Banyan tree

With the soon to be coming typhoon season - June to November, thought I'd bring back the Banyan Tree out in front of my place that I posted about last year in July after Super Typhoon Man-yi. It's back to normal as you can see from comparing the pixs. Starting to get into the typhoon thinking mode, both at work and at home. Bought myself a crank powered radio for one thing.

Salted eggs

Salted eggs - should be duck eggs but cannot find here in Okinawa. Used extra-large chicken eggs. Put these to pickle 16 Mar so got couple more weeks to go. My mother said 30 days. 4 cups water & 1-1/2 cups kosher salt, boil to dissolve salt, cool, add eggs. After salting, store in refrigerator, hard boil when want to use. For jook & pork hash.

KC-135 over Yomitan

KC-135 tanker flying over Torii Station in Yomitan, taken yesterday. Might have been an aircraft I took at one time or another on leaves to and from Hawai'i. There's a squadron at Kadena AB here. Hard to believe but all the KC-135s in use are ~50 years old! But still relied upon each and every day.

Update on my camera...

Decided to try and get a new battery. Since my camera is 6 years old, figured the lithium-ion battery must be shot, think one of you suggested that. So went looking for a battery, couldn't find in Hawaii. And then places here in Hamby Town, even the Fuji store (camera is a Fuji FinePix 6800Z - top of the line 6~7 years ago) did not have the battery. Asked one of my workers to go look around around where he lives (he's good at it), maybe a small shop would have. And he found it!

Put the battery in to initially charge and after a few times, the functions slowly have come back. Almost all! Primarily the important zoom feature. Camera is still good, though off and on! Pixs of the musubis are by the camera. It was taking a chance, since the battery cost ¥4,500. Now maybe I should invest in another battery, for 5~6 more years. Save $s.

My favorite breakfast

Sake/luncheon meat/egg musubi

Usually eat 2 in the morning that buy on way to work, from neighborhood bento place called Oasisu. The sake is cooked & flaked but I can't tell the seasonings if any. May even be canned. But it is really oishii! I never seem to tire of it. As soon as I take the first bite & taste the sake I just plow through two in less than 10 minutes while going through my e-mail! Okinawa's answer to Hawai'i's Spam musubi for me.

Costs ¥150 ea. Price is up there because of the bad $/¥ rate. Was 99.5¥ today, was 115¥ in Dec. COLA hasn't yet caught up. Those wondering, sha-ke or sake (鮭) = salmon.

Chinese Parsley

Chinese parsley I planted, seeds I brought back from Hawai'i, beginning to sprout. Finally got around to planting a little over a week ago. It'll be a while yet before I get to enjoy.

Update Saturday - Lots more have germinated!

Luncheon meat in Okinawa

When The Tasty Island did the Spam/Tulip/Treet Musubi Showdown! awhile back, wondered what was available here in Okinawa. Forgot I had sneakingly taken these pixs at San A back then. Pix shows 3 shelves of different brands - Tulip, Celebrity, Mayfair, Midland. Pretty amazing. Lots! Spam is on the shelf above that's not in the picture too. Okinawa - land of luncheon meat! Corned beef hash starts on the right and there's a bunch of that too. Popular dish is cooked somen stir-fried with bit of corned beef hash. Mary Kitchen brand even has a recipe on the can.

Miso Shiru

A lunch I had during the week, from an Okinawan shokudo close to my base. Have lot of Okinawan-style bentos ready for lunch crowd in front of place. Folks drive up, double park, get out, buy a bento, get back in car & drive off. But for miso shiru gotta go inside & order. I gotta learn to take pictures of outside of these places!

Very good size bowl miso soup w/ tofu, veggies (looked like choi sum), daikon, a few carrots & pieces of pork. Interesting thing is that the daikon, carrots & greens are cut thin or small, but the tofu is in big chunks. Notice that a lot in Okinawan cooking. Comes w/ rice, piece each of luncheonmeat & takuan. Was hard to finish. Very oishii on cold day! Only ¥400 - real good deal!

Stuffs from Hawaii

Stuffs I brought or sent back here to Okinawa - peidan (century eggs), black moss fungus (fat choy), dried lily buds (gum choy), Chinese mesh strainer, trivets (for steaming), kanpyo (amazing but hard to find here), dried ika, brown slab sugar, dried bean curd sticks (foo jook), dried salted fish (hum nyee), Campbell's Oyster Stew (one of the hardest soups to find), Chinese light shoyu, preserved radish (chung choi) and tubes of tomato & pesto pastes (U.S. stuff but not available here).

Chinese Dried Salted Fish

OK, time to show a "different" food in its uncooked state. This is the dried fish that I eat - hum nyee, usually steamed with pork hash. Chinese folks love this, at least I do. Is the common poor man's food in China, and maybe throughout SE Asia where there are Chinese. Fish that's salted, sun/air dried. Cheap, usually steamed and eaten with rice for a meal. Though bits in fried rice is so tasty too!


As it comes in the package. Says it's "croaker" fish.


Out of the package.


Chopped in pieces. Second piece from left sliced horizontally is the piece on my pork hash from a couple days ago. Other half was steamed when cooking rice for another meal.

Salty, smelly, but oh so tasty!

Teriyaki Fish Bento

Sanma Kabayaki Donburi

This a bento I bought last Sunday. I go food shopping at the commissary on base at 9 AM when it opens. Afterwards on the way home I usually stop at this department store - San A - that has a food section which I always check out. The place opens at 10 AM. They also have a good little section in the market part with fresh fish - sometimes there's weke which I love to steam Chinese-style.

This bento caught my eye so I got it to eat for brunch. A whole side of a fish fillet w/ teriyaki sauce over rice, w/ a small shrimp tempura, half a boiled egg, stir-fried chikina veggies and some beni shoga (pickled ginger). You can see that it was prepared at 9:38 AM. Was still warm! And cost only ¥398! Very cheap! Very oishii! Practically no bones.

Eastern Chinese Food Center 2

Beef tendon stew w/ bok choy over wat min.

One of the best things I ate while home. Chinese-style beef stew cooked with beef tendons. Oh so tasty!

Jook

Jook that I made over the weekend w/ dried beancurd sticks (foo jook), sliced black mushrooms (doong goo) & dried shrimp (hum mai). Condiments include rakkyo, takuan, green onions, salted preserved raddish (chung choi), & century eggs (peidan). Mix some shoyu & sesame oil into the jook, eat a spoonfulful w/ a little bit of different condiments each time and just enjoy! Two bowls then rolled to bed!

Pork Hash w/ Hum Nyee

Steamed pork hash w/ hum nyee I cooked a few days ago. Ground pork has chopped shiitake mushrooms, pieces of ika, flavored w/ oyster sauce, shoyu and sesame oil. With a piece of salted dried fish on top. ONO with rice!

Fukuya Delicatessen 2

My final visit to Fukuya before coming back to Okinawa. Again favorites - shoyu chicken, beef teriyaki, potato hash, nishime, inari sushi, shrimp tempura, namasu & nori maki sushi (~$12.25). Don't have this in Okinawa - Hawaii-style okazu! Really miss it - like right now as I post this!

Ono Seafood

When home, I read The Tasty Island's post on Ono Seafood in Kapahulu and had to try it. Here's a wider picture of the front and what I got - plain ahi poke with just salt, round onion, green onion and ogo. My family each likes to flavor it their own way. I added shoyu, chili flakes and inamona to mine. It was good, good poke - really fresh ahi, made to order. $12/lb. but well worth the price! Also bought inamona to bring back here. Thanks Pomai for the scoop!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Found my first 4-leaf clover of the year last Thursday. Very appropriate time.

Hope you all enjoy the corned beef and cabbage! Or maybe lamb stew! And some green beer of course!

Happy Day Dim Sum

Thing my family likes to do is loaf around on weekend mornings. As part of this, sometimes I go & get takeout dim sum from Happy Day in Kaimukī. Plus it's 25% off from 8:30 to 11 AM! One weekend it was the following:


char siu bao


black bean pork rib pieces, pork hash, & chive/scallop dumplings


taro, fried shrimp & custard tarts

Good deal, tasty & no worries about getting dressed to go out to eat! Just right amount for 3-1/2 people!

Happy Day Seafood Restaurant
3553 Wai'alae Ave.

US$ - JP¥

The US$ is taking a beating over here. Yesterday it was down to 99.03¥ in Tokyo. We buy it at maybe 2 yen lower to pay for our off-base rent and utilities. Rough times!

Yikes!
This morning (17 March) it's 98.87¥/$ in Tokyo!

Yikes again!
At noon today the rate dropped to 96.25¥/$ in Tokyo!

Now it's 97.29¥/$ at 5 PM. Rumor has it that it's going to fall to the low 80s!

And now at 6:30 PM it's 96.89¥/$!

Eastern Chinese Food Center

Roast Duck w/ Look Funn Soup.

What I had for lunch the time I went around Chinatown with Kat. Needless to say it was real ONO! Plenty duck, tasty broth. $6.50 if I remember. So much that I couldn't finish it!

Eastern Chinese Food Center
118 N. King St.

Lam's Garden Restaurant

Roast Duck with Wat Min.

