Best 12 weddings of 2012; ours made it to the list !!!

Wow! Just when we thought the hype from our March wedding was over, now here comes Weddings at Work (WAW) 12 best wedding of 2012 , Aries & Rinka, that’s us. Our wedding made the list, say what, hihihi. WAW is the biggest wedding community of suppliers, clients and everything related to Philippine weddings. Thanks to our photographer Lisa, for providing a beautiful narrative of our wedding. We love it!!!

Although, we had our wedding in Japan, most of our vendors came from the Philippines. Our wedding did came out nearly as we planned,but still nothing near as grand or extravagant from other weddings that took part in the Philippines for 2012. This was really something we never expected.

It is not uncommon for Filipinos living abroad to get wedding vendors from back home and bring them to their country of residence. But rarely or none do I hear of Filipinos in Japan doing this, thus our Filipino-Japanese themed wedding in Osaka may seemed like a novelty. No matter how our wedding was chosen, we were happy to be included, and rank among famous personalities in the Philippines and couples with lovely back stories.

On certain occasions during preparations we did get on the verge of turning into bridezilla and groomzilla. It was only me and my wife doing nearly all the wedding preps, and took on extra jobs to recoup our savings. I think that counts for something, hihihi. Joking aside some people may think weddings are lavish waste of time and money. Money can be earned but the experience of sharing our beautiful love to family and friends and making such a beautiful memory we will forever cherish… Priceless!!!

Here’s a link to our wedding photos from the wonderful team of Jeff and Lisa Photography.

And our rainy prenuptial photos , which was made into a perfect slideshow on our wedding day.

Hoping that our planned 25th year wedding will again make the list, hihihihi!

Happy New Year !

Japanese New Year ornaments can cost thousands, but we usually choose the smaller and cheaper ones.

The turtle art to the left symbolizes long life, the crane to the right is for good fortune. In the middle is an ornament with mochi inside to be eaten on New Years’s day. I really don’t know why but eating and making mochi, are big part of Japanese New Year tradition!

a Japanese wedding

What can be very rich in culture but least romantic of all? Answer: a Japanese wedding! We attended my brother-in-law’s wedding yesterday. Western style wedding is popular in Japan, but traditional is still a preferred style.

The groom mostly walking ahead of the wife as she follows him around like a faithful servant. No “you may kiss the bride” after the ceremony, no first dance, rarely if none do they even held each others arm. As the bride needs to hold her kimono and the groom hold on to his fan. Its normal to see cultural presentations. This time it was Japanese drumming by a bunch of kids. Oh and the speeches, dont get me started, the head of the company who barely knows the couple has to be invited to speak, and usually ending up talking about their firm.

I love Japanese culture, but Im more interested with the couple during a wedding. Call me a hopeless romantic, but weddings should be a venue for grand display of drama, hihihhi.

Since this is sort of a food blog, these are some of the food we ate…

children's course

appetizers

that's my name in katakana , the alphabet they used for all foreign words and names

sashimi with the sake bottle

Couldn’t help but think how we made our Japanese wedding organizers and hotel staff lose their senses, when we had ours last March. Bringing in a lot of wedding professionals from the Philippines, and changing a lot of the set program they wanted us to follow, to maximize drama, hihihihi!

Christmas school lunch

Our last school lunch for the year. If you ask Japanese people what’s a traditional Christmas cuisine, you will only get 2 answers, that is Christmas cake and chicken.

I would say this is by far the tastiest and oiliest school lunch I ever had. So for today, in the spirit of Christmas our school took a break from serving healthy Japanese school lunch and went for rich, tasty, delicious and probably bad for your health menu. Who cares, its Christmas!

yogurt drink, salad, bbq chicken, Christmas cake, fried rice, bacon,egg and corn soup.

Happy holidays to all!

Purikua

There are 3 new things I included in the bento. First is an okara, the dish on the left side, which is made of the nutritious bran part of the rice, that is removed to make the rice white. It is cooked with sugar, a little soysauce and topped with onion leeks.
Then I made an onigiri mixed with Chinese black beans. Lastly, Purikua furikake for the other 2 rice balls.

taste of home

The last time I had Filipino ingredients was last March when my parents were here for our wedding. It is quite expected that one brought a dish authentic to  their country of origin, to these foreigner hosted holiday parties.

Since in Japan Christmas is celebrated like a sort of classy, romantic day for lovers, and they dont even celebrate it on the 25th but rather only the 24th.

They got it all wrong, so foreigners with Christian backgrounds try to replicate the best way we can the Christmas of our homes.

Home cooking can somehow makes us feel the warm and cozy feel of Christmas we used to have back home.

Filipino ingredients here in Japan is quite expensive. I splurged a little to experience a taste of home.

tamarind soup base, sardines in tomato sauce, mungo beans, sweet pork powder mix, banana kechup, sweet Filipino sphagetti sauce, mango juice, salted black beans

The careless shop owner forgot to remove the 20 pesos (40¥) tag on the one item I purchased for (200¥). I know I’m desperate enough to buy 5 times its actual cost. No need to be reminded of that, hihihi!

school lunch Thursday!

My very creamy school lunch. . .

cream seafood pasta, and fruits in yogurt, bread

This is what I made formy wife…

fish in sweet and sour sauce, hijiki, green pepper, paprika, karaage, persimmon

school lunch Thursday!

I never care for (taco) octopus until I came to Japan. Now it’s part of our menu once in awhile. Its also a regular feature on our kyuushoku.

school lunch with deepfried octopus

calamari, salad, egg drop soup with veggies, rice mixed with dried nori

Culture Day!

Its Saturday and its a national holiday. Once again I got the Japanese instruction wrong, I thought the school clerk told me to bring bento, since there would be no school lunch. So I made this …

Then come lunch time, I found this heavenly bento waiting at my desk..

tempura,oden,sashimi,sweet potatoes,snail, salmon,persimmon, caviar (very little)

Everyday should be like this :)! So what he meant was no school lunch, bento will be served instead.

I also got to enjoy a Buddhist ritual with guys performing it with eyes and face covered by metal masks. This is a traditional ritual performed only once a year at the Taima temple near my school. They just gave a sample performance to the kids at our school.

And since its Saturday today, I will have a Monday off. Happy Culture Day Japan!

Happy Halloween!

beetle or spider, I'll do noth

ginger pork on cabbage, pumpkin salad and cream puffs for halloween