Ari & Nici in Japan - food and beverages (食べ物と飲み物)

Hey guys (^-^)v

I'm so sorry I didn't post for such a long time.. It was the longest hiatus I have taken until now and I wish I could promise it never happens again, but I am not entirely sure about that. Anyways, I needed some time for myself, also to sort some things out. My current occupation doesn't allow me to have a lot of free time, and I am almost stressed out everyday with studying and homework and more studying (maybe I will explain it in a seperate post if anyone is interested in what I'm doing at the moment). So I took advantage of the holidays I had and did absolutely nothing. And I really needed that for myself to keep me going and to be able to finish the last two semesters. So I hope you understand and are still a little bit interested in what I post. For what comes next, I think there will be two more post about my Japan journey (it's more than a year ago by now Q_Q) and than we will see what's coming as, with a lack of free time, I also don't have time to explore things and show them to you.. But I have some huge plans for my future that I want to share with you and I will keep this blog running to at least that point of time. Anyway, here we go with the next post ^-^

Before Nici and I left for Japan my dad asked me to take photos of the stuff I was going to eat there because he had nearly no idea of what Japanese food was like (except for sushi of course). So I thought it may be a nice idea to write a post about what we were eating and drinking in Japan.
Also, I thought it might be interesting for some people, who also are vegetarians, as Japan is not really a vegetarian-friendly country and there is fish or meat included in lots of things..

While staying at our host family's place in Tokyo we usually got breakfast and dinner from our host mom.

breakfast - red bean paste filled bread, yoghurt with a slice of pineapple and a boiled egg (that I didn't like at all.. tasted like it has been boiled in soy sauce or something..)

breakfast - miso soup and some vegetables rice stuff for the microwave (althought I told our host mom that I am vegetarian I think there was fish included.. I just picked out everything that looked suspicious x3)

Dinner - Japanese style pasta, absolutely delishious *-*

Dinner - rice with stir-fried tofu, onions and some more slimy stuff (but tasted pretty good)

Dessert - CAKE ROLLS!

Dinner - vegetarian hamburger steak and rice

 As you maybe can guess from the amount of pictures I, most of the days, forgot to take pictures.. 
One evening, after we had visited a wind orchestra competition of our host mom's daughter, she treated us to dinner for kaiten zushi (running sushi)

You could either take something off of the conveyor belt or order something you like via touch screen

Mine delicious food ^-^
Our host mom laughed at us for only eating "children's stuff"..

they also had so yummy desserts that were soo amazing ^-^

As poor stundents don't travel with enough money to go to restaurants, we also bought a lot of food in Convenience Stores:

Dango and Milk tea

left - Nici's; right - mine, there was fish in the sushi rolls but I just picked it out

Yakisoba Pan

Omu raisu and Pasta

Melon Pan

A really great thing about Japan is that there are vending mashines for drinks nearly everywhere. Especially during the hot summers this is super convenient and refreshing ^-^

C. C. Grape - really delicious

My favourite drink of all time: C. C. Lemon ♥

favourite tea - just usual green tea, super refreshing at hot days ^-^

One day in Osaka we also got a pizza. As you might have heard before, pizza in Japan is super-expensive. We paid like 15 Euros for a normal-sized one (in Germany you can get some for like 5 Euros or even cheaper), and it was not even delicious.. My pizza margherita was flavoured with some strange herbs and tasted really unfamiliar, and the pizzas my friend's had ordered, did not have that usual pizza crust, but were made with some kind of puff paste instead.. I don't know if all pizza stores do it that way, but I can not really recommend eating pizza in Japan alone because of the price x'D

We also bought a lot of the really fancy snacks and ice creams Japan has to offer:

Ice cream from Baskin Robbins - Suica (watermelon) and cookie flavour. Definitely try out this store! Is has one of the best ice creams I have ever eaten

Frozen yoghurt you could assort on your own! Unfortunately, you pay for the weight and these were a bit very expensive..

