Australia Trip. Day 1 - 2

We are back in Tokyo from our wonderful 10 day trip to Australia. Although, slightly more tired then we left. Motozo and I never seem to learn and cram a bit too much into our holidays. Or perhaps the over night flight took more out of us then we expected and it carried over throughout the trip. With dark circles under our eyes, we reminisce of our fabulous holiday with loads and loads of pictures! I'm planning to break it up into 2 day posts rather then combine all the photos into one album. I think its more fun to to see photos with a little story behind it.

Many hugs and kisses to my dear sister Lilia for hosting us at her place! Maxim, thanks for adjusting the TV for the sports channel probably more times then you'd have liked and special thanks to Amelie for being her perfect happy self. I miss my little niece to bits already!
We did a lot in the few days there, but the best thing for me was spending time with my sister and having long talks together. I wish you lived closer!

Going back to day 1. Lots of waiting and sitting on our butts. Motozo eagerly waiting for the bus to the airport.

Getting a little impatient. Waiting at the airport to board our plane. There's pros and cons for an overnight flight. But basically plane rides are kind of rough for me. I hardly sleep and food is absolutely horrible. I packed myself fruits, nuts etc, but upon arriving in Syd I had to promptly throw them away before going through customs because of Aus's strict rules. I was very sad to depart from my bag of dates.

The dates were soon forgotten after arriving at my sisters and greeted by her husband Maxim and their adorable and beautiful child Amelie! Words can not describe how lovely she is!

Volki, was not too happy with our visit which meant he was banned from our room downstairs due to my cat allergies and the poor dear seems to have some stomach issue that has him vomiting randomly.The handsome cat was bit on the thin side and did not seem himself at all. Age must be taking a toll on him. I hope he gets better soon!

Aw, too sweet! You can see where Amelie gets her eyes. Despite being really tired, I felt revived after seeing my sister and Amelie that we ended up talking for a few hours outside on their veranda before taking a nap. Amelie is not too sure about me yet, but she warmed up soon enough.

After waking up from my nap we went grocery shopping and I ooed and ahhed at all the things that are non existent in Japan.We loaded up on tons of fruits (a whole box of mango's and cherries), veggies, and other goodies.

Dinner was delicious and simple. I don't remember exactly, but I'm sure dinner was followed by cherries and mango's.

Day 2: Woke up really late at 12pm! I guess were still on Japan time which would be 10AM. I felt I could have slept longer, but the sun was calling me out for a run. I ran around their block 7xs which was almost exactly 1k and finished up 3k on a treadmill in the air conditioned gym. It felt great to exercise and I finally felt like my semi normal self.

Motozo wanted to go to the beach so we packed ourselves in the over sized van that we rented and drove to Manly Beach.

Beautiful beach with a nice shaded sea walk to walk on. Motozo was in beach heaven, but food was on our minds. We went to a nice sea food restaurant with out door seating.

I had bruschetta and a salad that wasn't special enough to photograph, but I was satisfied.

Moto and his prawns.

 Lil and Max's sea food platter. This thing was huge!

With tummy's full we went down to the beach. Moto tested out the water and wasn't too sure how wet he wanted to get.

Time to take couple photos.

We took a nice walk and rewarded ourselves with ice-cream. It was a pleasant day! Perfect weather with a nice cool breeze and lovely company. 

And that's a very simple and brief description of our first 2 days. I must brave the cold now and get a run in. How funny that just a few days ago I was running outside in shorts and sleeveless shirts. I now need to bundle up to stay warm.
Stay tuned for day 3-4.

Holiday To Australia

My bags are packed and I'm ready to go to Australia!
YAY! I'm too excited! Were visiting my sister and her family in Australia for the next 10 days!
Starting off first in Sydney then going down to Melbourne to watch the Australian Open TENNIS! woohoo!
I'm looking forward to warm/hot air, meeting my sister, her husband, and most of all my niece Amelie! Hopefully, I'll still be able to get in a few quality runs, but I'm guessing we'll be doing more photo taking, picnics, long talks with sis, and some beach lounging. I can't wait!

It'll most likely be dead silent around here until I come back and upload photos.

In other news, I'm teaching a new yoga class from tomorrow morning! Every Thursday morning now I'll have another class. As much as I love teaching Yoga for Runners, I'm really looking forward to teaching a higher level class. I'm planning a grounding practice tomorrow with lots of balancing postures.

Things I hope to accomplish before our 8PM flight tomorrow.

• Teach an awesome yoga class.
• Get in at least a 10k run. Or some sort of exercise other then the morning yoga.
• Either juice all my greens or make a HUGE smoothie so no greens go to waste.
• Make sure I get to hubby's office by 3:30pm 

Once I meet hubby and were on the airport bus, I can relax and my holiday starts :-).

