What I had for breakfast/lunch/dinner...

After almost 45 days in Japan, I've eaten quite a variety of food.. and I must say Japanese sure knows ways of making lives easily and hassle free. Add to that, there is no compromising of quality and taste to these convenient food!

The easiest and most hassle free breakfast is bread.. And boy, am I spoiled for choices.. Other than the usual ham/sausage in bread, red bean paste, custard, cream, cheese fillings and sandwiches with egg mayo, ham, cheese, they have their own creations.. like sandwich with fried mee!! And their choices of beverages is limitless.. Sometimes I' m spoiled for choice.. Energy water, vitamin water, spring water, mineral water, milk tea, espresso, latte, cocoa, juices, green tea, etc... There are more than 30+ brands of green tea.. But most of them cost at least 110 yen per bottle of 300-500ml, so it's not that cheap either.. Every few days, I will buy some orange juices and some other drinks.. :P Cos it will really be a waste if I do not try every single one of those drinks.. hahahaha...


If I don't eat bread, I will eat cereal instead.. Maybe because Japanese have not cultivate the habit of eating cereal, the choices of cereal in smaller supermarket is very limited, not more than 3 brands.. So I had to buy those that are not so healthy, like Frostie, which I would not normally eat. The fresh milk here is quite good too.. The prices for both cereal and milk is about 10-20% more than in Singapore.. but consider the fact that almost everything is expensive, these 2 things are one of the few healthier and cheaper choices for breakfast..

For lunch, I will most probably have bento. I have to have lunch in school for 3 of 6 days per week, as I have classes until 2:30pm on those days. So the easiest and fastest way is to buy a bento and eat it in the class. Nowadays, almost all my Japanese class's classmates do the same.. There are many vendors selling bentos around campus. The bento cost between 300 to 500 yen, quite reasonable... Usually in those bentos, there will be rice, some meat (chicken,pork or fish), some salad (like cabbages, lettuce, etc), a little bit of kimchi and few strains of noodles. Sometimes, they are warm, sometimes they are cold..


For dinner, I would either have bento from the convenient stores or instant noodles.. And really, even the instant noodles (those that only require hot water) is tasty.. hahaha.. The bento from the convenient stores requires reheating, which can be done in the store itself, or I will heat it up in the common kitchen at my dormitory.. Depending on the prices, the bento can have a pretty good spread.. Of course, compare them to those sold in the University, these bento look more mass-produced..

There are many brands of instant noodles, some of them is cheap, around 110yen, while some are more pricey, with prices up to 300yen for one.. Again, I must commend on the ingenuity of the Japanese for coming out with different ways of preparing these instant cup noodles..


Although there are both dry and soupy instant cup noodles, but right now, I'm crazy over their dry cup noodles.. Usually, I will make a trip to the nearby 99yen shop, which is about 20min's walk away and stock up my cupboard with these instant cup noodles and other makan stuff.. There are so many different flavours to choose from.. and they managed to devise a way to get rid of the hot water without the need of sophisticated tools..


There is lots of instructions on the instant cup noodles to tell the user how to go about preparing it.. Here, the cup noodle has a portion with these little holes to drain the water away, and voila! the noodle is dried... So clever...


All you need to do next is to put in all the seasonings that came with it.. There is always some tiny bits of dried vegetables among the packets of seasonings.. And seriously, Japanese really have a thing with cabbage.. Almost every dry instant cup noodles have dried cabbage...

So at least for now, these instant cup noodles will be my dinner most of the nights.. Until I have to mood to cook.. :P