Kevin Turns Eleven

"Otanjobi omedeou, Kevin!"

How fast time flies.

I know that sounds cliché; anyway a year has passed by since I went over to my senior's place to celebrate his son's birthday. Last weekend, I joined several other friends for Kevin's birthday party at my senior's apartment in Tokyo, a place we can now safely call it our headquarters haha! The reason is because every few months, we will have a makan-makan session there. It could be for a birthday celebration, a festival, or purely just for fun 'coz we are Malaysians and we all know Malaysians loves to eat haha!

The main meal was sekihan (赤飯) with grilled chicken and herbal egg.

Forgotten what is this called, but it's a rice dish with many types of topping such as shrimps, clams, squid, olive, beans.

Salad with colourful capsicums and dried bacon.

Hakata torimon (博多通りもん), a type of manju (饅頭) I got during my trip to Kyushu recently.

 
Sekihan, literally "red rice", is a Japanese traditional dish served on special occasions, such as birthdays, weddings, and holidays throughout the year in Japan. This sticky rice is steamed with azuki beans, which give a reddish or purplish brown colour to the rice, as beans are considered a symbol of good luck and fertility, while red is a symbol of happiness in the Japanese culture. 

It is the Japanese version of pulut kuning which is synonym to Malaysians whenever we celebrate a special occasion.

Kevin receives his birthday present from his Mum.

Priceless expression when he opened his present.

It was a custom-made Butterfly table tennis bat.

Papa and Mama joined him in unpacking the present.

The table tennis bat was a perfect gift for a boy who loves table tennis so much like Kevin. Under the guidance of his Mum a.k.a my senior, who used to represent her college to the national tournament in Japan many years back, I believe one day, Kevin will be a force to be reckoned with. From the stories I have heard from his Mum so far, he is quick in picking up the skills and is improving very fast.

Last year it was a bike, this year a table tennis bat; I wonder what will he get next year.

Posing with his birthday cake. This cheese cake was soooo good that we.just.could.not.stop.from.one.piece.after.another lol!

Making a wish, before blowing the candles away.

Time to cut the cake, using a kitchen knife lol!

As usual, a family photo. I think we gotta be more creative next time because it has always been the same pose every time.

Posing with our cake *hehe*

Kevin must be happy to have so many abang around.

Kevin with his super thick quiz book pressie from Yow Keong.

A sweater from Gap by Amy.

Football boots and socks from Andrew and me.

The theme of his birthday presents this year is none other than sports. He got two soccer balls, a basketball, a table tennis bat, football boots, among others. Andrew almost bought him his third soccer ball, and luckily I got to tell Andrew on time not to get another ball for Kevin.

I exchanged text messages with Andrew when he went to shop for the birthday gift, while at the same time, I got those important information from his Mum, like shoe size and favourite colour.

Sekihan mixed with plain rice and grilled chicken for dinner.

Chicken soup. It was simple, yet it tasted good!

Macaroni and cheese, topped with shrimps and spices. This was really good!

Everyone enjoying their dinner.

Kevin reading the card made by Andrew, while playing to his rubric cube from James.

Happy 11th Birthday, Kevin!

P/S: ママ、パパ，ケヴィン、そしてみんな、ずっと応援してくれてありがとう。

Narita Yume Bokujo

The signboard showing the direction of the final stop of our second tour of Chiba Kun Ambassadors.

Narita Yume Bokujo  (成田ゆめ牧場) or Narita Dream Dairy Farm is a tourist ranch located in Narita city of Chiba prefecture. It is one of the most successful ranches in Japan which put a strong emphasise that they would try to create as many possibilities as possible for the visitors to do in the nature, rather than investing millions in cash to build expensive facilities. 

People might be impressed by gorgeous facilities and they would usually think it is enough to see them once. However, pleasant experiences can keep visitors to return to the ranch times and times again.

The map of the farm, which is close to 30,000 square meters, about seven times the size of Tokyo Dome.

This signboard reads, "Welcome to Narita Yume Bokujo. Our friends are all waiting for you!"

Introducing the twin kids - Joseph (black) and Jonathan (brown), both born on the ninth of May this year.

As usual, the 21 Chiba Kun Ambassadors have a group photo in front of the entrance of the farm (photo credit: Ishizaki Masataka).