Now I must do a little prep for my class tomorrow and go to bed at a reasonable hour.

See you all in 2 weeks or so.

Much love.

Homemade Raw Almond Butter

I did it! I made raw almond butter! I did some research on the easiest way to make it and I decided I'm not going to add any sweetener or oil etc. I'm just going to keep it simple for my first attempt at making almond butter.
It was SO easy! Required some patience standing in the kitchen for 20mins working my food processor till it got hot and tired. But it worked and I now have fabulous almond butter that I'm madly in love with!

This is definetely my favorite way to eat almonds now.

Before I get into the whole butter making process I wanted to show the awesome Engrish on my almond bag. Hehe, that got me laughing anyway.

Lets get started. All I needed was my food processor and something to scrap down the sides with.
Dumped a cup of almonds into the processor and admired its pure raw form. Seriously, toasted salted nuts are TOTALLY different from raw. Although I still eat toasted/salted nuts, I'm starting to prefer them raw.

Time to get processing. I have to press the lid down to get it moving. Its a bit of a pain. One day I'll buy them fancy Cuisine processors. But for now, this little guy is serving me just fine!

Step one. Process almonds to a powder. I was only slightly tempted to abandon the butter and instead make cookies with my almond flour. I'm glad I continued with the butter.

After 5 minutes, things started looking promising! Things are clumping together! 

Even better! Occasionally, I stopped to scrap down the sides.

At this point, my processor is fogging up and the sides are very warm. But magic happens! I have a smooth paste baby! 

 

Just a couple more minutes to get it as smooth as possible. It was SO worth spending 20mins over! 

YAY! About 3/4 cups worth. It should last me for a couple of days. 

Getting super snap happy here.The photos do not do the real color of the butter justice! Its a lighter brown shade

I could not wait to test it out. Perfect with apples! The butter itself is a little bitter because I didn't add anything, but its perfect with a sweet fruit.  This has been my go-to snack for the pass 2 days! I'm definitely going to making this regularly. Way cheaper then buying store bought almond butter and something about making my own makes me feel very accomplished!

Ooo, now I'm thinking.....cashew butter, walnut butter, macadamia butter....:)

Breakfast Toppings & Raw Cookies

Today I decided to jazz up my green smoothie! I wanted a little crunch/chew, but I also wanted my greens. Easy! Pour my drink in a bowl, add some fun toppings, and enjoy with a spoon.

Organic corn flakes (don't shoot! I know corn flakes are considered empty calories, but at least they are organic and sugar free), unsweetened coconut shreds, and cacao nibs.

YUM, YUM, and oh, so fun! I loved eating breakfast with a spoon. I know I'll be doing this regularly. Oo, my mind is buzzing with topping ideas!

I realized a few days ago that I haven't made a raw dessert in sometime. I have raw almonds in my cupboards that magically have gone untouched for over a month. This is amazing people! I'm more likely to eat nuts by the handful then wait to use it in a recipe. Something about almonds though....lately I haven't been so excited about them.  I find them a little too hard on the jaw. Maybe I should blame it on all these smoothies that are giving me no jaw exercise. Should I be concerned that only 2-3 almonds is enough to make my jaw tired?

Anyway, it was time I used them. Whats a jaw friendly way to eat almonds? Processed almonds to a fine powder and make into cookies :). Oh, yeah!
These were the best raw almond cookies I've made up until now! Coconut oil and cinnamon makes everything taste good. EVERYTHING!

I should have waited to take photos in the morning to get natural light, but I couldn't wait to dig into these as soon as they hardened, so kitchen lightening will have to suffice.

I admit, I went a little over board with the coconut oil. It ended up being a bit of waste as the oil was oozing out of the dough while I was forming the cookies. I squeezed some oil out because almonds are oily as is, but the coconut oil makes everything harden beautifully in the fridge! Oh, and did I mention it also makes everything taste good?

Ingredients 

• 1 cup raw almonds
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/4 cup shredded coconut
• 1 heaping tsp cinnamon
• 1 tbsp agave syrup
• 2 tbsp melted coconut oil (I'd make these again with only 1 or 3/4 tbsp)
• dash of salt

 Processed the first 3 ingredients in a food processor until everything was very fine. Had to stop and scrap down the sides occasionally.  I wanted my almonds pretty smooth so I processed for a couple of minutes. Added the rest of the ingredients and process to mix. It could have easily been mixed by hand as well. I tested the "dough" by pinching it with my fingers. I know its ready when it sticks together.
Formed into misshapen cookies. I actually wanted balls, but that wasn't working out for me and I was too impatient to let it sit in the fridge for a couple of minutes to harden.
After forming cookies, I placed them into the freezer for around 30mins while we ate dinner. I transferred the cookies to the fridge as they were already pretty hard at this point.