A lunch I had at Lam's Garden, a place across Wai'alae Avenue from Kahala Mall, in the same little complex with Antonio's NY Pizzeria. Have been going there for nearly 20 years - 2 or 3 owners, think the 3rd. now. But the food is still good - Cantonese-style. When it first opened it was more Hong Kong-style.

The roast duck was real good. Dish is duck & choi sum (under the duck) over soft cooked noodles (wat min) & gravy. Can have on cake noodles or soup-style. But like this way.

Lam's Garden Restaurant
4210 Wai'alae Avenue

Zippy's Corned Beef Hash

OK, my favorite breakfast, sometimes w/ rice, sometimes hash browns, this time toast. Depends on how hungry I am. W/ rice & gravy it's a huge meal. Almost always have it w/ sunnyside eggs, though scrambled eggs w/ gravy over is real good too! The "homemade" hash is very good, and the gravy also very good. ~$6 -- I forget.

Note:
I started eating - corned beef hash, eggs & rice w/ gravy over everything - at the Wisteria years and years ago. That was the place to eat it! Also the place to eat local-style Japanese food. Another page in the food history of Hawaii.

Taishoken

For lunch one day I went to Taishoken on Ke'eaumoku St.


Ate my favorite - plain Shoyu Tsukemen (regular $6.75).

Tsukemen-style is where the ramen is served separately from the broth (it is more concentrated than the soup for regular ramen), so dip and slurp each mouthful. This way the ramen stays firmer longer, better to appreciate the ramen. Variety of broths to pick from - shoyu, miso, pirikara (spicy) and curry. Plus additional toppings if desired - memma is good.

Thoroughly enjoyed it! There was a couple slices char siu at the bottom of the dipping broth. Though kinda intense and salty, I finished all of it after finishing the ramen! ONO!

BWS Cafeteria

One place I did eat at a couple times more was the BWS Cafeteria besides the time I went with Kat. My daughter is working at the Legislature during the current session, so if I wanted to use the car I would have to drop her off at the Capitol between 9:30~10 AM. Very close & was just right to go eat a late breakfast or early lunch.

My oxtail soup when I went with Kat - $7.50.

Loco moco - 2 hamburger patties, 1 egg, rice & gravy - $3, 2nd. egg is $.75 additional, coffee is $.40, refill $.10. Hamburger patties are good, but the gravy wasn't.

2 eggs, Spam & toast - $2.75. + coffee.

Teriyaki steak, rice & salad - $5.50 (?). This was really good!

Also tried the cheeseburger deluxe which was cheap & pretty good too! All in all, the place is inexpensive, food is OK, quiet & not crowded - an amazing oasis right in the center of downtown.

Fukuya Delicatessen

One of the first stuff I ate after getting home was my favorites from Fukuya in Mō'ili'ili. There's shrimp tempura, inari sushi, potato hash, shoyu chicken, miso butterfish, vegetable tempura, kinpira and nishime. Also bought a roll of maki sushi. Was stuffed afterward!

Getting back here was difficult. Started to look for AMC flights after two weeks, but that was when the incident occurred and Okinawa was locked down for U.S. military related folks. There were no flights to Okinawa for a week. Flights started appearing that weekend but no seats were available for civilians, just for regular active duty troops. After trying for 6 days (going to Hickam packed and ready to fly) could not get a flight.

Final attempt was last Wednesday when there were two flights scheduled. But when got there it was again troops only. So had to bite the bullet and buy a commercial ticket back here on Thursday, as I was running out of leave. Even then, was pretty lucky to get a seat on JAL (fly them cause a friend gets me a good discount - like 40% off) on Saturday. The 747 had every seat filled!

So Saturday morning I began my 19+ hour journey from home to the airport and a 3 hour wait for the flight, then flying 9 hours to Kansai, waiting there 4 hours for the connection to Naha that took 2 hours, then catching a taxi to retrieve my car that was parked at Kadena AB which took another 1+ hours, and finally getting to my apartment after midnight - Sunday Japan time. Took about an hour to wind down. And had to wake up at 6 AM to go to work.

And I'm still on Hawaii time!

Back in Okinawa!!!

Finally am back after an 18 hour journey! Some new postings to follow.

New twist on Lockdown

To everyone's surprise, the alleged U.S. Marine rapist was released by the Japanese police yesterday! Was announced by the Japan Foreign Ministry that the family of the young victim decided to withdraw the complaint. So Japanese prosecutors in Okinawa released the Marine. A strange situation. Wonder what the real story is.

There's finally going to be a flight to Kadena on Monday. The week long plus absence of flights to Kadena was thought by the AMC agents at the Hickam Terminal to be related to the lockdown there. Maybe the lockdown will be over by the time I get back