Kyoto - Nano Paper Model

Second in the set - beauty in miniature

Sirius rjómasúkkulaði

Our bag of candy has finally delivered for Iceland. Rjómasúkkulaði sounds like an Icelandic volcano, but in fact it means milk chocolate.

Very good milk chocolate that makes us think of one of our fun shopping trips to Bonus in Selfoss. 

Sam with his Island UEFA Euro 2016 rally cap enjoying some chocolate.

Inari Shrine - Nano Paper Model

The factors that come into play when planning for a trip can range from the practical (must stop for food/gas at place X) to those that are attached to a story thread.

The only reason we flew into Munich was because it was the closest airport to Neuschwanstein Castle.  The castle is a major tourist attraction for sure, but we would have avoided it had it not been for the models that Will had built in the past.

After Lego started to get dull, we bought Will a number of nanoblock model sets.  Nanoblock is a line of construction toys manufactured by Kawada Co. Ltd, a toy company based in Tokyo, Japan. The bricks in these sets are extremely small (you need tweezers to put them together). His favourites sets were/are the world landmark models and for his birthday two years ago we bought him the Neuschwanstein Castle kit. This baby consisted of 5600 pieces and it took him months to complete it. So, when we were asking the boys about what they wanted to see in Europe, the castle was near the top of Will's list.

When I was in Japan in May, I came across the nano paper kits also made by Kawada and picked up a number of them for the boys try out.  Will's first attempt was of an Inari Shrine.  All that is in the kit is laser cut paper and detailed instructions.  Two solid hours were needed to put this together.

The end result is pretty cool.

The box

The finished model

Will and Ludwig II

Rugbrød - attempt #2

So despite my enthusiasm for the Venø starter last weekend, the final product was a little flat in the taste department.  My guess is that Venø did not have enough time to act on the sugar in the flour.

So here we are - a beautiful Saturday and the second batch is in preparation.

Venø seems to be quite happy in our fridge.  Upon retrieval this am, there was a layer of alcohol on top of the starter, which is a good sign.

So I added two tbs of Venø to 100g of rye flour and 100g of well water, mixed this together and let it set for four hours.

After four hours, I added the following to the mixture:

500g well water
400g rye flour
100g of oat groats
15g sea salt

Mixed together and added it to a greased bread pan.

So here it is in the bread pan after 6 hours. It has almost doubled in size and has a heady, fermented smell.

The baked loaf is quite a bit lighter than the last loaf.

Smashing. Good flavour with the sourness I was expecting.  

Euro Trip Pack List

Here are some packing suggestions for families planning a similar trip.

Prepare and print out a day by day itinerary to try to get a good mix of activity, driving, culture and food. We used the clear document holders pockets amd included extra for tickets and receipts. Include hours of operation for everything and call them the week before (we found a lot of places were closed.) Include rainy day activities. Something we really liked was including on our daily list specialty foods from the areas we were travelling through to make sure to try them. We did sausages and beer in Bavaria but I regret not taking time to try real Black Forest cake.

Good cell phone and data access was central to our trip. Make sure it won't cost too much by using a SIM card bought in Europe.

If you're driving, bring a GPS with current Euro maps loaded and add all of your AirBnbs and the main destinations for your trip. When you're tired of trying to read road signs, just follow the GPS. It saved our bacon many times.

Buy tickets to museums and book activities as much as possible in advance to ensure you get to do what you want, when you have time to do it. For example, we booked horsebackriding in Vik in advance. They are a small operation so we wouldn't have been able to go if another group had arrived first. We arranged to go blokarting in the Netherlands but there wasn't enough wind for us to go on the day we had chosen to do it, so we missed out.

When on our way to Ameland, the ferry was very busy and so called the bike rental place while on the ferry to reserve e-bikes. We were really lucky to get them because they are popular and extra fun to ride.

Check if the places you want to visit have tours in languages that you understand and find out when they are offered, because it might just be on weekends.

If you like picnics and want to make best use of grocery stores, bring a large cooler bag, freezer packs, a few Thermoses, water bottles, a cutting board, utensils, plates, bowls and, of course, a good corkscrew.

Bring a first aid kit. We didn't need it but that's a good thing.

Bring a Bluetooth speaker so you can have tunes wherever you go.

Since we were staying in people's homes through AirBnb, we brought a pack safe with a strong key lock. We locked our valuables inside of the car when we were in Amsterdam and didn't really use it other than that, but it was a nice option to have.

It was nice to have brought maple sugar in little present bags (and thank you cards) to leave for the AirBnb hosts and others that we met.

Everybody had a day pack and duffel bag. We packed extra duffel bags for gifts and momentos and brought one hard-sided suitcase for fragile Items. If we had brought hard sided suitcases, we wouldn't have had enough trunk space.

Kropp med pipardufti

I don't know if there is a causal relationship between Iceland's love of licorice-based candy and how well their football team is doing at Euro 2016, but this candy is a zinger.

Post taste testing comments are in the realm of "medicinal", "instant coffee with tar undertones" and "just nasty".  One dissenter in chez Chapman remarked "very yummy".

So 3 out of 4 reviewers gave this one a 1/10.

The dissenting east block judge gave it a "solid 8/10".

Nippon

"Kind of like kinder egg chocolate mixed with rice crispies." Will and Sam rate this one an 8/10.

Smiley Monkey Candy

Take a close look at the monkey on this package. Notice his smile.

This is a very salty black licorice snack.

Nørregard applesin/citron

Denmark. Orange and lemon. No sickly black licorice aftertaste.

7.5/10 rating.

Geocaching

It is difficult to describe geocaching to the uninitiated in a few sentences.  It is part treasure hunt (you are looking for something hidden), part exercise (to get to the hidden caches you may have to hike several kilometres), and part adventure travel (you go to out of the way places you would not normally visit).

Basically, geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices. You navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location.

We have been doing it as a family for the past couple of years and it is lots of fun.  One of the things that makee it fun is the use of "trackables".  Each trackable is etched with a unique code that can be used to log its movements as it travels in the real world.

Before our trip, we bought 8 trackables to release in geocaches in the countries we visited. With trackables, you should define a goal - essentially where or what you want the trackable to travel to.

With our 8 trackables, we defined the goal as to make it back to a geocache in Ottawa where we would collect them and use them on future trips.

You can check the progress of each of our trackables by clicking on the following links:

Team Chapman #1

Team Chapman #2

Team Chapman #3

Team Chapman #4

Team Chapman #5

Team Chapman #6

Team Chapman #7

Team Chapman #8

William at the Kongsvegur geocache in Iceland

 

Freyju Möndlur Klassic

I am sure these kidney beanesque candies from Iceland appeal to someone, otherwise they wouldn't sell them.

Hard outershell with an initial caramel flavour, these degenerate into something that is akin to black licorice oil on your palate.

A perfect treat for someone with short term memory loss.

-1/10 rating

Octopus Balls

No joke, this is what the Japanese translates to on this package - Octopus Balls.

Before I went to Nagoya, the boys gave explicit instructions about what they wanted me to bring back.  Kracie food kits were at the top of the list (see our first blog post).  Go to YouTube and enter kracie into the search function and you will see how cool these kits are.

So here we go.  Iron Chef William has googled English instructions for this kit and is underway.

Frankly, this is like an edible playdough kit with an Easybake oven overtone.

 

Melanie just passed by with a concerned expression on her face.

Octopus parts have been formed. Dough is being made.

 

Final product is surprisingly good.  Mellow seafood flavour with a curry sauce.  Japan, you crazy.