Homemade Tofu Planting Pot
By thomas | May 8, 2008
Recently married Jason of j2fi sent this hack in a long time ago, and I think its about time I posted it up, since its a great idea. You know those little plastic containers that tofu comes in (the kind you can use to make a badass soap dish)? The ones that look like this:
Well, they have another use. In Jason’s words:
These containers are also great in the early spring to get a head start on gardening. Just dump some dirt in there, plant a seed, and by the time the weather is warm enough to plant, you have a seedling growing healthy and strong :)
I tried it out with some parsley seeds and check it out!
They look like they are ready to transplant! Herbs can be expensive to buy in Japan, so you can save some bucks by planting your own. Growing plants will also give you a good way to put that old rice compost you’ve been making to use. And what’s more, you get to eat some delicious tofu to start off your project!
Thanks (long overdue!) for the tip Jason, and congratulations on your marriage!
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Topics: Japan Hacks | 6 Comments »
Put Your Veggie Scraps To Good Use: Compost
By thomas | April 15, 2008
Fresh herbs are expensive in Japan. Can we spice up our cooking on the cheap? Yes! Reader kk sends in a 2-part tip that can save you cash and has the nice side-effect of putting your trash to good use:
- Grow your own herbs
- Use your food trash for compost
In kk’s words:
I grow my own fresh herbs since the herb selection at most markets here is dismal and expensive for fresh. I also grow cherry tomatoes and zucchinis sometimes on my balcony.
Anyway, a perfect use for your old rice and scraps from your veggies and meals is compost! Much better for your plants than the fertilizer they sell in the store. I have two buckets I use for this purpose. You will initially have to put a little dirt in your first bucket. Then start adding the food. Shake up the bucket every time you add new food. Eventually you will start putting food in your second bucket so the first can fully compost. Then you have a constant rotating stock of compost.
If you have coworkers that garden at all, you can give them compost too. Most will love it because from my understanding homemade compost isn’t a common practice in Japan.
What a great way to use all your old akebi peels, hassaku pith and old rice. Thanks kk!
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Topics: Japanese Food | 3 Comments »
Get Cheap Stuff At The Recycle Shop
By thomas | April 13, 2008
Do you like Japanese stuff? Do you like to get it for cheap? If so, you are in luck! Ryan Coffey of www.movetonanaimo.com writes in with a great tip about how to get used (and not-so-used) stuff for very cheap: Recycle Shops. Here’s the scoop:
I like your site. You is be way kewl.
I’m surprised though that you haven’t put a post up yet of the best hack of all. (That I know of anyway.) And that would be the “recycle shop” or in usual English the 2nd hand stores. I mean, in Japan, no one is really interested in buying stuff that isn’t new. So the whities who know this hack can get their stuff super super cheap if they know where a good 2nd hand shop is there and they have an eye for quality. I used to buy my omiyage there for my friends back home. But that was just the beginning of it. My home was filled with furniture, dishes, kitchen goods, appliances and so on that I got for stupidly cheap at the 2nd hand store, most of which was almost like new or at least worked fine. Even now that I live back in Canada, I still do much of my shopping in those stores and bring the stuff back to Canada. I just had sukiyaki tonight in a nice iron sukiyaki nabe that I bought in January. The thing had never been used and my guess is that if I bought it new at a regular store it would have been at least 6000 en, but I only paid 800 since it had sat in a box for 20 years or so. Not like it matters. It’s great quality and mint condition. I had to peel stickers off of it to use it even.
The caveat is that you can’t sell the stuff back to them in the end though when you leave Japan. They actually charge you to give them the stuff so they can sell it. And as it’s still cheaper than throwing the stuff out/getting it recycled, it remains the best option. This is one of those things you can only understand if you’ve lived in Japan for quite a few years. It’s also something that, if it doesn’t make you really angry, you’ve been there WAY too long and it’s time to go home!
Great tip! You’ve convinced me to seek out second-hand stores where I live (Himeji). For anyone else wanting to do the same, a google search for リサイクルショップ plus your city name would be a good place to start.
Thanks Ryan!
