Explore Japan from home {Travel the world from home series}
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It was such fun to explore Japan from home! We have always been huge fans of Japanese food, but we realized we are fans of Japanese culture as well!
If you are joining this blog series for the first time, please go to this post to understand how it works and get the supplies you will need!
A Few Facts About Japan
- Japan is in Asia
- Japan is made up of 4 main islands, although there are several smaller ones as well.
- Tokyo is the capital city of Japan, and you can visit Disneyland Tokyo while you are there!
- The Shinkansen is the fastest train in the world, you can go from city to city in Japan at 200 miles per hour!
- The ruler of Japan is the emperor and it is a title that is passed from father to son.
- The most famous food from Japan is Sushi, which is raw fish, seaweed and rice.
What to make for your Japanese Meal
Yaki Udon recipe
Like all meals seem to go at my house, we got started late in the day and ended up eating at 9:30 pm, but it was so so worth the wait.
My little guy and I decided we wanted to make handmade udon noodles instead of buy them (we have made lots of noodle in the past), but they had to rest longer than I had anticipated. Don’t let that deter you! If you are up to it, the handmade noodles were easy to make and had such great texture. Just get started before 6:30 pm.
making the dough
We used this recipe for our fresh udon noodles.
Dough after being kneaded for 6 minutes.
It was very easy to follow and very easy to make. In my case, it took about a half cup of extra water to get it to be able to knead out smoothly. (You could also make this with a dough hook in a stand mixer, just be careful not to over knead it.)
You need the amount of salt that it is in the recipe, so don’t skimp!
After 1 hour the dough was still too hard to roll out
We tried to roll out the dough after an hour, but it just kept springing back into place. I covered it, left it for another hour, and then rolled it out nicely. It could have been thinner, but we were hungry!
This is the dough after 2 hours.
Follow the cooking instructions exactly, including the adding of cold water.
Estimated time 2 and half hours, but 2 of those were waiting for the dough to relax!
The recipe for Yaki Udon we used was this one from BBC.
This was a very easy recipe that I didn’t change very much. I added 1 very oversized chicken breast to the recipe for some protein, and I added 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder to the sauce. If you can’t find mirin and don’t want to venture out for it, you can use 2 Tablespoons of rice wine vinegar and 2 Tablespoons of white wine.
It was delicious! My middle son said it was the best thing he had eaten in weeks.
Estimated time to make dinner (minus the time for making your own noodles) was 45 min.
What to watch for your Japanese movie
“The Ramen Girl”
We watched “The Ramen Girl” on Hulu. It was a charming movie about an American girl living in Tokyo who decides she wants to learn to cook ramen. Despite her language barrier she gets a ramen chef to train her. It’s a little bit Karate Kid meets Hell’s Kitchen.
Even though it is an American made movie, it does a great job at capturing the difference in culture. It gives you a real feel for Tokyo and its food scene as well.
We really enjoyed the movie, and I think it would be great for kids 8 and up. There are partial subtitles, smoking, and suggestive situations.
“Spirited Away”
If you have younger kids and can handle sitting through some Anime this is a good movie. We have watched it in the past, and it even kept my attention. A 10 year old girl goes with her parents to an abandoned amusement park and her parents get turned into pigs. She has to work to free herself and her parents.
Available on Amazon Prime for purchase.
What to read from Japan
My older kids balked at reading a book geared toward younger kids at first, but they actually really enjoyed it. It follows the life of a Japanese family and explains their cultural differences and their food. It also has great pictures. It is something younger kids would enjoy reading multiple times, and the illustrations are so good that I recommend actually purchasing this one.
What to craft from Japan
We chose to make Japanese salt art and followed the tutorial from The Crafty Classroom.
Follow her directions and you will come out with some really cool looking designs. We adapted her method by using old paintbrushes to put the watercolors on the salt. It was easier, and it used things we had on hand. We also used black cardstock instead of pasteboard, but construction paper would work as well.
Make sure you have a great place for these to dry because the salt makes the glue run like crazy at first.
How else can you explore Japan from home?
Learn all about Ninjas with the kids from National Geographic’s “Are We There Yet?” There are 4 other videos exploring Japan in this series, so click through all of them.
We watched this YouTube video and learned a few phrases from the Dueling app. There are dozens of things you could do to expand this and I want to hear about what you have done!
This adorable video will teach you and your kids how to sing Twinkle, Twinkle little star in Japanese!
Buy my activity sheet bundle for Japan for $1.99 and let your kids do some learning while you take a break!
Where are we visiting next?
Russia!
The recipe, book and craft supplies are listed in this post. The post about Russia will come out on Thursday, so keep your eyes open.
If you missed the first post of the series, go here to find the supplies you need and how this whole thing works.
Where have we already visited?
You can pick and choose the countries that appeal to your family and enjoy your own “Travel around the World From Home.”
Do you want to visit Japan with your family?
Here are some of my favorite travel bloggers and their advice for a fabulous trip to Japan with your family.
Here is Christina from Honesttravelstories.com:
Who can say why I love Japan? I don’t even remember when I fell in love with it, but I can remember when I decided it’s going to last. That moment when I needed help with my card cancellation and one gentleman went out of this world to help me. He didn’t speak any English, tried to do what he thought I wanted, then took me by the hand, showed me the way to an information center, explained to the lady what he thought I needed, and then waited to see if I managed to do it. Now, how can anyone not fall in love with this country and the people that live in it? And this is just one of the things you should know before going to Japan for the first time.
More of Travel the World from Home
I am starting a Travel the World from Home Facebook group where we can swap ideas and stay connected during this time where we are all physically disconnected. It is an invitation only group and you must be subscribed to this blog series to join.
If you haven’t joined or you aren’t sure, please add your email in the subscription box below and I’ll get you into the group asap.
That was super awesome! What a great services for all of us who have kids at home these days!
Thanks! I hope you are enjoying it.