Spain the winner of Euro 2008!

They won the Euro 1964 which was 44 years ago, this is the second tire for them to be the winner. Congratulation!

Final : Spain 1-0 Germany
Semi final : Spain 3-0 Russia
Quarter final : Spain 0(PK4-2)0 Italy

ED70 doesn't work :(

One of the couplers of my ED70 was replaced into American one as it started to work to pull an American rail cleaner car. But suddenly this ED70 seemed to get some troubles and now it does not work right. I overhauled this one.


No wires are disconnected, so I really have no idea what is wrong :( Perhaps I had better take another similar locomotive into pieces to compare! Wonder how it will go though...

Hayaokidori website

Coffee glinder

Nowadays I get a lot of sales advertise for some package coffee which is already glinded by fax or e-mail.

BUT

I believe that the best way to serve some coffee is to glind the coffee and brew it soon before serving some. Maybe using some "package" stuff is a lot easier but tasty stuff needs you more time to prepare. We can get a can coffee with a hundred+ yen through a vending machine but that is not what we provide. Each and every time when customers show up to the breakfast tables, this simple process is repeated in our place. It just takes some minutes to 10 at the longest. Perhaps this is something tiny accommodations can offer :-)

Hayaokidori website

Strawberry 2008

Time for harvesting strawberries! We grow some strawberries but it seems that it might be a bit cold for them to grow here in Hakuba. Never seen any bit ones sold in markets. Strawberries are red but the flowers are white like you see.

Strawberries attract birds with their red fruits, so we put some nets to protect fruits. But the nets are not very small, just need to protect them from birds. Bugs can go through the nets because they are to work for pollination :-)

Making some strawberry jam. Add some sugar and leave them for an hour or so. Water comes out from the strawberries then simmer the pan. Add some lemon juice. That's all, easy isn't it!? Wish the jam itself also looks this beautiful but actually it looks a little bit darker in color.




Icecream, strawberry jam and spare mint. The color combination is like Italian flag. Would like to have it but I am still on my diet to lose some extra weight!!! LOL

Hayaokidori website

JR 383 series train going uphill

JR 383 series limited express train "Shinano" bounds for Nagoya going uphill before Obasute. 383 series train has a pendrium system which enables to run faster at curves. It looks like the train rushes to go there. It does not look so fast because it's a bit steep there - roughly I guess 2% uphill. After the train gets out of a tunnel, finally it gets closer and closer to Obasute.

Hayaokidori website

Inpatience 2008

We started transplanting some inpatience flowers in our garden. They bloom better in the shades rather than under sunshine. When we hang some like this picture, we use lighter sand.

Another shot from a bit further distance. It's a little bit tough to choose flowers if your house is painted in red like our house because many flowers are like red in color but not so many other colors like blue, yellow or white. If we choose red flowers, maybe you can not find them good if they are located just close to our house. And still can not find any favorite flowers which can be in bloom good at the shade in our garden because we left some trees around which make shades. After all, we are to choose inpatience because they bloom in the shade and we like them.

Sometimes we put pots full of red flowers which are the same color of our house in some area full of grasses around for our customers to see from their rooms. They look pretty especially after some rain falls. We make our garden little by little :-)

Hayaokidori website

3 kinds of desserts made from vegitable geratine.

I often cook something from vegitable geratine which we call "Kanten". It's made from sea weed. We can get dried kanten in some shops easily. When you cook something from vegitable geratine, you just put some vegitable geratine in some water then simmer/boil it in some water. Vegitable geratine is one of healthy food, you can use it just like geratine. Maybe I had better inform you that vegitable geratine would never be melt again even if you heat it after you curdle it while normal geratine do.

Plain Kanten with sweet black beans. If you don't add any sugar when you boil kanten, it does not taste at all which is a bit tough to eat lol... So usually we add something sweet. When you add some fruit in this plain kanten with sweet black beans, that is what we call "Mitsumame" here in Japan. Actually this plain kanten with some sweet black beans is my diet menu!!! I eat some of it ( usually 150 grams ) BEFORE I have dinner to avoid eating too much yummy stuff :(

Fruits terrine Gyunyu(milk) kan ( abbreviation for kanten ). We can try any fruits. I've noticed that we have many kinds of fruits which are like yellow in color but not so many in other colors. Peach, pineapple, banana, apple, orange etc are all like yellow but if it's red - maybe strawberry, rasberry etc and if it's green- kiwi? Bananas feel great when they come into my mouth, as grapefruits are a bit sour , it would be outstanding in the gyunyukan, so I think some love it love it very much but others don't love it don't love it very much.

Fruit terrine I made last year. I guess this could be one of bad example in the meaning of combination. Too much fruit in it. If it's too much, it easily gets out of shape when you get it out of a form. I guess maybe that's a good idea to put as much fruits as it does not get out of shape :-)


Mizu Yokan. Made from vegitable geratine, anko ( sweet bean paste ), some water and sugar. Now trying some combinations : how much water , anko , sugar for some vegitable geratines. Mizu Yokan is one of popular sweet thing especially in summer I think because usually we eat them after we cool it very good.
Which one is your favorite?

Hayaokidori website