Bento! #123: Karubonaara

378 yen from the school cafeteria!

I'm missing a certain carbonaramara, so for lunch I got me this カルボナーラ / carbonara (spaghetti). It just has a few mushroom and pork (bacon) bits, but it comes with soft-boiled egg for that only-in-Japan touch! They also gave it a good dash of black pepper / koshou / コショー. It is actually quite good, but to me, I think a little bit expensive. By the way, the bacon here in Japan looks more like ham than the bacon we know and love back home, but maybe only because here it's thicker, and so they don't usually fry it until it's crispy. In fact, in this case, the bacon might not have been fried at all. They might also use a slightly different kind of process or ingredients for curing the pork meat. But then, hey, I checked out Wikipedia and just found out that bacon is indeed unique in different places. One time, I bought something that I thought was simply a slab of pork, only to find out later on when I was able to read some Japanese already that it was actually bacon.

Speaking of meat, obviously this isn't enough as one meal for me, so I actually had to eat this with about 200 yen worth of meat (roast chicken, chicken nuggets) and salad (cabbage, tomatoes). The overall meal was great. I probably won't order this again until I crave for carbonara, the spaghetti dish, again; it's just no substitute for my carbonaramara. :)

Very Weekling

It has been 10 days since my last post.  I am calling Japan Blog 2.0 quits.  I am just too busy nowadays I think.  And I think it will be this way until the end of my 3-years here in Japan.  I've been here just 4.5 months so far.

But this don't mean I ain't posting nothing no more.  I'll still be here.  Just not regularly anymore.  Certainly not daily, but no, I can't promise weekly posts.  My intention also is to post more photos.  Or do a videoblog.  But I can't promise anything.

And, as you can see, I've been blogging on practically a daily basis for my 1st 4 months here.  That is a world record.  4 straight months of daily updates!

Unfortunately, like for most part-time bloggers, and now, the end is near, for daily blogging.  I do not have anything in mind yet for Japan Blog 3.0.  But I do know that I plan to gather together all my Japan posts into this one blog, which means my posts for my Japan Blog 1.0 (from 2005) will also be found here in the near future.

Anyways, just to let you know, I finished two papers the past week.  I had been delaying it because I thought it would be easy enough - supposedly I have the materials to write them.  But, no, it wasn't easy.  I was just too busy last Thursday and Friday, and then Saturday - Microsoft Word crashed on me!  Well I was doing structural analysis and other stuff in the background so that might have added to it.  What happened though was that I was already 90% finished on my first paper and boom, I went back down to probably 70% finished.  I just thought, 70% is better than 0%.  Thank you (or not) for those Auto-Recovery functions of Word.  Anyways, I was so on a roll those two days, but when that happened, I just went blank.  I just didn't wanna do it anymore.  I spent just two hours or less on it during the weekend.

But that is so also because we went to this eat-all-you-can/tabehodai place called "Carnival Buffet."  Western food?  Nope.  It's "Western."  (Emphasis on the quotation marks.)  It is actually Japanese-style Western food.  There's a salad bar, a drinks bar, your choice of ramen, udon, or soba noodles.  There are 4 kinds of pizza - two are more like Indian-style pizza.  There is curry.  Japanese love curry.  There was roast beef for a little while.  There are these small hamburgers that you heat on a teppanyaki grill yourself.  And hotcake mix for making hotcakes for yourself.  There was fried chicken and sausages, and pizza - did I already say there was pizza?  I ate mostly the fried chicken, the sausages, and the pizza.  I have been craving for real pizza.  Or the taste of cheese.  It was good enough.  The fried chicken tastes a lot better (more Western-tasting maybe?) than the fried chicken at the cafeterias here in school.  Then there was a salad bar where I had me a medley of fruits and an ice cream.  Then "ka-ching!"  I thought, I could have a float as well. So I made a Coke (Zero) Float.  Yum.  I was already "wa chun la" (200% full) just before eating dessert.  I was "wa chuns la" (so full, I'm almost like dead) after the float.  It was a good ending to a 1500 yen meal.

And then we rode our bikes back home.  It was quite a long ride, and then I checked using Google Maps how long our trip was.  It was 6.4 km each way!  By the time we got back to the apartment, we were back to "wa pao la" (100% full) again.

