small proportion of chili (any? or non?).
The one on left is chili paste. It's the main topic of this post. I learn how to make it during the last Chinese New Year vacation when visited my friend at northern Malaysian (I guess the recipe originated from our northern neighbor Thailand).

Ingredients:
1. Chili pepper
2. Salts
3. Sugars
4. Shrimp paste (Belacan in Malay)
5. Lime

How to:
1. There is a saying "A picture worth a thousand words" So I can save my words here.
Firstly, wash your chili and cut away the unwanted part as shown (picture below).
Tips: Avoid touching the cut-open part of the chili, or you'll feel like your finger is burning few minutes later; No wonder they call it hot, not just spicy.
2. Put in some shrimp paste. Be sure to put in more than what is shown here (double the amount as shown).
Then some salts and sugars. The amount of sugars is twice the amount of the salts.
3. Then smashing it till you can't recognize the chili seed. As if you would hit someone till his mother can't recognize her son!
4. Now it's ready to mix in some lime juice.
5. Finally, here you go, the fire-breathing kind of hot chili paste ready to be served on your dinning table :)

My cute niece-nephew-triplets

I've returned to Malaysia during the last Chinese New Year, for 3 weeks - the longest new year leave I've ever have!

The first resort was my cousin's house, see, how cute my niece-nephews are!

The very 1st greeting I received comes in the form of a question:
"You have changed your hair?"

Few days later after I'm back to my hometown, my cousin visited my family, and I have these photos taken: