6 things we need to learn from Japan.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
I was doing up my Day 2 post for Japan and I realize I have so much to compliment about Japan. So I decided to do up a post on what I have observed in Japan and share it with you guys!
1.) TRAIN STATIONS
(Photo credits to tumblr)
Just by mentioning train stations I have so much to say about it already. If you realize in the above picture, people actually do queue up to board the train. I know in people does it in Singapore now too but I still see people pretending not to see the queue and stand at the side waiting to cut queue when the trains come. Then when the train arrives everyone kanjiong spider want to rush in. Back in Japan everyone was so calm, letting the people in the train to alight first before they board. Totally zero kanchiong spiders at Japan.
There were no signs at the stations telling people to queue up and let people to alight first before boarding in Japan and people just does it themselves. Whereas in Singapore, SIGNS ARE EVERYWHERE and people still does it lol.
In Japan, they also have a culture of keeping quiet in the trains unlike Singapore, we have rowdy kids talking loudly on the trains like it's their own house.
2.) CLEANLINESS
(Photo credits to tumblr)
It's very hard to find a bin in Japan but surprisingly enough, their streets are pretty much cleaner than Singapore, despite the fact that we have bins everywhere. They even allow eating on the trains and their trains/stations are totally free of litter. I cannot imagine if Singapore allows that; ice cream melting on the floor, bread crumbs on the seat...
Sometimes I wonder where did we get the "Singapore is clean and green" from.
3.) PEOPLE HERE DO THINGS WITHOUT BEING ASKED TO
Elaborating from point 1 and 2, people here clear their own trays after eating. They also have bins to sort out the litters so people would just throw their litters in accordingly. And once again, there are no signs telling people that they are suppose to clear their trays.
However, some places doesn't require you to clear but just to be safe I took the tray all the way to the trash area and the person there was telling me "oh you no need to clear the tray but still thank you for clearing!" and have such a huge smile on her face lol.
4.) PEOPLE HERE ARE HELPFUL
You know how troublesome it is to take off your winter jacket when you enter a shop and carry it on your hand due to the heater in the shops. So you have to carry it on your hand with your shopping bags and there were so many times my jacket is sweeping the floor and there were at least 5 people (in that shop) that came to me and tell me my jacket was sweeping the floor. Of course I couldn't understand them lah but they just tapped me and point to my jacket signaling to me.
Another incident was at the train station where I was rushing for the subway to the airport and I dropped my gloomy bear without knowing and this lady stopped me and ask me to look behind. Then I saw my gloomy lying on the floor LOL. WTF I WAS SO THANKFUL COX THE BEAR WAS LIMITED EDITION SPRING VERSION ONE.
I know SOME singaporeans will do this too but I just need to highlight this cox I'm very amazed at the "jacket sweeping floor" incident.
5.) PEOPLE HERE ENJOY THE OUTDOORS
(Photo credits to tumblr)
This was one of the sightings at the very famous Yoyogi Park. I realize people sit down at the big grass field under the Sakura trees having picnics, talking to each other, playing with their dogs, playing frisbees and all sorts of games. Nobody is using technology at all, just enjoying the nature with each other's companion. Do you see all this in Singapore ? Not at all. Even when we go out for picnics/outdoor activities you will see someone's head hung low looking at their phones.
They say Tokyo is the busiest city, but people here actually have time to enjoy the nature. What excuses does singaporeans have now?
6.) SERVICE LINE
Everyone practically greeted you like this.
(okay maybe not so exaggerating but they always greet you with enthusiasm)
This is probably the most amazing experience I had in Japan. Everyone working in the service line is super duper nice and they always have a smile on their face. From airports to atas clothing shops to fast food restaurants, all of their services really impressed me.
I was at Shibuya 109 shopping at Honey Bunch and this very cute shop assistant came to me and blabber alot of things to me in Japan although I couldn't understand a single thing lol so she took over all the new series of clothes that I was browsing for me to see and although I didn't buy a thing at the shop she still greeted me with a smile and speak some chinese to me! You tell me where you get this kind of service in Singapore ?! If you never buy they sure 'chaobin' (blackface) you one please.
"Walan eh laoniang talk so much you never buy knn"
Another thing I like about the service line is that they take alot of effort in serving you. In Singapore they charge you for everything: plain water that is clearly from the sink, wet tissues, ice packs etc. But in Japan all these comes free. I was totally impressed when I bought a sandwich and she just throw just weird blue packet of liquid into my paper bag and when I reached home I realize it was ice pack with a packet of wet tissue. You don't get such service in Singapore for sure.
And yep that's all for this post!
See you guys soon in the next post! ;)
日本の旅 ♡ JAPAN TRIP (Part 1)
Friday, March 28, 2014
HELLO GUYS !! 
