Kina

http://www.aftenposten.no/kul_und/article4026317.ece

Emirates airline. Where flying is luxury!!

http://www.youtube.com/user/homer3152

Check this channel and become jealous:P

A year worth of Japanese food

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WYvsuuzqWY

 Check out this funny video!

Sushi for dummies.

So I was really hungry after some sushi some days ago, and went to Mitsu kafe at Møllergata to get some. Now, I know Mitsu kafe is alittle bit shabby, small and their service is bad, but their sushi is no deal real stuff. Because I'm a big sushi lover I ordered sushi meny large (see pictures). Now the menu is more than enough for two persons, so what I did was to eat it for both lunch and dinne ^_^ I have to explain alittle about this menu. What I got was a combination of two things, nigiri sushi and maki. Nigiri sushi are the ones with rice under it and the filling on top, while maki is the round ones with the fillings inside.

Soy sauce for sushi is called ''shoyu'' while the pickled ginger (the stuff on the left of the soy container) is called ''gari''. You're suppose to eat ''gari'' between each sushi piece to clean your palete and to fully enjoy the next piece. When going to a authentic Japanese sushi-ya (sushi restaurant) you'll also get a cup of green tea called ''agari'' and often also a warm towel to wash your hands. Do not use it extendedly to wash your face thought :) Also, the wrapping around the maki sushi is called nori (dried seaweed, also used in miso soup and gunkan maki, hand-wrapped sushi).

Oh, another thing, if you're luckily enough to go to Japan and eat sushi there, you'll never find one thing on the menu (and then you should know the restaurant is authentic) and that's the sushi type called  ''California roll''. This sushi was invented for the West, but it's never recognized as ''authentic'' sushi because it has crab stick and avocado as two of the main ingredients (ingredients which the Japanese have neved used in their sushi).

Now for the fillings.... When eating sushi and maki it's very important that you try different types of fish and seafood, both red and white fish even thought it looks weird to some of you. But you're most likely to encounter salmon, tuna, ama ebi (sweet shrimps), Unagi (Freshwater eel), Ikura (salmon roe), soft shell crab,  sardine, Aji (Japanese jack mackerel). There are also vegetarian sushi types such as tamago sushi (egg sushi).

Futhermore, beside sushi we also have sashimi which are thin slices of raw fish often presented in a very colourful and artistic way. This is also to be recommended.

I hope people found this interesting, so please any comments/questions are welcomed in the ''comment field'' below.

Ekiben, real train-station food

Another interesting (hopefully) topic today!!

Remember I told you guys about Japanese bento (lunch boxes)? Well, the Japanese have another type of bento which is called ''ekiben''　(駅弁当), which is ''rail station lunch boxes''....(Eki means ''station'' in Japanese). Look at it as a kind of sub-genre of the bento culture.

Well. these ''Ekiben'' are commonly sold by/at trainstations, or sometimes on the trains as well, and each station often has its own unique kind ekiben's with local specialities and often VERY colourful, creative, funny and pretty box wrappings. The containers are also very colourful ranging from wood, plastic to ceramic(god knows how the Japanese thought of disposing all these garbage). The price is not bad either (from what I have seen anything from 800-1200 yen at the most), so it's ok. I wonder if I'll be able to try this out when I go to Japan:)

Japanese sources: 
http://ekibento.jp/ ---> Japanese guy who have been collecting ekiben wrappers!!
 http://www.youtube.com/user/sparro009  ---> Youtube videos courtesy made by a native Japanese (??) showing different types of ekiben's.


English sources:
http://www.japantoday.com/category/lifestyle/view/no-train-trip-would-be-complete-without-an-ekiben-boxed-lunch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekiben
http://felixcheung.spaces.live.com/blog/ --->English blog about Japanese food (have some posts on ekiben's)