MMMM........cinnamon almond coconut cookies. DIVINE! I loved the taste the raisins gave off without being overly sweet.  My next challenge is to use the rest of my almonds to make almond butter!

Wish me luck!

New Years Recap

 Five days after New Years I finally decide its about time I get around to blogging about what we did. I had some trouble uploading photos and I'm feeling mighty lazy these days, so sorry the photos are pretty crap.

For New Years Eve a friend invited Moto and I to celebrate at their house, followed by a countdown at Shibuya crossing. For the occasion I baked some sweet potato biscuits and made a huge salad. The biscuits turned out more cookie like, but there wasn't a crumb left at the end of the evening, so I'm presuming everyone enjoyed them. :)

There were about 20+  people at Mary's place and after dinner we piled into her living room with our beverages of choice and started a game of.....I have no idea what the game is called.

Sticky paper is plastered on everyone's forehead and you have to guess who you are. Bob Dylan took forever to figure out who he was! He came so close to guessing right and then suddenly he'd choose a another musicians name that started with a B & D. It was hilarious! I am absolutely the worse person at this game! I'm terrible at remembering celebrities names and for some reason I always get someone I'm not familiar with. I got Speed Racer and I still have no idea who Speedy is? Anyone care to explain? You can tell I didn't grow up watching a lot of TV.

After a couple hours of that, it was time to go to Shibuya. We made it just in time before 12AM, but there was no countdown. Instead we ran across Shibuya Scramble each time the light turned green. You'd get about 2 meters before you're smack stuck between thousands of people who are also running across the street for no other reason than just to run across the street. When the lights turn red the police frantically start blowing their whistles ordering everyone to go back to the sidewalks. It was fun, dangerous, and crazy!

Tons of police buses and more then a couple of arrests were made. One guy was dressed only in a speedo and the police took him away for not being properly dressed. ha.

Moto's awesome photography skills after beer and champagne!  There were a lot of people so photo taking was pretty challenging with or without alcohol. After we got tired of running into crowds of people we made our way to a bar. I was too tired to do much photo taking, but I enjoyed my half priced drinks and made our way home around 2:30AM. Exhausted! I some how managed to wake up early the next morning for a run and yoga. A good way to detox and start the year fresh that's for sure!

Sunday morning I was ready to take it easy! Grabbed a simple breakfast and parked myself infront of the TV to watch Hakone Ekiden.

The absolutely best way to start the New Years in my opinon - watch people run on TV for 6 hours straight! Oh, for 2 days as well. Monday morning Motozo and I did the same thing.

It was a very interesting race between Waseda and Toyo. Waseda, the team I was rooting for, won in the end. YAY! The last time Waseda won was 13 years ago, so I was very happy for them!

By the way, for the runners in Japan. If you're ever up in Hakone, go visit the Hakone Ekiden Museum!

Happy New Year - 2011!

Happy New Year Everyone!

I started January 1st doing my 2 favorite things. Run & Yoga! Well, of course! A couple of my yoga students joined me for an easy hour run, followed by a New Year yoga class. It was fabulous! Tokyo is so quiet and peaceful during the new year. The one time of the year where Tokyo's streets are empty of cars and people.

I couldn't have asked for a better day! After teaching yoga Motozo and I watched 24, The Wire, & Dexter on TV for a couple of hours. The New Year specials on TV is worth getting bruised butt cheeks for.

I'll give a full update on our New Years Eve craziness (maybe only mildly crazy), but now I have to get back to watching Hakone Ekiden on TV. Every year during New Years we watch Hakone Ekiden which is a 2 day road relay race starting from Tokyo - Hakone the 1st day. The 2nd day is back to Tokyo from Hakone.  Its 6 hours of watching people run on TV. I LOVE LOVE IT! The only time of year I let myself watch tv for 6 hours straight. Its always worth it :-) 

2010 Recap and 2011 Goals.

OMG, its almost 2011! This year really flew and a lot has happened. This post will be a diary of sort for myself to reminisce on the past and gather my thoughts on what I'd like to accomplish in 2011.
I'm not big on New Year resolutions. I think resolutions can and should be made any time of year, but its nice to get an idea of what I'd like to achieve now and make tweaks throughout the year.

Not long a go I stumbled across a To Do List that I made for myself before getting married. I think I made it immediately after getting engaged and I promptly forgot about it. But I was surprised that I subconsciously accomplished almost everything I wrote on that list in 1.5 years.

My list:

• Study Japanese. (check! studied full time for 6 long months!)

• Get a marathon PB. (check! I improved my last marathon time by 11mins!)

