Yasu Highlights

For those of you that don’t know, Yasu was my upstairs neighbour when I lived in rural Japan. However, we never actually spoke to each other  – I didn’t know she existed, and she was too shy to approach me – you know, scary foreigner alert. The day Yasu moved out of our tiny apartment complex, she left a letter on my doorstep:

Ms Anisa
I am Yasuko from upstairs.
I wanted to always talk with you.
But I will move on April 30 to next village.
The new address is Nishiawakura village.
If you don’t mind, could you hang out with me sometime?
I am really bad at English, but I hope we could be good friends.

And the rest is history. During my last six months in Japan, Yasu and I became inseparable. And when I eventually moved to the city, she came to visit me. Recently, Yasu spent 10 days in New Zealand. Here are the highlights:

Here I am stealing S’s car for our upcoming roadies.

Hotel Anisa.


Castle Hill desu.

Akaroa desu.


Yasu hugely appreciated NZ cheese!

This scenery reminded us a little of our old home in Higashiawakura (see below).


Another day, another picnic, Hanmer Springs Desu.
Yasu 2.0 coming soon…

Hashtag It’s Not Gelato: Utopia Ice Is Back In Sumner

Mandy, Sebastian, (and we can’t forget Levin!)’s astonishingly good ice-cream (not gelato) is back in Sumner. Except this time, it’s housed in the most dreamiest location ever. At 15 Wakefield Avenue you’ll find a tranquil courtyard filled with happiness. Happiness being a large wooden swing chair, flamingo cushions, strawberry plants, Belgian waffles (yes, real Belgian waffles), of course ice-cream, and much more! With 16 ever-changing flavours to choose from, Cantabrians, this is the place to spend our ever glorious upcoming summer days.

Before you ask, my favourite is dark chocolate, coconut, and cacao nibs (gf, df, V) so see you there!

Hours:
Monday: Closed
Tuesday: 11 to 6
Wednesday: 11 to 6
Thursday: 11 to 6
Friday: 11 to 9
Saturday: 11 to 9
Sunday: 11 to 6

Ask Yourself Kindly: What Do You Need?

I have started doing things a little differently and so far my tummy feels very light and happy. If you’ve talked to me about my eating habits, you’ll know that I don’t like to label them. This is because I personally find living life, gladdening hearts, and making memories just as important as saving the planet and being healthy. What I’m trying to say is, if my new Japanese friend invites me over with utmost glee and sits me down with a big plate of lovingly homemade pork yakitori, well, I’m not going to break her heart and request broccoli. Anyways, I have finally started listening to the digestion experts by eating fruit first thing, on an empty stomach, in the morning. This has something to do with fruit often “rotting” in the stomach and thus causing poor-digestion and stomach-bloating. So, I eat my little bowl of fruit… I wait 15 to 20 minutes then I eat my muesli. Now, to complicate things even further… I’ve gone gluten-free. Of course, becoming gluten-free isn’t for everybody but as I said, so far, my tummy feels very light and happy. Surprisingly, it’s been very easy. Almost everywhere have gluten-free options and at home, all I’ve had to change is my bread and muesli. Bread I bought from the supermarket – super easy. And muesli, I swapped the oats in my homemade recipe to buckwheat puffs. So I dry toast nuts, seeds, honey, coconut oil and cinnamon in a frying pan and once cool, mix with dried fruit and buckwheat puffs (basically popcorn for breakfast – can’t complain). Next I want to try quinoa puffs and buckwheat groats. I will keep you updated anyhow.

While you work from an office… (hehe).
Vanilla bean and gooseberries with rye crumble, blueberry, Greek yoghurt and mint and cherry, plum and Earl Grey, strawberry and rhubarb, coconut and passionfruit, coconut and dark chocolate. Mandy you a Genius! #UtopiaIce

Sea salt caramel and popcorn ice-cream. Heaven is real and it comes in a tub. Save me.