Hello Kitty dounut at Sanrio Puroland (did not taste as good as it looked to be honest..)

famous Harajuku Crepe with strawberries, cheese cake, and chocolate sauce ♥

Last but not least I want to show you our food we had at fast food restaurants. All in all, we only tried two of them: Lotteria and MOS Burger. MOS Burger is my absolutely all time favourite! At the moment they only offer one vegetarian burger, but it is absolutely delicious ♥

Melon Soda and Rice-Kinpira Burger at MOS♥

Lotteria one the other hand only has frensh fries if you don't eat meat or fish...

Frensh Fries and (of course) Melon Soda again ^-^

But next time I also want to try Freshness Burger. They also offer a vegetarian black bean burger ^-^

Japan has to offer a really wide range of food and you will definitely not die of hunger as a vegetarian, but on the other hand it is really hard to find something you can eat in a restaurant. When we went eating out with our host family in Osaka, our host dad ordered ramen without meat for me and it was no problem, but I haven't tried it on my own yet, so I don't know if it had worked out too. But in supermarkets and conbinis you get lots of food you can eat and it's really good! It's just a bit sad that it is hard to get traditional food without meat or fish. If you are really craving for it, you can go to a Buddhist temple restaurant that traditionally serve vegan food, but it's terribly expensive so I didn't do it..

Well, I hope I could give you some new information and provide an insight into what kind of food will expect you if you don't go to restaurants.

Thank you for reading, and feel free to leave your opinion or questions in the comments!

See you next time (^-^)v

 

Ari travels: heidi. in Cologne // Purikura in Berlin // Highland Games in Peine

Hey guys (^.^)v

I'm so sorry it's been so long since my last post q.q 

actually I planned to blog on sunday, but then the charging cable

for my phone got missing and I couldn't get the photos I needed

to my computer and stuff q.q 

But now I have my cable back and finally managed to transmit the photos

and now I can show them to you ^.^

So first of all, I want to tell you a little about the heidi. concert last month in Cologne ^.^

heidi. is one of the bands I listen to for a long time now

and so I was super happy when they finally announced a Tour in Europe *-*

 But a few days before the concert, I cought a cold q.q

Nevertheless I went to Cologne that day with my friend Eiri, who was sick too..

but we still managed to arrive in time at the concert hall x3

This was my outfit for that day:

 I felt really bad that day and I think I even had a fever,

so we just headed for the back area of the hall and enjoyed our first concert sitting xD

Anyway it was still much fun and one of the best concerts I've ever visited ^.^

And I'm so happy to got this pretty towel at the merch stand:

Last saturday than I headed off to Berlin early in the morning to 

meet my friends Riyoki and Kamiko ^.^

It was my first time travelling the way with a bus.

It was much cheaper than going by train and even better than it.

I didn't have to change, having a seat was guaranteed

and they let me sleep the entire trip without waking me up to see my ticket!

I will definitely use the bus more often now ^.^

 
My lunch box that day ♥

When I arrived Riyoki and Kamiko picked me up at the station

and then we went to the J-Store to make some Purikura *-*

It was my first time doing this and it was really fun ^.^

I hope you like how the results turned out:

 
And finally we had some ice cream ♥
mine was pomegranate and 'kinder pingui' - soo delicious \(*Q*)/

And last but not least I also visited the Highland Gathering in Peine
with my mom and my boyfriend ^.^
I always wanted to see Highland Games in real live!
The events are 'Putting the stone', 'Tossing the caber' and 'Tug of war'.
We sadly missed the last event, because it was so cold and windy that day that
we decided to go home earlier to not catch another cold..
All the competing men were dressed in a kilt and most also wore redhead wigs x3

please click to enlarge ^.^

Tossing the caber

 But there we not just the Higland Games, there also were
many dance groups, pipers and you could by lots of food ^.^
I bought a bar of my favourite chocolate ♥
Usually you can't buy it in germany at an accteptable price, but this was ok x3

soo~ delicious ♥

so, now you know about the past few weeks

and tomorrow I will be off to Japanday in Düsseldorf ^.^

maybe we can meet there? ♥

bye bye for now (^.^)