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Topics: Japan Hacks | 7 Comments »
Back From Vacation
By thomas | April 10, 2008
I don’t know if anyone noticed, but I’ve been gone for a couple weeks. I used two weeks of vacation time and took my family to the States. It was the first time for my side of the family to meet our son Noah. Here are some pictures:
Noah and his cousins (+mommy. PS, if you are Japanese and visit the States, wear some toe socks and everybody will think they’re awesome):
Noah and his crazy uncles (+daddy):
Noah sleeps in a bed for the first time:
And to make our Japanese-style vacation complete, here’s a picture of some food! Swedish meatballs. Oishisou.
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Topics: Site News | 3 Comments »
Thai Food: Finding Ingredients in Japan
By thomas | March 19, 2008
I’m not a great cook, but I do enjoy cooking. Thai food is among my favorite varieties of food, so when I do get around to cooking often I will make Thai food. But oh no, where am I to find lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, galanga, coconut cream and little Thai peppers in Japan? The local grocery store doesn’t have them. If I’m lucky an import store might stock them, but chances are they won’t have everything I need. I wish there was a place to order Thai ingredients (especially hard-to-find produce) online so that it will be delivered to my house. Oh wait, there is!
Thai Food In Japan
This list isn’t heavily researched. I haven’t made purchases from all of these stores, so I can’t compare them as far as service goes. But it should give you a starting point. If you want to find Thai ingredients in Japan, here are some options you can try (in random order):
- Allied Thai: I found this label on packages at the local import store and went to check out their site. They have a big selection and everything is broken up nicely into categories so it’s easy to navigate. The products tend to be on the pricey side. I advice you price check with some of the other sites listed. http://www.allied-thai.co.jp/shop/index.html
- Asia Superstore: Big selection and plenty of (low quality) pictures. If you don’t know the Japanese/Thai name of the ingredient you are looking for, a picture can be most helpful. Also pretty cheap. You can get your Thai produce here! http://www.asia-superstore.com/00contents/03.html
- Thai Market Store: Selection is not that big, but cheaper than Allied Thai. They have plenty of recipes on the site, which might be useful to you for both cooking and Japanese study. http://www.thai-market.co.jp/SHOP/69591/list.html
- Isara Store: Big selection, cheap and beautiful pictures of the food. They also put their sales up at the top! 120 yen for a can of coconut milk is pretty good! 168 yen nampla. Are you kidding me? This might be the best out of the bunch. http://www.isarastore.com/
- Asia Foods Ltd: No pictures, but prices are reasonable and it has an easy interface. http://www1.neweb.ne.jp/wa/asiafoods/orderform.htm
You can also try Kaldi
Thai Restaurants In Japan
If you don’t feel like cooking you can always dine in. Search for Thai restaurants here:
Do you know of any other places to grab Thai ingredients in Japan? How about some other variety of food? I’d love to make a series of similar posts on how to find Mexican food, Indian food, Swedish food, etc. Post your favorite import food links in the comments!
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Topics: Ethnic Food | 8 Comments »
Use Your Potto For Quick Veggies
By thomas | March 12, 2008
In a comment to my last tip about using your potto to reduce your wait time for boiling water, helpful reader Pouncy gives this tip:
I use it for thawing frozen veggies in a flash. No cooking, just soak in hot water for about 30 seconds and drain for wonderful peas and corn. It makes really quick oatmeal and al dente instant ramen, too!
What a great idea! Pull your frozen corn out of the freezer, put some in a bowl, pour 90 degree water from your potto, wait thirty seconds and you’re done! It’s easy enough to make a snack of it.
Do you have any denki potto tips? Kitchen tips in general? Drop a comment!
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Topics: In The Home | No Comments »
Use Your “Potto” For Pasta
By thomas | March 4, 2008
Do you have a potto? No, not the tailless ape. I mean a denki potto (電気ポット). A denki potto is a hot water machine. People use it to make coffee and tea. We keep one plugged in at our house to make baby formula, cocoa and tea. It’s very convenient.