Easy snack idea for the 19 Day Bahai Feast – though I had trouble sticking the feta through the bamboo sticks without them falling apart so my momma suggested I end with the feta by simply pricking it a teeny tiny bit only. 
Physical feasting on snacks generously brought by friends after some serious soul-food! In the words of Abdu’l-Bahá, “My heart is in a constant state of thanksgiving.”

This Is How You Get Unstuck: You Reach.

“You are the finest, loveliest, tenderest, and most beautiful person I have ever known—and even that is an understatement.” (F. Scott Fitzgerald) Friends, I find nothing more romantic than these letters. I could easily quote these lovers for the remainder of this post but I’ll resist. A side note: often when I take such photos of my breakfast and things on this decaying picnic table in our backyard, my tootsies make an appearance forcing me to impatiently start over, this time standing in the most awkwardly unnatural position so as to hide them. 
Speaking of F. Scott and Zelda, four months ago, I had the absolute pleasure of visiting Hotel Belle Rives where the couple stayed in the year 1925. Unable to speak French and unaware of Antibes’ transportation systems, I decided to walk there from my accommodation. An hour later, I arrived sweaty and in my gym gear. To my surprise, I was welcomed by the gentleman porter with such hospitality as if I were Zelda herself!  This left me speechless. In a dream-like state, I walked around the bar, snapped a couple pictures and vowed to return again before my stay in Antibes was over.

Once back at my accommodation, I emailed the General Manager, expressing my gratitude to the incredibly hospitable porter. He, Lucas, replied by inviting me and a friend back for coffee, croissants and a private tour of the establishment. I don’t know if it was the ambience or what, but here Anita’s mom and I drank the best coffee we’ve ever drank ever.

The photo above and the photo below are of the views from the hotel’s best room (unbelievably dare in the summer). Lovely Lucas said I could honeymoon there on mate’s rates. I wonder if he’d also cover my plane ticket? (hehe).

Back to reality (below) which is pretty darn good with no room for complaints: I helped and will continue to help for the long weekend, my beautiful friend Mandy sell her handmade ice-cream and sorbets. It was a dream job and nothing less.


Some beetroot salad and avocado before eating sorry I mean selling ice-cream. 
“All these soft, warm nights going to waste when I ought to be lying in your arms under the moon – the dearest arms in all the world – darling arms that I love so to feel around me – How much longer – before they’ll be there to stay? When I get home again, you’ll certainly have a most awful time ever moving me one inch from you -”

Sea salt caramel and popcorn, vanilla bean, blueberry, mint, Greek yoghurt and cherry compote, peach and lemon sorbet (vegan), rhubarb and strawberry sorbet (vegan), coconut keffir raspberry (vegan), coconut and dark chocolate (vegan). 
Bliss.#UtopiaIce

Our Japanese Guests’ Day Two

On day two we went to Akaroa and it was such a nice day and such a fun time that it turned out to be our guests’t highlight. So far! As in, don’t go away yet, there’s much more to come.

I’m so predictable. Kapiti black doris plum and creme fraiche is my faveeeee.

Treated myself at the gift-store! Sooo cute, right?

Ugly but delicious.Gosh, I love NZ apricots! So did our guests. This is because apricots, alongside some other produce (such as good cheese, brown bread and beetroot) are hard to come by in Japan.

This has got to be the funniest photo. Here’s Yuko and her husband awkwardly agreeing to a photo by my crazy dad as Juri takes yet another selfie!
Beautiful Yuko.

The small houses in Akaroa are so adorable. Soroosh? Let’s go. 


Last but not least, a great Kiwi lunch: battered fish, squid rings, onion rings, L&P and Wattie’s tomato sauce.

Our Japanese Guests’ Day One

So Yuko and her family are here. Here in NZ for the very first time and I think they’re loving it. Here are day one’s pictures so you can also be with us:
First up, omiyage or in English, souvenirs. These are a HUGE part of Japanese culture. We all received gift(S). That’s right, not one but many presents (including my sister’s dogs, Lucky and Ella).




After resting, we took the family to Christchurch’s Botanical Gardens where they exhausted their cameras.

Two beautiful roses.






