Thursday 20 September 2012

A few snaps from the kitchen this month...


A few things I've made recently, with or without company! First comes my attempt at cute Bento Boxes, an adorable tradition/cult among Japanese mothers- essentially it is making art out of a packed lunch! Mine are a little small, but I was assured made up for in cuteness what they lacked in size! Aside from sticky rice I used carrot, cucumber, dried seaweed leaves, spinach and one little kernel of corn.



Oh, hello kitty!




And below are a few snaps from Clara's birthday:

Out to dinner at Wagamama, an Asian fusion restaurant

Yaki-tori, edamame beans, miso soup and dumplings! Yum...


The oreo cake I made for Clara


And here are a few from baking with Katy:


Damson and apple cobbler- somewhere between cake and crumble, and definitely the best of both worlds in taste!


Nutella pastry pockets... not the highlight of the day...


A rather nice salad I made for myself... looks oddly like all the salads I make but oh well

Chinese mooncake I bought in Chinatown, London.

Can't say I was pleasantly surprised to come across these orange things in the middle of my bean paste- turns out they are duck's egg yolks. Needless to say one was enough.

Cuddles at the table :)

InterRailing: Budapest

En route to Budapest on a delightful evening train:


Budapest central train station at around 10pm


Pretending we were rich with the silly big currency

Tesco! In Budapest! Weird.

Entrance to our little hostel, which was a weird little one. We booked last minute and were very much attracted to the centrality (1 minute from the river) and cheapness (something stupid like 8 euros a night) so couldn't really complain; basically the owner had converted his apartment to accommodate 16 people, with four bunk beds crammed into two little rooms. There was a nice computer/living room, an odd bathroom with two shower cubicles and two toilets. Having a kitchen was an added bonus, and saved us the trouble of going out, although what we cooked was a little funky anyway. Aside from some unbelievably loud snoring (causing us to wake up at 7am) and a slightly mysterious room mate, it wasn't all so bad. 


Hiding from snoring room mates in the kitchen- we don't look pretty without sleep!


Day One: A bit of general sightseeing around the city, followed by a little soak in the Rudas thermal baths. I had taken pictures on a disposable of the inside, but the silly developing service didn't bother printing them- perhaps they were too dark (or they were too stupid). The front of the bathhouse was under construction, which meant you had to buy your ticket from what looked like a man in a box in the street, but once you got past the changing rooms it was all normal...or at least unchanged from usual. It was a very relaxing way of experiencing local culture, despite some weird reviews online of the 'men only night', it was perfectly fine. 

The major indoor market, 2 minutes from the hostel.











Old Gellert Baths and Hotel

Park at the bottom of the hill.

Half way up- great view


Climbing trees


The weather starts to look ominous at the top...






Main Cathedral

Second oldest metro in the world if I'm not mistaken...although this car looks pretty new compared to some of the ones we saw...

Monument near the big park

Museum of something or other...



Wrinkly fingers after the thermal baths!

Sunset walking back from the baths.






Unusual spelling of Tesco

Funky vegetable

Result of our shopping trip


Result of our cooking and a little planning of train times in the background...


Day Two:
For some stupid reason I can't get this photo the right way round, but it was a cute comparison of our breakfast bowl size...

Inside the big market: a little disappointing; mostly tourist stuff which I wasn't interested in buying, and most of the stalls were the same.


Downstairs at the market- women putting things into jars

Choosing lunch








Taking the funicular up the hill because our legs hurt, plus it's fun.










My favourite Church of the trip (well, before we got to Zagreb anyway....)







Weird sculptures.



One of the older metro cars.

And onwards to Keszthely!