There are many great places where you can donate to Japan’s Kumamoto Earthquake relief fund, including Yahoo Japan and Japanese Red Cross.
I donated through an organization called AAR Japan (Association for Aid and Relief, Japan). It’s a silly reason but I chose this organization because of its donation site’s ease of use. You don’t need to create an account and the entire process took me less than 3 minutes.
Go to http://www.aarjapan.gr.jp/
Click on the red “English” button on the upper right hand corner.
1. Enter the donation amount (in dollars)
2. Assign a destination. Type in “Kumamoto Earthquake.”
3. Hit the “Donate” button. You will be directed to a PayPal site … and voila! You’re done!
If you need any assistance with translating something from Japanese to English, or vice versa, please feel free to leave a comment on this post. I would love to help where I can!
Thank you for your generosity, as we come together to help those in need.
It’s not a myth but a fact that the majority of Japanese women (living in Japan, that is) are thin. Living in Japan and experiencing the way they live for two weeks, I figured out how they manage to maintain their svelte physique. I even lost three pounds doing it, although I probably gained it all back in the last two days … shucks. They eat three, small, nutritiously balanced meals regularly every day and walk everywhere. I think they strive to eat at least 30 different types of food daily. That’s all. These are few of the wisdoms I picked up in Japan.
My mother and I were off to Kyoto for a much-needed relaxation. The last few days in Chiba required us to take care of some business and fulfill family obligation so we were definitely looking forward to spending the stress-free week in the cultural and culinary capitol of Japan. We stayed at my other aunt and uncle’s house (my mother’s sister), located in the middle of all the historical action of the city. It was very strange to walk on the streets of Kyoto and find Seven Eleven sitting right next to a 1,000-year-old castle!
My mother, my aunt and I stopped at a tea shop and enjoyed a real matcha tea at Kinkakuji. Unlike the green tea Frappacino many of us are accustomed to, the traditional kind is very rich and bitter which is why it is usually enjoyed with a small piece of Japanese sweet. It was a perfect place to enjoy the scenery (people-watching in Japan is so much fun!) and rest our tired feet from walking around the temple.
One thing I was most looking forward to on this trip to Japan was to finally visit the Chinese restaurant my uncle owns in Tokyo called, “
I spent the last two weeks in Japan with my mother (the best travel partner ever, by the way), eating great food and having a blast. It was intended as a “satogaeri” trip (which translates to “returning home”) but it felt more like a full-blown vacation for me, with opportunities to visit all the touristy places one would see in travel guides.
They were very kind and fed us very well during our stay, taking us to great places, like this stylish tempura restaurant in Matusdo. (By the way, what you see in the above picture is not a sushi bar but a tempura counter where a chef deep-fries all great things imaginable in front of the hungry patrons!)
We enjoyed tempura shrimps, crabs, assorted seasonal vegetables, fugu (puffy fish!) accompanied by dashi-based dipping sauce or just lemon and salt (my boyfriend only eats tempura this way), finishing up the meal with tempura anago bowl (saltwater eel) with a side of delicious miso soup.
And speaking of being well fed, they even took us to a noodle shop for lunch and I ate soba that was cooked to perfection. I ordered the cold buckwheat noodle bowl with tororo imo (grated mountain potato), raw egg and crab meat.
Lavender and OliVE 