Japan Budget Cooking

It's been ages since I last time wrote something, so I decided to bore you with my culinary experiments a little. I'm still waiting patiently for my beloved to come to Japan (10 days!!!), and we're gonna do some travelling then, so I will have some interesting stuff to write about.
Now - I'm sitting alone in the office, no guests today, so what's a bored girl like me to do?
I wrote before that I'm learning how to cook some Japanese dishes - now I'm inventing new ways to make traditional meals and trying to spend as little money as I can. Today I made okara croquettes.

Okara is the stuff that's left after making tofu; it looks a bit like white cheese. It's really, REALLY cheap (you can buy a whole bag for 60 yen) and very healthy. In Kyoto you can buy it in a shop specialising in tofu; I'm lucky, because my karate sensei owns such a shop.

Ingredients:

- Okara with black beans ~300g / 60 yen
- Kinpira (I used lotus roots, carrot and sesame seeds from lawson100 ;)) 75g/105 yen
- 1/4 onion/15 yen
- 1 egg/17,5 yen
- broccoli sprouts/30 yen
- vegetable oil (at home)
- bread crumbs (at home)

I used broccoli sprouts only because I bought them yesterday on sale for 90 yen (half price) and I used about 1/3 of the box. I figured I have to eat them soon, or they'll go bad. Can't have pissed off Dark Side broccoli sprouts after me, can I?

How to make it?

1. Chop the onion into small pieces and fry it for about 3 minutes (don't burn it!). Put it in a bowl afterwards.
2. Chop the kinpira.
3. Chop broccoli sprouts.
4. Squash okara into small pieces in a bowl.
5. Add the egg. Mix all ingredients. It should look like that:
6. Form croquettes and coat them with bread crumbs.
7. Pour some oil onto the frying pan, wait for it to heat up and put the croquettes in the oil.
8. Fry until they become light brown.
9. Dig in.

This serves 2-3 people, costs about 230 yen and is delicious!

Awkwardness

Weird things are happening around me. Last week was the second time I appeared on Japanese TV - this time in a show hosted by a famous kabuki actor Nakamura Kankuro. When the TV crew came to our house I thought they'd only film my boss and Kankuro-san, so I sat in the office, answering e-mails when suddenly one sensei burst inside and said that they also want to film me... The worst thing is, I looked like hell. I had trouble sleeping for the past few days, so I had dark circles under my eyes, no make-up at all and a shabby obi and old, worn-out tabi socks. That was not my best day to appear on TV (then again, there are no good days for me).
Thankfully, Kankuro-san turned out to be a very nice and easy-going person, and only 7 years older than me, so we just chatted for a while (the whole point of the show is that he travells around Japan and talks to people who do something traditional) and I didn't notice the cameras that much. I hope they will cut the parts with me from the acctual show though. I still haven't seen the previous one, although they sent me a DVD, and when I buy groceries people tell me they've seen me on TV... Weird indeed. It's me and Kankuro-san in the picture, sitting near the entrance to the house.

"Nara!" "Kyoto!"

A DAY OFF!! Bwahahahaha! I think I'm starting to loose my mind a bit here...

Anyway, on Saturday me and Pola went to Nara. First, we visited my friend's photo exhibition in Tawaramoto; country Japan is really cute; about 10000 people live in this town, and they built a HUGE culture center in the middle of nowhere. Nevertheless, it was quite interesting - the photos were taken during my friend Toshi's travells and I was even in one of them. We also helped to set up the exhibition.

After the exhibition we went to the historical Nara to get bitten and trampled by the mini-deers - shika - that roam the streets freely there. They are always hungry and will chew on your handbag or bite your butt if you don't have anything else to eat. And of course they poo and pee everywhere, so you have to watch your step; don't let the adorable pictures fool you!
We walked around the city for a few hours and had lots of fun speaking Polish and commeting people's looks. It's silly, but it was funny to talk weird stuff when nobody even realised what language we're speaking.

On the 14th we have a special visitor - a kabuki actor Nakamura Kankuro - and maybe I will have a chance to talk to him. I'm looking forward to it, but at the same time I'm pretty nervous that I will say something stupid and embarrass myself...

New Year

My plan that included going to a small secluded temple for New year's Eve failed, and me and Mindy ended up in Chion-in near Yasaka-jinja, the most crowded place in Kyoto this day...

But I guess once in a while it's good to go where everybody else goes and experience something as a part of a group. We were standing in a long queue and were near the bell when midnight came; everybody started to shout "Happy New Year!" in different languages and it was more fun than I expected. We were also very lucky, because when we went to stand in line, the temple guards closed it a few meters after us.

We were able to hear joya no kane, and I must say I was quite moved - the deep sound of a huge bell vibrating through the night was indeed something worth experiencing.
This is me buying taiyaki (type of cake with custard or anko filling; very good on a chilly night). We went to a fair at Yasaka to get some food. We also had amazake (hot sweet sake). Pictures below are: me waiting in the queue to get into Chion-in and joya no kane:On the first day of New Year I went to Kitanotenmangu. I went in a kimono and everybody was asking me if I put in on myself...
In one of the stalls I saw something worth taking a photo: a huge plush poo hanging from the roof of the stall. I am not joking. You can even put it on your head. Here is proof:

And lastly, a video of joya no kane I made: