Thank you for being with me in the last 8 years of my blogging life.  I probably won’t be updating this anymore, so please do not forget to update your link to the new blog. Let’s continue the fun over at www.lahijadelsol.com, shall we?

PS: I love you, Masha!

In the CM that aired starting February of this year, Fukuyama plays the part of a man who lived 100 years before the current time. In this new CM, he moves forward 100 years into the future, where he meets his great-great-grandson (Hamada). The CM features the DSX-2 Dunlop studless winter tire.

Dunlop “Time Travel Future” airs nationwide in Japan on Aug 26. – Translated for and by www.Japinoy.com. Please credit/link back. Yoroshiku. ^_^

Granddaddy Masha meets Hamada-kun

This version does not use any meat, so cooking time is cut in half. The quail eggs and vegetables are substantial enough, and nutritious too!

Ingredients: (makes 3 servings)
15 pieces quail eggs, boiled and peeled
3 small carrots, peeled and cut into cubes
3-4 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into cubes
1 medium onion, sliced
1 square Japanese curry roux (I used number 3, but you can go spicier if you want) – 1 box contains 2 squares

Let’s get cooking!

1. Saute onions, carrots and potatoes in 1 tbsp cooking oil for about 8-10 minutes.
2. Add water to cover. Simmer until the vegetables are tender but not mushy.
3. Take 1 square of curry roux. Roughly chop the roux before dropping into the pan. This is so they will melt easier. Stir gently. Add more roux if you want.
4. Add quail eggs and bring to a boil, making sure that you do not have any clumps of roux.
5. Serve hot with rice.

Chop the roux into smaller pieces then gently stir to melt.

Tips:
1. Curry keeps well in the fridge but do not put in the freezer. Potatoes and eggs taste nasty when frozen.
2. Other vegetables you can use are broccoli, cauliflower and baby corn. These do not have very strong flavours that will make your curry taste odd.
3. If using meat, make sure you scoop out the scum that floats to the top of the water on step 2. This tastes yucky and you don’t want this in your food.
4. Add fukujinzuke on the side if you have it. This otsukemono (sort of like the Philippines’ atchara) is curry’s best partner.
5. Keep unused curry roux covered in the fridge.
Enjoy cooking and eating your vegetable curry!

♥キャット =^_^=

Now, I am craving for curry just by looking at this!

This is the cover page of our Pahiyas album — it was really simple and I love how the colours turned out.

Pahiyas cover page

I was happy to have dug up this bamboo cardstock from Die Cuts with a View (DCWV). It gave my page a very native “pista sa nayon” feel. The skeleton leaves mimic the kiping decorations that the Pahiyas is known for. I uploaded this to Flickr and put notes on the different brands I used to create this page. http://www.flickr.com/photos/catchan/6044392977/in/photostream

♥キャット =^_^=

I made a simple birthday card for her – this is honestly the FIRST time I am sending a fan letter to a favourite Japanese celebrity! That is how much I adore her. Anyway, I hope she will like this (and I hope she can read my messy scrawl).

The star diecut and buttons are from All About Scrapbooking, striped paper from My Momenta, rick rack from Craft World, and letter stickers from EK Success.

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Shiseido The Skincare Hyro Nourishing Softener

I have to admit that since I wrote about my experience with Saeki- sensei’s lotion mask, I was on and off with the routine, especially since work became extremely busy.

But now, no matter how stressed and tired I am at night, I make it a point to make myself a lotion mask. Most of the time, I leave it on longer than the recommended 3 minutes. My skin simply loves it and I can clearly see beautiful results. I do notice a difference on the days I didn’t make a mask.

Throughout the months, I have even gotten better with my mask. It doesn’t look as ratty as the first pic I posted before. Haha. Also, after finishing my Kanebo Impress lotion, I experimented with other brands. I rotate my lotions every week too. Here is my current lotion army:

1. Shiseido The Skincare Hydro-Nourishing Softener – This is almost as expensive as Kanebo at P2950 but so much better. When used as is, it does the job of moisturizing well. But when used with a lotion mask, it is way better! I love that my skin feels like a baby’s butt after. Haha. I am looking forward to trying the lotion from the White Lucent line too.

2. Shiseido Hadasui (pink and blue) – For some reason, this didn’t do much for me. My skin did not feel any difference at all. So I now use it as an after-shower splash and as a face mist.

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This is to show how big a fan I am of Fukuyama Masaharu. Even my hopia bears his Kanji. Part of it, anyway.

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How are these ubiquitous decorations made? It is a very laborious and time-consuming process. Because of this, kiping is made months ahead of the actual celebration, in anticipation for the demand from locals who want to participate in the contest. According to Wiki Pilipinas:

The preparation of kiping starts with the collection of mature leaves which will serve as molds. Leaves like kabal, kape, talisay (umbrella tree), kakaw (cocoa), antipolo and banana (saba). Mature leaves are used in order to be able to use them three times or more.

Laon rice is used in the production of kiping to prevent unnecessary cracking of the rice wafer. The rice is soaked for two hours, then ground with water until it turns pasty. For every ganta of rice, at least three packets of food coloring and about 1/2 teaspoon of rock salt is used.

The rice paste is spread on each leaf and steamed for at least 30 minutes. After steaming, each leaf is dried until ready for peeling. After peeling them off the leaves, the kipings are piled on top of each other and compressed by placing a weight on top for half a day.

Wow! Laborious indeed. But all that effort is well worth it in the end, when you see how beautiful and elaborate the decorations are, and how happy the people are at seeing these colourful creations.

Kiping is not only beautiful, but edible too. You can grill them over charcoal or fry in a bit of oil. At the Pahiyas, some sidewalk stalls sell ready-to-eat kiping in paper cups. I saw several people walking while munching on colorful kiping bits, sort of like potato chips Unfortunately, I was always full (Nanay is to blame for that, haha!) so I didn’t buy any.

When I go back there next year, I will definitely bring home some of these colorful kiping as souvenirs to my friends.

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Celebrated annually on the 15th of May, this festival is held in honour of San Isidro Labrador for a bountiful harvest. Every year, locals compete for prizes by adorning their houses with extremely colourful and elaborate decorations made of kiping (rice starch sheets), fruits and vegetables.

Love the happy colours!

We arrived in Lucban quite early on Saturday and caught many people busy with their decorations. By Saturday afternoon, the streets were beginning to get crowded with visitors gawking at the houses. By the following morning, the day of judging, the crowds already tripled in size! The throngs moved at a snail’s pace as people jostled to get the best positions to take pictures. In fact, my feet got stepped on at least 5 times and I stepped on someone else’s by roughly the same number of times. Quits lang.

I could not help but be awed at the range of designs the people came up with. Aside from the usual kiping flowers and chandeliers (arangya), they also used things like rice stalks, coconut husks, tomatoes, banana leaves and peppers.

This house on the corner of Lopez Jaena and Cadelina Streets is definitely my favourite. It is just exploding with wild colours. The straw man and the chickens were a brilliant touch, IMHO. Later in the day, they also put in live turkeys under the chicken coop but I was unable to take pictures because of the crowd. This house took the 1st runner up prize of P50,000 and Gawad Gintong Butil (Golden Grain) award of P10,000. It also won another P20,000 (top prize for best lighting) for the night judging — the houses were judged on the beauty of their illumination.

My favourite house

Straw Man and his chickens

My 2nd favourite is also on Cadelina Street. It wasn’t as colorful as the 1st. But what I really loved is the artificial waterfalls. Water is made to flow along transparent sheet plastic, simulating a waterfall while keeping everything else dry (especially the wooden San Isidro standee in the middle). Unfortunately, it didn’t get any award.

San Isidro and waterfalls - great idea!

The Grand Prize Winner!

So which house bagged the P65,000 grand prize? This one literally made my jaw drop. The details of the design was simply astounding. Rows of tomatoes covered one wall, bunches of suman covered another, while rice stalks and grass covered everything else. Their humongous kiping chandeliers that hang from the 3rd floor almost reached down to the first floor.

I wonder how many kilos of tomatoes they bought to decorate the house

Mini Lucban Church and Mt. Banahaw behind

In front of the house, the erected a replica of St. Louis Church (aka Lucban Church) using native materials. Behind the church is Mt. Banahaw made of grass.

I am sure that the total cost to decorate the house went way beyond P65,ooo. But as I discovered at Lucban, money is hardly an issue. People love their festival and they really go all out to celebrate…and what a way to celebrate!

These are just some of my favourite shots of the festival, and more to be uploaded to my Flickr album. Enjoy!  

My favourite chandelier in all of Lucban!

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