| How To ...

Thursday, 22 September 2011

How to... Plan a holiday

Follow these 8 steps to help plan your perfect holiday.

1. Choose who you want to go with:

This is important to do early in the planning, as it can influence every aspect of your holiday. If you are going with a group of friends it is important to make all decisions together to make sure everybody gets to do what they want. Taking children will influence almost everything about the holiday, including the budget, and the type of places you go and stay at.

2. Decide on a budget:
A budget is very important to set as it will help determine many things. These include your holiday destination, the types of places that you can stay, as well as the things you will be able to do on your holiday. This also includes transport to and from, as well around your holiday destination, food, entry to theme parks or museums and spending money. Making a list of everything you will be spending money on is a good idea, as it will give you a rough idea of your budget.

3. Choose what you want to do:
The kind of holiday you want to go on will influence your choice of destination. If you want to relax on a beach, you should look at different destinations that are known for their nice beaches. If you want to spend your holiday partying and meeting lots of new people you should choose a destination that allows you to do that, this could be on land or on a boat. If you want to go skiing and enjoy a winter holiday, you should choose a destination that allows you to do so. You should decide what kind of holiday you want to go on before choosing the destination.

4. Choose your destination:
As mentioned before, it is important to decide what kind of holiday you want to go on before choosing the destination.

Some questions to ask yourself when choosing your holiday destination are

- What kind of transport do you need to get there and once you are there, do you need transport and if so is it easy to get/use?

- Does it fit into your budget?

- Does it accommodate for all of your needs?

5. Decide when you want to go:
The date you go away, and how long you are away for will depend on a few things including your budget, work and other commitments, public holidays, school holidays, as well as sporting events, music festivals or other special events. These things could influence the price of hotels and transport, and it is important to take these things into consideration when planning a holiday.

6. Decide where you will stay:

The type on accommodation you choose is dependent on your needs - are you staying with a group of people needing multiple rooms, do you have children and need extra space, do you need wheelchair access, and does it fit into your budget?

7. Choose your flights:

It is a good idea to choose and book flights as early as possible, in order to get the cheapest flights, as well as to guarantee a spot on the plane!

8. Other:

-Do you need to get vaccinated?

-Do you need a passport?

-Do you need a visa/other travel documents?

-Do you need special medication?

9. GO ON YOUR HOLIDAY!!! Have fun, stay safe, take lots of photos and make the most of it!

References: http://www.google.com.au/imgres?q=holiday+destinations&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&rls=com.microsoft:en-au:IE-Address&rlz=1I7TSAU_enAU370AU370&biw=1366&bih=540&tbm=isch&tbnid=d8ptmUlIxTCXKM:&imgrefurl=http://hooo58983.blogspot.com/2010/04/holiday-destinations.html&docid=6zEAU-sloUygCM&w=600&h=600&ei=ttt-To2qEa_qmAWH08WiBQ&zoom=1

Sunday, 18 September 2011

How to... make Kyaraben (Character bento)

In recent years, contemporary Japanese cultures are starting to penetrate the West. We often hear terms such as J-Pop, J-Rock, Kimono, Fire festivals, Cherry blossom viewing, Nitendo DS, Karate, and so on. If you have not know or heard any of these terms, then I’m sure you at least know about Anime and Manga, these are one of the earliest modern Japanese cultures that was introduced to the world and have been very successful indeed! NO!? you haven’t heard of Anime and Manga? Well… How about… “Pokemon?” Come on! Everybody knows Pokemon! :P

Apart from “Pokemon,” another interesting modern Japanese culture is the “Bento culture.” Japan has a tradition of home made bentos, a traditional bento consists of rice, fish or meat, and one or more pickled or cooked vegetables, usually in a box-shaped container. However, today we will be looking at how to make a character bento (Kyaraben), which is a style of elaborately arranged bento which features food decorated to look like people, characters from popular media, animals, and plants. Originally, a decorated bento was intended to interest children in their food and to encourage a wider range of eating habits. It has now evolved to the point where national contests are held.

Ok, enough said, let’s start an easy character bento!

Rilakkuma inari-zushi:

Food you need: 

- Freshly cooked rice: 3 cups of sushi rice. You will need about three Tablespoons of rice for each inari. 

- Inari skins: 4

- Seaweed 

- Cheese singles 

- Ham for Korilakkuma

Useful tools: 

- hole punch

- tweezers

- scissors

[For Rice]

Now it’s time to cook rice! It’s important to cook rice hard, that is, cook rice with less water.

While waiting, prepare vinegar mix:

- White vinegar 3 1/2 tbs

- Sugar 2tbs

- Salt 1 heaping ts

mix the ingredients and set aside.

Then, put freshly cooked rice in a wet bowl, pour about 2/3 of the mixture on the rice, and start mixing rice immediately with a wet spatula with slicing motion, folding the rice over from the bottom, so the vinegar won’t stay at the bottom.

If the rice is not soggy, add the rest of the mixture little by little. If the rice starts to get soggy, stop adding the vinegar.

Ta-da! Now you have sushi rice for sushi!

While cooking rice, you can go ahead and cut the seaweed. It’s so much easier and goes faster when you have the seaweed ready. Use the hole punch for the eyes, and the nose is an eye cut in half. Make sure the seaweed is kept dry until you use it.

[For Rilakkuma]

Put rice inside the inari skin. As you stuff the rice in, make sure you don’t over-stuff the inari skin and rip it. Put the inari on its side with the opening facing you. You can also put it on its side and have the opening facing away from you. Either way is fine, but it will look nicer in a bento box if you put the inari on its side with the opening facing you.