Here in this farm, visitors can enjoy various activities such as milking cow and making ice-cream, which can be experienced on a daily basis. In addition, there are also various amusement facilities and space where farm animals, such as goats, rabbits and hamsters are set loose for the kids to "communicate" with them haha!

Visitors can also enjoy camping and barbecue, play archery and field athletics, catching fish carps or hop onto a horse ride, making this ranch a perfect place for an enjoyable group or family outing. For campers, all necessary equipments for camping are available including tents, electricity, freshly baked morning bread and sauna. There are even special facilities for partner dogs of ranch visitors such as dog run field and dog café.

"Milking School" is where visitors can try to milk the cows.

Can you see the fresh milk being squeezed out from the cow's nipples.

Our visit here was to experience making the blueberry jam and butter.

Each of us were given an option, either to make blueberry jam or butter. I chose the former. Well, more than three-quarter of us preferred to make the jam actually, probably because it sounds more challenging and interesting at the same time. At least, that was what I thought.

There are different times for the making of jam and butter. The group who was gonna make the blueberry jam went ahead first, while the rest went to wander and explore the farm.

Here are the tools and ingredients needed for making the blueberry jam.

First you need some fresh blueberries. Each of us were given 160 grams of blueberries, although I must admit they don't look blue at all.

Then, you use a pair of wooden chopsticks to smash the berries until they are, well, smashed haha!

By the way, camwhoring is not included in the process of making the jam lol!

Then, cook the berries on medium fire until bubbles appear from the mixture. Three spoonfuls of sugar are then added into the pot (photo credit: Ishizaki Masataka).

After about ten minutes, the jam is done.

Freshly made blueberry jam.

The jam is left to cold for several minutes, before being transferred into a small glass bottle (photo credit: Ishizaki Masataka).



Blueberry jam with no preservative, which can last for about one week.

Who would have thought making jam is this simple.

After we were done with our jam, the other group, who was gonna make butter took their place and started to milk the cows to get the milk for making the butter. Just a few quick facts about cow and milk. A female cow usually produces about 25 liters of milk a day. The Finnish are known to be the biggest consumer of cow's milk, about five times the amount of milk the Japanese drink.

Making butter is all about shaking, shaking and shaking the butter fat inside a bottle (photo credit: Ishizaki Masataka).

Enjoying their freshly made butter with some biscuits (photo credit: Ishizaki Masataka).

Besides jam and butter, this place also offer visitors the chance to make ice cream, cowboy bread, cookies, fresh caramel, strawberry milk muffin and many more, mostly using the milk produced at the farm.

During the time the other group was making their butter, we wandered around the farm. There is this place called Furen Zoo (ふれん Zoo), where the kids can play with the sheep, goats and many other animals. There is also a duck race held at a special course in this space.

A colourful board greets the visitors at the entrance of Furen Zoo.

Animal feeding are sold at 100 yen per cup for visitors to feed the sheep.

However, bringing in the feeding inside is a no-no because those sheep will turn quite aggressive that they will jump onto the visitors, trying to bite on the grass haha!

The sheep and goats have a special posture when they are feeding on their food.

I am not very sure what the black goat was doing; I'll leave it to you to use your own imagination haha!

Domesticated ducks. The race for them is held twice a day in this plaza.

Some piglets are found here as well.

There is also a course for horse riding. 



It was so hard for us to get this pony to stand still and pose for a photo haha!

For little kids, they might opt for a ride on a pony instead. Momoji the pony, shares the same birthday with me haha!

|| INFORMATION ||

Opening hours: 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (last entry at 4:00 p.m.); 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. (weekdays of Dec, Jan, Feb)
Closed: Tuesdays (Dec, Jan, Feb, except the last Tuesday of Dec and the first Tuesday of Jan)
Admission: 1,200 yen (adults, junior high school and above), 700 yen (children above 3-year-old), free (children under 3-year-old). There is special discount for groups.
Address: 730, Nagi, Narita-shi, Chiba Prefecture, 289-0111 Japan.
Tel: 0476-96-1001    Fax: 0476-96-1055
Website: http://www.yumebokujo.com/
Access: Car: 20 minutes from Narita IC on Higashi-Kanto Expressway; Free shuttle bus: 10 minutes from Namegawa Stn. on JR Narita Line