Anyways, it was probably that long bicycle ride, maybe 40 minutes each way, that got to me.  I was so dead tired on Sunday.  It was a no-day.  I was just at home.  But I did find the need to go the grocery store.  But I just can't ride the bike again.  No sir, not yet.  So I took the bus.  And then, lo and behold.  The supermarket was probably nearly half empty of groceries!  I saw two of my fellow students and they confirmed, we should just come back another day.  Anyways, I did go back the next day, and it was still probably close to half empty.  But there were a number of employees putting some stocks back on the racks.  It is so weird.  I noticed then that apparently the furniture outlet store right beside it is closed.  Is something going on?  I really don't know.  I wasn't able to find some of the stuff I needed so I went to the nearby grocery store #2, "Coop."  It was my first time ever to visit a Coop grocery store.  My friend told me about it already but I forgot - you have to pay a hefty amount for plastic bags.  Anyways, it was a good thing I had extra plastic bags.

On Wednesday night, I feasted on sweet, sweet Tacos.  12 of them. :-D  And then just today, I finalized probably 3 dishes: tokwa't baboy, postek, and sinuglaw.  It was my first time ever to prepare tokwa't baboy - not a problem actually.  But it was my first time ever to prepare kinilaw na tuna.  I wondered how come my kinilaw at first didn't look at all like the ones I order from most restaurants.  I think, based on what I read, that kinilaw actually has coconut milk or something.  Anyways, I bought so much pork, I converted the kinilaw into sinuglaw, a mix of sinugba and kinilaw.  Sinugba of course is Bisaya for inihaw.  For the tokwa, I used Japanese tofu, of course. :-)

Wait, Ronjie, you bought so much pork??????  Yes, I bought them last Sunday but because I felt so tired that day, I was able to cook them all only now.  It's not that I eat pork only.  The last couple of days, I've been eating beef.  I had tapsilog the last two days, and Tacos (ground beef) last night.  My tapsilog looked better than ever.  It is because this time I was able to buy a cut of beef that was more appropriate for tapa.  It tasted great as well.  Recipe was from my mom.  I didn't use patis though.

Last Sunday, my engineering mentor, Doc Benny, arrived here in Tokyo for a 3-day conference and so we met up Tuesday night, together with my former thesis adviser, Prof Fer.  We went to the Imperial Palace and the Asakusa area.  I didn't realize that the walk to the Imperial Palace was that long.  Actually, we did a lot of walking, even just for getting to/from the train stations and transferring between stations.  Anyway, the Palace grounds was just so huge a place.  Sunset actually caught us there.

When we got to Asakusa, most shops were closed.  The good thing was, there were very few people.  I didn't think the Sensoji Temple would look so much better in the evening.  And then, we had dinner at this ramen and gyoza resto wherein they serve...  just one kind of ramen, and gyoza!  Their specialty, apparently.  Not the greatest, but pretty good.  Not so salty ramen.  They had beer and Japanese sake (or rice wine; beer is also sake, actually because sake literally translates to alcoholic beverage.) as well; we had a cup each of sake.  Pretty strong.  And overall, a pretty good dinner: the ambience, the company, the food.  It was a fun evening and it was nice to meet up with fellow Filipinos and chat in Tagalog.  Doc Benny, who probably spent 6 or more years here in Japan for his PhD and associate professorship back in the 80s, still had very good Nihongo.  But he wisely chose when to use it and when not.

So, well, that's it.  Back to the books.  Stay tuned for updates here and there.  God bless, everyone!

Long, long distance

Buzy day today.  Even got to the "office" early.  Anyways, I had Adobong Pork Chop with salad greens and tomatoes for lunch, and...  Salmon, Carrots, and Tomatoes (all grilled) for dinner! :-)  I also played basketball today, losing 2 out of 3 games.  For some reason it was difficult to make a shot today.  Too tired?

Anyways, so I'm in Japan, and Mara, my love, is in the Philippines.  How do we keep in touch????

Thank God for the Internet and 3G phones, there are so many ways to.

First up, there is Skype.  So whenever we're both free (usually most of the week), we make it a point to video chat, usually in the evenings but also sometimes on weekend or holiday daytime.  So that's FREE voice calls, FREE video calls, and FREE messaging (chatting) usually in the evenings.

Before leaving the Philippines, I applied for bill rebates from my Philippines-based cellphone company, Globe.  So I'm paying just around 60% of the usual monthly rate (or around 85% of my usual monthly bill).  That's a little leverage for emergency calls and texts I need to make.

I have roaming on my Globe phone with FREE incoming texts anytime, any day.  Mara texts me there when she's at locations without internet access.  It costs her just the same as when she texts me while I'm in the Philippines.

Then there is Chikka.  FREE outgoing texts to the Philippines, anytime, any day.  Though I think there's a daily limit of 20 or 25 outgoing texts per day.  And, the person you're texting has to reply to your Chikka text at least once.  (It would cost Mara P2.50 for texts to my Chikka account.)  Now, I can only access Chikka where there is internet access - so it's usually at the school, and usually only on weekdays and some weekend/holiday evenings.  Another catch is, sometimes the Chikka service acts up, and so I am not able to send FREE texts.  For emergency purposes, for example if my roaming Globe phone loses connection, Mara can text to my Chikka at a cost though.  Chikka also works as an internet messaging (IM, like YM) service, so Mara can send me FREE messages via Chikka.

Then there is Globe's Muzta service.

Basically if you're on roaming, you pay very expensive charges for outgoing texts (25 pesos per text?), outgoing calls (60 pesos per minute?), and incoming calls (60 pesos per minute?).  So Mara doesn't call me there, except again for emergency purposes.

If Mara instead needs to call me, she calls me on my Muzta instead.  Muzta is a "softphone" - you get a virtual mobile number as if you have a cellphone and as if you're in the Philippines.  The rates to and from Muzta cellphones are the same as those for Globe prepaid phones.  Muzta works like Skype for phone calls.  So it's basically computer software that uses the internet.  Now the problem again is, no internet, no Muzta.  No computer, no Muzta.  The good thing about this though is, it's FREE incoming calls (for me; regular rates for Mara) for as long as my computer is on, my Muzta software is running, and I have an internet connection.  I've had some problems with connecting to Muzta's servers, or making calls sometimes.  Also, if my Muzta is offline, I don't think I can receive texts from Mara even when I go back online already.

Of course, there's e-mail, there's Facebook, and so on.  They're not real-time though, but good enough.  We used to use Yahoo! Messenger, but Skype is just way better for video and voice calls over the internet.

By the way, there's also Jumblo which gives me practically the same rates (very slightly cheaper only) as Muzta for outgoing phone calls (more expensive for outgoing texts though).  The good thing about Jumblo is when you load up, you get FREE calls to certain countries.  Like, with Jumblo I get free calls to any phone in the US, Japan landlines (anywhere in Japan!), and a lot of other countries.  The bad thing though is, you don't have a true phone number, so no incoming calls for you.  You would need to pay extra to get your own phone number.

And, I also have a Japan-based phone, from Softbank.  So it's incoming calls actually from anywhere in the world, anytime, any day.  But it will cost Mara maybe 20 pesos per minute.

So in summary, here's how they compare, somewhat.

1. Mara and me both in the Philippines

incoming texts - Globe - FREE

outgoing texts - Globe - 1 peso per text

incoming calls - Globe - FREE

outgoing calls - Globe - 6.50 pesos per minute

2. Me in Japan, using roaming

incoming texts - Globe - FREE

outgoing texts - Globe - 25 pesos per text

incoming calls - Globe - 60 pesos per minute

outgoing calls - Globe - 60 pesos per minute

3. Me in Japan, using all cheap methods

incoming texts - Globe or Muzta - FREE

outgoing texts - Chikka - FREE

incoming calls - Muzta or Skype - FREE (6.50 pesos per minute for Mara to Muzta)

outgoing calls - Skype - FREE

4. Me in Japan, 2nd choice options

incoming texts - Chikka - FREE (2.50 peso per text for Mara)

outgoing texts - Muzta - 1 peso per text

incoming calls - Softbank - FREE (20 pesos per minute for Mara)

outgoing calls - Muzta or Jumblo - 6.50 pesos per minute

Unless otherwise indicated, the costs for Mara would be the same as in #1.  The #3 set certainly beats the roaming (#2)!  Even #4 is better than #2!