Last remnants of Christmas…

Last but not least, our guests’ first meal in NZ: pneumatic curly fries and sliders at the world-renowned C1espresso. Come on, how cool is that?!
And…someone else happened to like them too! #embarassing.

Leap And The Net Will Appear

Look auntie Pouneh(France), Dave and Maria(Spain) who love bicycles! This is my new ride for the summer.


Sweet strawberry picking with my sweet mama (and sweet family) in sunny Pleasant point.

That’s how you know you love someone, I guess, when you can’t experience anything without wishing the other person were there to see it, too. (Kaui Hart Hemmings)

Walnut flour crackers, Akaroa salmon and lots of Puhoi Valley NZ cheese. A throwback from our Persian-Kiwi Christmas lunch.

Much needed coconut water after a 9km ride after an 8 hour shift on a 30 degree day.


These last two are for baby Mia: Lifa and Aki’s beautiful newborn. My heart is overjoyed for you (especially OZ-kun).

Welcome To The Good Life

Nestle rules Spain. Kind of sad because I hear they exploit child workers.


Wholegrain Special K with wild fruit picked by little hands.


A traditional convenience store.

And I thought Japan had strange vending machines…This thing makes fresh orange juice!

Okay, things just got weirder! This one’s for fresh milk :O

What did I say? The good life.

Went for a bicycle ride with Jose and the kids and stumbled upon fresh grapes (white and black).


On the way home, we visited their elderly neighbour, a sweet woman in a floral dress, to ask for parsley for a dish we were to prepare later. When I casually told Jose her house smelt delicious, he asked her what she was having for lunch that day to which she did this:


I still can’t believe how much fresh, organic and FREE fruit there is in Europe. So, our favorite activity (and by that, I mean MY favorite activity) is sourcing and eating it.


Tonight we were invited to a typical summertime Spanish BBQ AKA pork fest. I made this vegan platter (hehe). #changingtheworldonevegetabledishatatime.

E N G L I S H C A M P

A picture story.

20 Pictures Of A Japanese Summer Festival Guaranteed To Make You Smile

“I fell for her in summer, my lovely summer girl,
From summer she is made, my lovely summer girl,
I’d love to spend a winter with my lovely summer girl,
But I’m never warm enough for my lovely summer girl,
It’s summer when she smiles, I’m laughing like a child,
It’s the summer of our lives; we’ll contain it for a while
She holds the heat, the breeze of summer in the circle of her hand
I’d be happy with this summer if it’s all we ever had.”


“Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.” (Henry James)


After a year and half of living in super inaka (countryside) I feel so alive. Connectivity is vital to life. For as long as I can remember, I have always liked markets and festivals and large crowds. I think this is because positive energy is so contagious and so nice! Though often, in such scenarios, I’d look around and concentrate on what I was not. I’d see boyfriends and girlfriends and husbands and wives and large groups of girls giggling about and I’d see tall women with athletic figures and lush hair and fashionable clothes and bemoan my own life. Tonight, as I walked around completely alone, I didn’t do that for once. I saw the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen in yukata (traditional Japanese summer ware) and I saw charming husbands carrying the handbags of their wives and young fathers piggy backing their little ones. I saw couples feeding each other yakitori and groups of young girls holding hands and fans and candied apples and their heads upright to protect their beautiful hairstyles, and I smiled. I rejoiced in their happiness and thanked God I was alive. Alive to share in their transmittable joy and alive to live their spreadable love. What do you think? Is that me growing up?



The first food is a mochi (sticky rice) sweet. Inside is anko (sweet red bean paste) covered with plain sticky rice and lastly coated in kinako (roasted soybean powder). The second is karaage chicken. As you may or may not know, I am a wannabe vegetarian. However; I had to, I just had to try this. Not only did it smell insane, there was a 10 meter line for it and we all know lines mean business. It was amazing. So much so, that I remixed Katy Perry’s infamous song for it in my head: “I ate chicken and I liked it…the taste of it’s…” Okay…so as you can see, it’s a work in process.