I'm back from my 11 days trip to Tokyo, Japan and it was a pretty fulfilling (and tiring) trip for me and I get to see so much stuffs that I've never see before in my whole 19 years of life. I'm going to be blogging by days cox I took mega lots of photos and do watch out for some tips that may help you if you're going to Japan!!
Gonna skip the airport part because you can watch it in the vlog so I will just skipped all the way to the flight.
Before we fly!!
Pretty sky !! 
Our flight was during midnight so the above photo was taken in the morning after I slept for only 3 hours and just nice breakfast was served a few minutes after I woke up.
I super duper love in-flight meals because they are always so filling! My favourite is definitely the bun LOL I LOVE BUNS SO MUCH. I practically love anything that is carbs lah hahaha.
Some very confusing train map.
The thing about their trains is that you cannot change directly in the station itself so sometimes you would need to tap out and walk to another station just to change line. Got lost a few times with Lynn cox we both 路痴 one and we wasted quite some time finding our ways. So if you can't speak Japanese you die like us. OK KIDDING.
TIP : Have a translating app so just in case you tap in at the wrong place and need to get out, you can just translate it and show your phone to the person at the info counter and they would help you with it. Although the app might give you some nonsense Japanese words but the person would sort of figure it out themselves. Some of the train stations actually have wifi so you can actually try google translating.
Some of the shops in Harajuku.
Just look at the exterior of all the shops, CHAO KE AI DE (which means super cute) !!! How I wish Singapore could take more efforts in designing their shop front. Most of the shops here sell clothings and the styles here are more casual and 'daring' (you can see it in my vlog) compared to Shibuya 109.
So the first thing we did after we arrived at Japan was to EAT !! So we had lunch at Sweet Paradise which was apparently a sweets buffet. I mega love cox there are so many cakes for me to choose from!
Look at the amount of plates I cleared lolol.
And before I forgot, if you are a fan of strawberries/Sakura, Mid March - April is the best time to visit Japan cox it's the strawberry season and Sakura trees starts blooming too!! I probably had an overdose of strawberries throughout my trip hahaha.
Self made Ice kachang.
Definitely preferred the ones in Singapore because the syrup is too sweet for my liking and they don't have any other ingredients except ice and syrup unlike Singapore. We have red beans, corns and nata de coco !!! *slurps*
What's Japan trip without Takoyakis right ?!
And it's super duper shiok to eat Takoyaki along the streets cox of the weather (which is around 13-17 degrees most of the time).
My OOTD for the day!
Super love how you can do layering in your outfit cox it's cold over there and you won't sweat a single bit even if you wear like 3 layers. You don't even get a chance to do that in Singapore lor, 1 layer in Singapore and that's the max already lol.
TIP : PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE bring moisturizer/body lotion or whatever that keep your skin hydrated when you visit Japan during Feb-April !! I act smart never bring ended up I have a peeling nose and dry skin lol.
Some of the selcas taken on Day 1!
Did a vlog on Day 1 of the trip too so if you're interested you can watch it below!
Recipe: Strawberry cheesecake cupcake
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Sudden feel to bake so I suddenly thought of the cupcakes my puinko baked for me last year and it was mega yummy!!! So I asked her for the recipe and she said it was the one on Kaykay's blog but she didn't convert the recipe to grams so I converted for you guys if you are interested to make them!
Here are my cupcakes!
The original recipe is here so if you need the picture guide just click the link!
For the crust:
15 pieces of digestives
125g of butter
For the cupcake batter:
4 egg whites and 2 tablespoon of sugar
1 tsp baking powder (I skipped this and my cupcakes still poofed up really well)
170g of butter
190g of all purpose flour
1 cup of plain yoghurt (Those regular cups they are selling at supermarkets will do)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
200g of sugar (original was 220g, I reduced it)
1/2 teaspoon of salt
Diced strawberries (put more if you like and vice versa)
For the cream cheese frosting:
180g of cream cheese
85g of butter
200g of icing sugar (adjust to your preferred sweetness)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
I warn you guys first ah, this recipe is pretty much tedious if you don't have a electric mixer and it's pretty time consuming too cox there's alot of steps to it.
so for the steps:
1. Crush all the digestives into crumbs and mix with butter. Press down with fingers in cupcake liner and bake for 5 minutes at 170 degrees C.
2. Beat the egg whites and sugar until stiff USING AN ELECTRIC MIXER. (I geh kiang don't want to use ended up beat for 15 minutes still not stiff kns) Careful not to overbeat if not your cupcakes will flop!
3. Mix flour, salt and baking powder. (Sift the flour and baking powder!!)
4. In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add the vanilla and beat with a hand mixer. Then add half the flour mixture until incorporated then mix in the yoghurt. Add remaining flour and mix everything. (I kind of messed up this step just by adding in everything at once, it turns out fine though lol)
5. Gently fold 1/3 of the egg into the batter until combined, repeat until everything is mixed well.
6. Scoop batter into cupcake liners and bake for 25 minutes in the oven at 170 degree celcius.
7. For the frosting, just mix everything together that's all!!
8. Decorate the cupcake in any way you like!
Freshly out of oven without any frosting!
