Happy Birthday, Reataurant Cars!!

Hello! Today I ate a piece of watermelon.

Watermelon's best season is summer. Now is May, but it was enough sweet to eat.


Summer comes soon....





It was difficult to find any topic for today's blog....

BUT I found topic!!



In fact, today is the restaurant car day!!

(We are able to use restaurant cars while we are on trains.)

Hokutosei Dining Car




The first restaurant car run on May 25, 1899.



Restaurant cars are unfamiliar to young people.

I have never used them!! In addition, I haven't ridden on the train which had a restaurant.

Restaurant cars are called dining cars or buffet cars, too.

There are few trains connected restaurant cars.





In Japan, all Shinkansen' s dining cars were stopped using. We can see them only in some sleeping cars such as Hokutosei, Twilight Express and Cassiopeia.

Twilight express dining car




Can you guess why shinkansen's restaurants were shut??



According to some websites, it was because the speed of shinkansen became faster.

We are able to arrive at destinations in one or two hours, so we don't have to have meals on train.



Even though we would like to eat something, now we are able to eat Ekiben(box lunches we buy at some stations and on trains)


Passengers have to go to a dining car in person to eat dishes, and sometimes table is full. They have to wait for vacant seats. It is not efficient....





In case of ekiben, we eat them on our seats, and we are able to eat whenever we want them.







I don't know whether dish served on dining cars is delicious or not. I'm not sure that dish is expensive or cheap. (Maybe expensive?) However, I would like to use a restaurant car!!!


Besides, I think restaurant cars should be spread!!





I think passengers are able to enjoy eating delicious food, viewing beautiful scenes and chatting with thier families, boy friends and girls and friends at the same time on restaurant cars!!!

How good restaurant cars are!!!!





People should improve dishes served on this car, and the train which has a restaurant car had better run railways we can see beautiful scenery. The train must be slow while passing there. The number of restaurant's tables should be increased.







It will be a new trip style. Is it too luxury??

We eat Taiyaki-kun

Hello!! It's hot today, isn't it?

Today, I'll tell you about one of Japanese sweets.

I ate "taiyaki" for my today's snack.

I ate taiyaki whose contants was custard cream.
Traditional taiyaki contains red bean jam, but I don't like adzuki beans. (Why did people who created taiyaki select red bean jam as contents. Japanese often put it in sweets...um...)

When I go to a taiyaki shop, I always choose chocolate cream or custard cream taiyaki!!

Now taiyaki is hot somehow. Around my home, there are about five taiyaki shops.

Ordinary taiyaki is covered with soft and a little dry coating. The taste and the texture of this coating are like a hot cake's. (Taiyaki was made in Japan in the begenning of 1900s)

a cute sweet!!

However, there are various kinds of taiyaki in Japan now. Contents are chestnut cream, caramel cream, chocolate and banana, chocolate and OREO and so on...

In addition, there are a variety of coatings. White taiyaki is a taiyaki whose coating is white and sticky like "mochi". There is taiyaki whose coating is thin, so its surface is crispy.

Which kind of taiyaki do you like? Have you ever seen unique ones?

What I ate today was crispy one! I love it!!

Ah!! When you hear the word of taiyaki, what do you remember??

I remembered "oyoge! taiyaki-kun" song!

Surprisingly, there is a English version of this song!! Try it !! "Swim, Taiyaki-Kun!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxM3mCb7AkM&feature=related long....

The English lyrics is not so different from the Japanese ones, and I felt this song was cool than Japanese one because it was sung in English(;-D) Especially, I liked " I want to be free".
I knew taiyaki's life was so harsh...

Japanese one was released in 1975. More than 5 million discs has sold until now. WOW!!

The reason why this song became popular is not sure, but it seems that office workers sympathized with taiyaki destiny. They also wanted to run away from thier busy offices, and they wanted to do what they want to do!!

Now we think ' If you want to quit your job, you had better do that.' This is because we are permitted to do whatever freely. However, I think those days it was difficult to act against what everyone does. I wonder if we were born in good era.

Taiyaki-Kun, good job!!! You are cool.

However, we continue to eat taiyaki because you are delicious!

Do you eat from its head or its tail(:-p)??

Korean color is red

Hi! Today is rainy...Did you enjoy something today?
I have been at home all day long. I didn't feel like doing anything:P
I just watched 'glee', which is American TV series.





OH!
I went to a Korean restaurant 'ri san no daidokoro' in kaihimmakuhari with my friends yesterday.
I ate a big bowl of Bulgogi and my friends ate Samgyeopsal and Bibimbap. They said this Korean food was delicious!!!


A Bowl of Bulgogi (it's lke sukiyaki)

Samgyeopsal(grilled slices of pork)




Ingredients of Bulgogi were beef, beansprouts, cabbage, onion, rice and yolk.
All of them were burnt in a stone bowl, so I was too hot to put them on my tongue.


However, Bulgogi was delicious!! It was not spicy. It was sweet and salty because it might be seasoned with soy sauce and sesame oil. Later, I added 'Hot Pepper Paste' to change the taste of dish. It became more delicious than before.








We associate 'Korean food' with 'spicy'.
Why is Korean food so spicy? Why do they often use red pepper for food?





A long time ago, Korean believed in Confucianism. Due to the effect of that religion, they respected their senior people. They hoped senior's health, so Korean people considered nutrition balance in food.


Fortunately, on that time, red pepper came to Korea.


Red pepper go match with meat and contain a lot of vietamin C.
We suffer from sicknesses if we lack vietamin C. Vietamin C help assimilate iron and calcium.


There is story that Korean began to use red pepper to hide tasteless or just salty food behind hot taste. Korea was poor because of many wars.

Red pepper was cheaper than Japanese Pepper, so it was easy to get it and became popular.




I think red pepper is useful to sweat. Korean are beautiful because they take sweat out.












I was surprised that Korean spicy food have connected with their religion.

Their idea is eating is good for health.
In fact, I don't like spicy food, but I try to think about nutrition when I eat something.




Let's be healthy by eating food!!!