• Improve my diet. (check! at that time I had a major sweet tooth and I'm proud to say, I don't have one any more!) I'm eating way more variety of fruits and vegetables and the credit goes to getting into raw foods and committing to a vegan diet. I've been vegetarian for 11 years, and vegan off and on for 2 years. I'm now more then certain that a vegan diet fits me far better then vegetarian. 

• Stop procrastinating. (humm....still working on this one)

• Find my "happy weight" which basically means a weight that is sustainable, that I feel comfortable in, and most importantly doesn't make me feel deprived. (check! I lost 3kilos this year without feeling deprived AT ALL and have more energy then ever!)

• Strength train 2-3 times a week. (check! I don't do major weight training, but I do body weight exercises along with yoga and running and I have to say it REALLY made a huge difference in my body! At first I could hardly do 5 regular push ups, I now can do 20 regular push up easily and finally have definition that running and yoga was not giving me. I still want to be stronger, but I made a huge progress here! My running and yoga has also improved greatly and I honestly think it has to do with building a stronger body muscularly.)

• Get over my fear of swimming in the ocean. (failed! My fear is only worse now, ha.)

• Teach yoga regularly. (Check! I've been teaching yoga now for over a year and absolutely love it! Next year I may get a little busier in the teaching department and I'm so excited!) 

I had some other goals, but they weren't really all that realistic, but they still will stay on the list as a reminder of where I want to be in the next 5 years from now.

Other changes and accomplishments this year:

• Became an Aunt to 2 beautiful girls! I have 1 nephew and 2 nieces now. Thank you Joey, Jesse, and Lilia for bringing joy and unbelievable cuteness in my life!

• Made awesome friends through running, yoga, school, and through hubby. It amazes me how life style choices affect who comes into your life. I feel lucky I have friends who share the same interests as I.

•  Completed Oxfam Trailwalker 100k hike for the 2nd time and had a total blast! It was raining, snowing, freezing and horribly muddy, but a wonderful experience! 

• 10k PB (5 minute improvement) without even trying to get one. :) This year I decided I wanted to take a break from heavy racing as the pressure to train was only making me stressed and miserable. Last year running was not fun at all! I was clocking in 80-90k a week, I felt in wonderful shape, but I dreaded every single run and developed 2 injuries. Plantar fasciitis and almost a stress fracture. Even though it was SO hard not to run, I focused on yoga and body weight exercises for 3 long months until my injuries recovered. When I started running again I was determined to find that love for running and most importantly a balance. I learned that my body functions better with short/fast runs rather then long/slow runs. I'm only clocking in 50-70k a week now, but my runs are a lot more efficient (speed baby speed!). At some point I want to get back into racing, but until then I'm pretty happy being a serious casual runner. I've accepted that I'm a short distance to semi-long distance runner. My strength is definitely in the 5-10k distance and half marathon. But for full marathons, I think I'm still not mentally mature to deal with the amount of training required. 

• Got more creative in the kitchen. Earlier this year I was in a major food rut. I'd prepare food the exact same way over and over. So I made a goal for myself to try out 1 new recipe a week.  By branching out and trying new things I found a new love for my kitchen and in the process, introduced a whole variety of foods into my diet. Although I'm FAR from being a good cook, I think I have improved and it has made me a healthier eater. I can't wait to continue experimenting in the kitchen come 2011! 

This is getting a little long, so I'll wrap things up with some goals for 2011.

•  Continue improving my Japanese.
• Work on my horrible procrastination problem.
• Study more yoga (possibly get another certificate) EXCITING! :-)
• Care less what people think and try to be less opinionated myself.
• Find more ways to be more environmentally friendly.
• Spend less time on the computer. 
• Complete my current studies so I can start studying for my drivers license. (yeah, still don't have it.)
• Improve my photography skills. (All in the hope for my food to look yummier! Hehe)
• Mark my siblings birthdays (its hard to remember all 11!) in the calendar and SEND PRESENTS! (I've been horrible this year. So sorry my dear family!)
• God knows what will happened in 2011, but I know my life will change drastically! Some important things in my life will have be sacrificed and a lot will be out of my control. My goal is to embrace the change and be the best person I can be through it all.

And that folks sums it up. I'm sure there's more that I just can't think of right now, but I think that list is pretty good at the mo. I'm excited for the new year! Are you?!

Since no blog post is complete, in my opinion, without photos, here's some photos of our honeymoon. A year ago Motozo and I were in the Maldives during x-mas and New Year. I look back at the photos now and I wish I was back there! Ah, sweet sweet memories that make me smile.

Our water bungalow. 

Every day view coming out of our bungalow.

Can we make it!

 

Yay, we made it!

 Happy in paradise!