Another use for the potto is when you are making pasta, soup or any other food that requires a large quantity of boiling water. Instead of pouring water from your sink and waiting 10 minutes to get it to boil, pour water from your potto! You’ll have a pan full of boiling water in a very short time. Our denki potto keeps the water at 90 degrees Celsius. That’s not far from boiling!
If you don’t own a denki potto, you can buy one pretty cheap. A low-end one costs about 4000 yen.
Do you have any denki potto tricks? Let me know in the comments.
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Topics: In The Home | 13 Comments »
How To Find Shoes That Fit You In Japan
By thomas | February 18, 2008
My shoe size in Japan is 30 cm. Not many people in Japan have feet that big, so stores tend to not stock my size. I could go to ten different stores and it is possible that not one of them would have a pair of size 30 shoes. Even if they did, the chances that they would have my size in a style I like is slim.
Oh no! What do I do? Am I going to have to import shoes from abroad?
It turns out that this problem isn’t so difficult to get around. Here are the steps you need to take to get shoes your size in Japan:
- Go to a big store, like Sports Authority. This trick won’t work with a hole-in-the-wall “Takeshi’s Shoes”.
- Find a style of shoe you like and do a quick search to see if they have your size.
- Find a clerk and point to the shoe you want and tell them what size you want it in.
- Wait for the clerk to search and come up empty handed.
- REQUEST THAT THEY ORDER YOUR SIZE FROM ANOTHER STORE.
That’s really all it takes. They will ask you to fill out a little form with your name, shoe size and phone number. Then they will order your shoes for you from another store and call you back a few days later. I do this every time I need new shoes. I usually shop at Sports Authority since there is one near my house, but I also used this trick to get hiking shoes from Mont Bell. Any big retail store that has several locations in Japan should be able to hook you up.
The Japanese word for ordering something from another store is toriyoseru (取り寄せる： とりよせる). So If you wanted to get size 30cm shoes, you’d bring your shoe to the clerk and say:
３０センチのくつを取り寄せてもらえますか。
sanjuu senchi no kutsu o toriyosete moraemasu ka?trans: Can you order these shoes in a size 30 for me?
That’s it! A few days later you will have your shoes!
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Topics: Japan Hacks | 20 Comments »
Find A Job In Japan
By thomas | February 14, 2008
Hello all. Just a quick post to let you know that I’ve added a job board thing to the site. You should see it on the right under the RSS subscribe buttons and the “submit a hack” section. The job openings are provided by joblet.jp. If you happen to see a job you’d like to apply for, just click through and from there it’s pretty straightforward. Here’s an example job listing:
Desktop Support
- Contract Type
- Full-time
- Salary
- Over 5 Million Yen Per Year
- Benefits
- Negotiable
- Hours
- Full Time
- Location
- Tokyo
- Qualifications
Business Level English
Business Level Japanese
- Last Updated
- 2008-02-14
5,000,000 yen per year? Not bad for those qualifications! They’ve got a lot of great jobs available, so keep an eye on the right sidebar.
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Topics: Site News | 2 Comments »
TheFlyingPig.com: Costco Shipped To Your Door
By thomas | February 11, 2008
Many people have sent in a tip about theflyingpig.com, so it’s about time I did a little write-up on this great service in Japan. I really don’t know what took me so long! I should have written about them much much earlier than now.
Here is a little about TheFlyingPig.com in their own words:
About TheFlyingPig.com
Reasonable prices on imported groceries and general merchandise in Japan? When pigs fly! But that was before Costco Wholesale opened its doors here. Afterwards, there were only two problems left: not everyone can get to a Costco warehouse very easily, and Internet ordering isn’t available. In a nutshell, TheFlyingPig.Com was launched to overcome these issues. (Please note that TheFlyingPig.Com is an independent entity, and is not owned or controlled by Costco.)
In other words, if you don’t have a Costco near you, you can order through TheFlyingPig.Com and they will go to Costco and hook you up. They are highly recommended by many many foreigners living in Japan, so give them a shot. They have a nice selection of cheese too!
Have you used theflyingpig.com before? Tell about your experiences in the comments!
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Topics: Japanese Services | 7 Comments »
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