1000 challenge

I decided to rehearse the challenge by myself. Here is my trial challenge.

And I made some mistakes during this challenge. I am planning to establish a better strategy for the next time.

I woke up in the morning, and didn’t think that I was starting the challenge. I just did it because I wanted to eat breakfast and didn’t wanted to cook and I started my 1000yen challenge. I was unprepared and I would like to tell you how I made myself miserable.

To be honest, I was very confident of myself, and I believed that I would do well in challenge, even spare some yen, and be full and healthy…

Truth is it didn’t go the way I expected.

In the morning, I went to the convenient store and bought breakfast, lunch and dinner all together which was a huge mistake. They all cost me 818 yen and 5 minutes. So only in 5 minutes, I spent 81.8 percent of my challenge money.

 I was planning to buy coffee or snacks but, it was not very clever of me to spend all the money at once, so no coffee for me… I left with 182 yen.

Breakfast was a nice soft, mushi-cheese cake 90yen and 329 kcal with 7, 2 g protein. I am a cake girl who can eat cake for breakfast and be happy. No vegetable or fruit intake for breakfast that was a negative side of my breakfast, but there were other options for breakfast I should consider next time. This is my chose of yummy breakfast.

I was busy enough during the day so that I wouldn’t be thinking much about food, but the challenge made me think more about my meals. My lunch was a healthy cold pasta salad with feta cheese. Well 2 meals with cheese, I am not good at choosing variety… I should consider that also.

It was 392 kcal… I was visually satisfied but I could have easily eaten more, or bought some snacks…

I got back to work after lunch. I did a little math. I spent 818 yen, bought food enough for 1202kcal. It wasn’t enough, I did wrong… and I didn’t have much money left to be healthy and full… I did wrong at buying all together, I did wrong with the calories also, and I didn’t have enough many to save the day.

At 5pm I found myself face to face with donuts.

I bought one for 100 yen and for 348 kcal. I have a good number for calories but, what about my health? I felt such a failure. Left with 82 yen.

I bought a heavy dinner so that I wouldn’t need to eat afterwards. I planned to make dinner the last food of the day. A least that was as planned. After dinner, I didn’t eat anything.

Dinner was around 8pm, rice with shrimp and cheese béchamel sauce. 481 kcal. Cheese for every meal, I didn’t notice that until I wrote about it.

In total spent was 918yen.

Total calories 1550 kcal. With a little amount of vegetables thanks to my pasta salad.

I am not happy with the results. This was a trial. I feel like I failed. As you understand I will try again. I just lost a small battle. I don’t give up.

Cheers,

Ece

Why Tokyo?

The big philosophical question why has not answered yet.

Apparently “why not” is a popular one, as an answer.

Why do I live in Tokyo? Why not, is not my style.

Why do I choose Tokyo? Why not, is not my style.

I always wanted to be good at what I am doing. I understood the importance of hard work at a young age. I see how big the word is, how infinite the knowledge is…

I had searched for myself. Search for the knowledge…

After I have decided that I want to go abroad. Most of the cities look the same because I can grow up and learn there. Most of the cities look the same because wherever I go to study I have to leave my friends and family and home country for a while.

What is crucial is my journey, my time to be spent in a new city, new country…

After I had decided, I had a couple of candidate cities. I and my husband made the list of potential work, study environments, finances….  

Even though I had carefully evaluated, analyzed the list, it was a leap of faith. It was Tokyo for me. Others Tokyo could be Paris, Rome, Montréal, or just leaving home…

That may be my answer to “why Tokyo?” That surprise element, that magic of my life.  

Cheers,

Ece

The SALUS

I have found a saver for the long train journeys. It is free. It is provided by Tokyu Corporation, which owns train lines, super markets, hotels, and many more… It is the SALUS.

 The SALUS is available inside train stations so everyone easily grabs and goes. I also do the ritual, grab one and go on my way.

It is a small magazine of 35 pages providing information regarding fashion, travel, and shopping. It just encourages you to go and see those places, to buy those clothes, to eat at those restaurants, and of course all of those are within the perimeter of Tokyu Corporation. The SALUS has many items and full of varieties. It is a small and smart magazine.

 I, as a naïve person, tried to find the SALUS on other lines and failed. Later, I learned that is unique to Tokyu Lines.

 It is released every month on 20^th to be precise. It just makes me have new ideas, if I am open to new ideas I can pick out in the SALUS.

Then, I started to check the magazine on the train, I felt like that people were looking at me, a foreigner with the SALUS, whether I understand or not. Because the SALUS is a mainly for the locals... It has the Japanese page design, starting from the back, open to the right, writing is from up to down, it is just a lovely thing. I am glad that I have become a local.

Cheers,

Ece

The invitations

When we started to live in Tokyo, we told all of our good friends and family members that they were always welcome to visit us. We really meant it.

How nice it would have been wandering around, sightseeing and all the fun with them … They would have stayed with us at our apartment, no need to worry about accommodations… We would have recommended important places to see we would have taken them to touristic places.  No need to worry about language either, we would have been around to do translation. And also it would have been so nice to see them…

Tokyo is a very famous city, every traveler would like to come to Tokyo at least once. For I had assumed that we would have many visitors. Visit us and Japan. First year was gone, no one had come. It was understandable we were new, needed some time to adjust to Tokyo.  Second year was gone, no one had come again. We went back home to visit them and reiterated our invitations to all of our good friends and family members…

They want to come to Tokyo.

They also want to go other places…

They also worry about how far it is…

They also worry about how short their vacations are…

They also worry about how much it costs….

We all understand that…

No one has come to visit us yet, but…..We are going to have a visitor, a dear friend of mine coming to visit us next June. I am beyond excited…

I am planning all activities we can do and all means to make sure my friend is comfortable, I am going to write more about that in the future.

I must write again. I am beyond excited…

Cheers,

Ece

No cooking needed

I cook as much as possible. I try to cook as healthy and budget-friendly as possible. I personally like cooking, so that is why I cook, I spare some time to cook. I know that cooking is not compulsory. And I don’t think that everyone should cook. Even on these modern days, men don’t cook much on a daily basis. With busy lives women also don’t have to cook.

The best part is that you can survive without cooking. The “in trend of these days” is about healthy home cooking, bringing lunch from home and so on…

In Japan, there are bento boxes and many ready to eat foods, and noodles and all you want… There are also the restaurants. Many Japanese people are living without cooking. At the same time, no one wants to compromise their health. If people can lead a healthy life without cooking, I conclude that cooking is not needed.

So the goal is to eat as healthy as possible, as budget-friendly as possible, and as little time consuming as possible…

It is easy to buy one meal a day. We can easily make the good choices. When you have to consider, breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks, it becomes a hard task. It is a task that any traveler on a budget can come across.

I am ready for the task. I am going to try to eat every single thing with 1000 yen a day.

On those days, I am going to rest, no cooking.:) My oven and stove are going to rest. :)

 Don't they look like they need some rest? :)





After each day finishes, I am going to compare the calories, the quality of nutrition, whether I am full or not, whether I have spent all of our money or not.

I am looking forward to seeing the results…

Cheers,

Ece