Good reading books when you live in japan

I found two interesting books, one about food buying in japan, and the other one about kids in Japan.

A Guide to Food Buying in Japan by Carolyn R. Krouse
I recommend this book to foreigners who care about what they eat. This book has a lot of information about the food available in Japan with the japanese names and how to read them. The books axplains also how to read the labels on food. This is really a good reference for muslims living in Japan.









Japan for Kids: The Ultimate Guide for Parents and Their Children by Diane Wiltshire and Jeanne Huey.

This is also a good reference for parents mainly if you live around Tokyo. The book contains many useful addresses.

Description
Every year, thousands of families visit or relocate to Japan. Fourteen years ago, Jeanne Huey and Diane Wiltshire made the crossing. Five children and six years later they wrote the first complete guide to entertaining and raising children in this fascinating but often baffling land. Now, eight years on they offer a fully updated version, with hundreds of new additions on:

• AMUSEMENTS festivals, theme parks, cultural centers, zoos, aquariums
• OUTINGS museums, beaches, parks, playgrounds, gardens
• TRAVEL TIPS moving, coping with jet lag, getting around town, day trips
• SHOPPING where to buy anything, from food to fashions to futons
• HEALTH CARE dentists and doctors, pregnancy and childbirth, medical emergencies
• EDUCATION daycare, international schools, the Japanese system, bilingualism
• ACTIVITIES talent agencies, sports, Japanese traditions, and extracurricular classes
• MAIL ORDER listings, catalogs, and the Internet...and much, much more Compact yet bulging with priceless information and hundreds of tips, the new Japan for Kids is essential reading for families heading for or living in this part of the Far East. From planetariums to petting zoos, educational materials to interactive museums, this handy reference book remains indispensable-a guide that no parent can go without.

Topvalue/Bestprice shokupan

I have already written a post about Bestprice bread by Topvalue to say that all the ingredients of this bread are from plants except of course milk. Now, I deleted it and replaced it with this post.

I received an email from a muslim sister living in Japan telling me that Topvalue uses margarine containing pork fat in the trays of the bread for baking.

A sister living in Gifu asked Topvalue, they said that there are many factories of Topvalue in Japan, each one uses its own ingredients. If you want to be sure about the ingredients of the bread and the type of margarine used for the trays, you need to call the topvalue factory in your area.


At the end, the factory in the area of Gifu uses only margarine containing ingredients from plants in the tray and no animal ingredients in the bread except milk.

One of my friends who can speak Japanese called the factory in Tsukuba and asked them about the margarine used in the trays. We live in Tsukuba. The company said that margarine containing pork fat is used in the trays of the bread for baking.


This is the list of the ingredients of Bestprice bread by Topvalue in japanese, as you can see, there is no information about the type of margarine used in the trays for baking:

小麦粉、砂糖混合ぶどう糖果糖液糖、マーガリン（大豆を含む）、イースト、食塩、砂糖、脱脂粉乳、発酵種（乳成分を含む）、乳化剤（乳成分を含む）、酢酸Ｎａ、イーストフード（小麦を含む）、香料（乳成分を含む）、ビタミンＣ、カロテノイド色素

Hiroshima marks 64th A-bomb anniversary

I was just watching NHK news on tv, they were talking about Hiroshima atomic bomb since today it is its 64 th anniversary. Old persons who witnessed Hiroshima atomic bomb were crying.
During the ceremony, a list of nearly 264,000 victims, as well as survivors who died this past year, was put into a cenotaph at the city's Peace Memorial Park. The participants observed a minute of silence at 8:15 AM, the time the bomb was dropped.

Many persons living far (arround 15 km) from were the bombing took place have cancer or some abnormalities in their chromosomes. Within 20 to 30 minutes after the bombing, a heavy black rain began falling in areas to the northwest. This rain contained large amounts of radioactive soot and dust, thus contaminating areas far from the hypocenter. People drunk water and ate vegetables from their gardens after the bombing, they did not know that every thing is contaminated.

I wish to see our world free from nuclear weapons and wars.
This is a documentary about Hiroshima atomic bomb.

Coop, a convenient way to have grocery delivered to your home

Coop (or Co-op) is a Japanese Consumer Co-operative, the largest consumer union in Japan. For more information, this is their website in english: http://jccu.coop/eng/

This is a list of all coops in japan:

• コープとうきょう (tokyo)
  
• さいたまコープ (saitama)
  
• ちばコープ (chiba)
  
• いばらきコープ (ibaraki)
  
• とちぎコープ (tochigi)
  
• コープながの (nagano)
  
• コープぐんま (gunma)
  
• コープにいがた (niigata)
  
• コープネット事業連合 (official website of coop)
  

After you enter the coop website of where you live, click on Co-op Deli link to go to the online shop website.
This is coop of niigata: http://niigata.coopnet.or.jp/index.php
Ibaraki coop: http://ibaraki.coopnet.or.jp/

You need first to join coop by registering using their website(in japanese): https://f.coopnet.or.jp/webapp/form/11881_zor_7/index.do?ref=9

Then a person will call you to take an appointment with you (japanese only). The person will come to your house and give you some papers to fill in, you need to give them your bank account number.

Once a week you can make an order (bread, butter roll and anything else you need), the items will be delivered to you the next week. Each week they will give you the catalog containing what they are selling and the order form. Each item in the catalog has a number, to order write the number of the desired item (for example the number of the butter rolls) on the order form with the quantity (how many do you want to take) and give it to the person of Coop the next week he will come to your house.

The shipping fees are not exceeding 200 yen. If you have a child under 3years old, the shipment will be free of charge.

Oishii shokupan by Seven eleven (おいしい食パン）

It is sold at Seven Eleven convenience stores.
This bread contains margarine. Some of my friends (we live in Tsukuba) asked about the margarine, it is from plants. But each factory of bread of 7/11 uses its own ingredients. To be sure you need to call 7/11 factory bread in your area.

Homemade flan

If you miss your favorite flan because you cannot find Halal flan in Japan, you can make it at home. The recipe is very easy and the result is almost similar to the flan you can find in shops.

The recipe:
400 ml warm milk (the milk has already been boiled)
1 egg yolk
3 (or as you want) table spoon of sugar
4 table spoon of cocoa powder (or use halal vanilla if you want )
1 tea spoon agar-agar

Mix every thing together, put in a saucepan on a medium heat. Keep stiring until you see the mixture rising. Remove from heat. Pour into individual ramquins and put them in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

That is all!!!

Fares and time table of Japanese trains

Salam, I am back again.

It is summer, time for trips. If you are planning to take trains, there is a very useful website called Hyperdia which is a search engine that allows you to do specific point-to-point rail searches for travel in Japan. It covers virtually all train services in Japan. It allows you to know, for each course proposed, the time required, the distance (km) and the total amount of money.

The english version : http://www.hyperdia.com/cgi-english/hyperWeb.cgi

The japanese version : http://www.hyperdia.com

Have a nice trip!