All ready with cream cheese frosting!!
REALLY NO JOKE EH IT'S MEGA YUMMY.
Bake for your crush and he confirm will fall in love with you HAHAHA OKAY JOKING.
Just go try this recipe lah k, no regrets one.
Strictly Pancakes // Japanese are amazing
Saturday, March 8, 2014
Met up with my cousins and we were supposed to watch Vampire Academy before that but everyone EXCEPT for me was late and we didn't manage to catch the last show :( So we headed down to Strictly Pancakes cox everyone is eating it so I went to try for myself for the first time and I need to say it was wayyyyyyyyyyy too overrated lah!
Garlic Butter Prawns ($14.00)
Tiramisu pancakes. ($12.00)
LOOKS GOOD BUT.
Tbh honest the pancakes wasn't THAT nice as I expected. I would rather pay $6 to eat Mcdonald's pancakes then to eat at Strictly's. And since I'm working at a pancake shop I would definitely say that my workplace's pancakes are much nicer. Not being bias or anything ah. Like every single time when I serve the pancakes to the customers I would feel like eating their food cox the pancake smells like heaven I swear. Strictly's one... I don't smell anything :x
Jasmine (my cousin) jokingly said that the potato wedges might be the yummiest thing and I was like how possible is that, ended up really is lolol.
Portion wise it's worth the money la but taste wise I would say no. But hey hey ambience wise and service wise I will rate it pretty good! Probably because there is service charge and GST ah lolol.
I have about a week more before I head off to Japan and I was looking at some websites and I literally died of cuteness please I swear. I always say that Japanese are the most amazing people and if you don't believe me just look at this:
JUST . LOOK . AT . THE . FREAKING . ICE CREAM
SO FUCKING CUTE I CANNOT.
It's selling in Baskin Robbins Japan for Easter (Although Easter is still far away hahaha) and I'm so going to get the chick one lah omg!! You would never get to see this kind of cute ice cream in Singapore one please, Singaporeans where got the patience to do such thing ?!
Not only the ice cream ah, all the packaging design also mega cute one.
ARE YOU MELTING ALREADY?!
Okay lah I shall stop spazzing but I'm really very excited cox it's the sakura period when I go there so I get to taste everything Sakura hoho. And I think I'm probably gain alot of weight looking at all these food lol.
Cheery Churros! (With recipe)
Thursday, March 6, 2014
FINALLY A PROPER POST!
It has been long since I share a recipe with you guys so I decided to do a very simple BUT super duper yummy recipe post hehehe. From the title you all know it's churros la and I'm pretty sure some of you guys don't even know what's churros right ?! Cox actually I didn't know until I got them from USS lol and it's mega yummy lah! It's like a must buy everytime I go to USS but it's so expensive lor, $4.50 for one stick, when are you need is like 3 cheapo ingredients lol.
So if you don't know what is churros, here is it:
It taste just like donuts actually!
It's just deep fried dough covered with cinammon sugar/chocolate dip or whatever you like.
This will be the end product if you were to follow this recipe:
Usually if you get churros outside it comes in a longer stick but for mine I just make it around the size of my fingers so it's easier to bite.
RECIPE:
(Adapted from http://chocolateoblivion.blogspot.sg/2012/02/churros-bianca.html )
For the dough:
500ml water
255g plain flour
1 tsp salt (you can change it to sugar if you want it to be sweet)
For the topping:
1 tablespoon of cinnamon powder
1 tablespoon of sugar
Melted chocolate
Instructions:
1. Add salt to water and bring it to boil.
2. Add in the flour and mix well.
3. Let the dough cool down for 15 minutes.
4. Pipe out the dough using a cookie nozzle. (HARDEST PART BECAUSE THE DOUGH IS SO DAMN STICKY)
5. Deep fry the churros until it turned golden brown.
AND TADA THIS IS WHAT YOU GET:
Apparently there are two kind of churros - Spanish and Mexican but I tried out the spanish one cox it's the easiest to make LOL. Talking about lazy :x BUT WHATEVER LAH !!!! They still taste good :B
For the toppings, mix the cinnamon powder and sugar together to make cinnamon sugar. You can adjust according to your liking! For example if you like it sweeter you can just add in more sugar.
I also tried coating my churros with chocolate and top it off with some rainbow sprinkles and they look extra pretty!!!!
Aren't they pretty ?! *_____*
Don't you feel that rainbow sprinkles always makes food happier?! hahaha.
Personally I love both of the toppings but I guess most people will like the chocolate one more because it's sweeter!
One thing about churros is that THEY ARE VERY ADDICTIVE so...
See you guys in the next post! x
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