kininarimasu!

It is that time of year again! For those of you that live in Vancouver, where I live, the annual Cherry Blossom Festival is coming again starting on April 3-28. It is one of the festivals I really look forward to these past years because it symbolizes the beginning of spring in a very Japanese setting, and I obviously love anything Japan so I'm excited about this every year!

This festival hasn't been around for a very long time, actually. I think it started in 2009 and it skipped a couple years. The first festival I attended was in 2011, and me and my friends went to the Sakura Days Japan Fair in the Van Dusen Gardens. I went with my friends Isabel, James, and Jonathan. Here are some pictures that I took at that time at the fair. In the fair is just basically lots of Japanese activities and lots of stalls of food! We really enjoyed it.

Okay. Since I might as well blog about it, and I haven't really talked much about it with my friends, I'm here to share my long overdue trip to the Philippines in December. I didn't get to take a lot of photos since I gave away my DSLR camera to my cousin as a Christmas present. Photos were taken with my iPhone.

So I came back from some few days before Christmas. I went home alone, since my sister, her husband, and my parents had a longer vacation than mine and decided to spend Christmas back there. Couldn't complain much--means I get to spend more time with Chris... if you know what I mean :D

My ride was Japan Airlines. And being the Japanophile that I am, I was beyond thrilled to be riding there. Yeah, there's nothing exciting about riding coach, but I've had my butt flown in Air Canada, Cathay Pacific, Air China, Delta... and nothing really excited me as much because I practically praise Japanese food, and they serve Japanese food in JAL. No duh. And no, it's not sushi or teriyaki or tempura, or the conventional "Japanese food", but more of like the home cooked meals, the ones that the Japanese actually eat on a daily basis. I know it sounds kinda silly that I'm ecstatic to ride a bloody airplane, but... yeah, I actually was excited. The food was actually good for airline food, pretty tasty sunomono, sukiyaki, soba... but it was airline food all the same. Can't complain. But I was Japanese, and for me, it was worth being excited for.

...among other Asian foods. I used to be a vegetarian some several months ago. I got influenced into it by a classmate, you would say, from capoeira, a martial art that I used to do. Turns out, being vegetarian isn't all that bad, as some people would fear. Meat isn't everything. Some people I bet wouldn't even recognize they're eating something vegetarian unless you pointed it out to them; that what they're munching on has no meat. French fries, ice cream, potato chips, chocolate. They don't contain meat. Yet people, even the most dedicated carnivores, eat them. Just because you're vegetarian doesn't mean you're bound to lettuce, kale, and spinach.

Anyway, USED to be is the keyword. Why I reverted back to being a meat eater... has totally nothing to do with this post. Even being vegetarian. Hah.

Yesterday, my boyfriend and I went to the local Japanese mart, Fujiya, on Clark and Venables. Pretty small grocery store filled with food and whatnot from the Land of the Rising Sun. Well, most of the packaged ones are. Some of the produce are conventional and local.

They also make conventional bento and other homemade snacks, kind of like the meals they would sell in a 7-11 in Japan or something. Not that I've ever been to Japan, but my friends who have been there told me that local grocers, supermarkets, convenience stores, even some vending machines would sell (fresh) day made food, and that's what the locals would eat for lunch while they're at work or something.

I particularly like the Vegetarian bento that they sell in Fujiya. This stuff tastes like heaven. Everyone, vegetarian or not, should take a bite of this wholesome bento.