メロンパンJapanese Melon Pan (Sweet Bread)

Today at work I baked Japanese メロンパン, me.ro.n.pa.n, Melon Pan, which are basically an enriched sweet bread dough with a layer of sweet pastry on the outside.
I found the recipe on Happy Home Baking Blog.

I captured photos of a few stages. I was very pleased with the results, and have some ideas on how I can improve the appearance next time around.

dough

 pastry, dough

 rolled pastry, dough

 pastry wraps around the dough

 right side up

 I cut a few designs, to see how they would look after baking

 ten baked pans, ready to eat :)

These little Melon Pans were quite nice, I ate two :)

I served the rest to the workers, I shall see tomorrow, if any were eaten.

I cant leave comments on Adam's articles

I dont know why but i cant leave my messages on our blog, Adam's articles.
so i write here instead.

"wow! it looks so nice cake! you've done well Adam"
It's shame that i cant taste this ...though. :P

" these cows are so nice to see, they look so calm I also want to touch them! "

I'm sorry that i didnt write recently im busy and this is not a really my blog.

i couldnt leave my comments on your blogs bofore many times, i dont know why
i always tried more than 10 times then finally i could succesfull but this time i couldnt do that.

its so stressful that i cant leave my comments on!

i hope someone would help me how to leave my comments without any troubles.

Baked Cheesecake (slightly over-baked)

Here's a photo of a baked Lemon Cheesecake I made at work the week before last.
The oven at this camp is only fan forced, and quite aggressive, so I ended up over-baking this one.
I have made a few cheesecakes before, using another recipe and another oven, and was quite pleased with the result. This one, on the other hand, was a bit dry, but was saved in the end by a mixed berry compote.

Friendly Cows @ Work

Quite often, the camp where I work is situated on farm land. This means there are usually cows living on this land as well. They are raised by the local farmer and allowed to roam freely. There are a few different types of cows living around our camp at the moment. Most of them are Brahmins.

I think they look so nice, and peaceful, and very wise in their simple way of living. Apparently, cows can smell water, an ability which helps them find water sources in very dry lands such as in Australia. This sometimes leads them to our camp as we often have some small amount of water which leaks out of our water tanks. Occasionally  I can find herds of cows just outside our camp. Normally they run away when they see us coming, but sometimes there are a few that are brave and calm, and we can walk near them.
I will try to touch one soon, before I finish working in this area.

Here is a very nice looking Brahmin with a beautiful Brown colour. And a few of his mates that were hanging around with him. We gave them some water in a bucket to drink. The black and white cow was the greedy one, and she tried to drink all the water by herself, She kept hitting the others with her head to push them away from the bucket! It was funny and cute to watch how they act together.

 I think this brown cow was very nice looking, with an innocent face like a rabbit.

These animal are so big and heavy. It's amazing that they survive by eating grass! When I see them in their natural environment, I feel regret and shame that so many of these peaceful and vegetarian animals are treated poorly and killed by humans. 

Hiroshima, Nagasaki and we must add Fukushima

I was disappointed that a German website discontinued their forecast of Fukushima radioactivity.

But I found a new website, with information about radioation from Fukushima.

It is by Meteomedia AG, a Swiss weather cast.

http://www.meteocentrale.ch/en/weather/weather-extra/weather-in-japan.html

I'm happy to find this, I can check it everyday and see if the wind/air is safe or not in Tokyo.

It has been 66 years since we had 2 atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

We have almost forgotten about that disaster,

that we have many people still suffering from radiation poisoning, inside of their body
in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

we must not forget about that.

http://mainichi.jp/select/wadai/graph/atomicbomb/

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110807a1.html

I wish there will no nuclear power in this world.

Easy hitch ending, Planning for the future.

It is Monday 8th of August, the last day of my two week hitch. The easiest two week hitch I have ever had is coming to an end. I'll be flying home from Injune tomorrow.

For the last two weeks we have had 9-14 people in or camp. We usually have 28+ people in camp. I really needed a hitch such as this one. My last hitch was the hardest and most stressful I had ever had, and this one, the easiest I have had so far. 

Mark and I have been keeping the kitchen open from 4am-10pm, both working 12 hours, but overlapping for 4 hours during the day. It's nice to have someone else in the kitchen to help washing up, and preparing food, and chatting with.

I look forward to going home. I'll be going to the bank to enquire about changing my Australian dollars into Japanese Yen in anticipation of a big drop in the Au dollar's value over the next few months. There has been a huge drop in the Australian stock market recently, and there are predictions that it will drop by up to 25% by the end of the year. The money I have saved may not have much value, by the time I move to Japan, if I don't change the currency soon. I have planned my savings to have enough for studying and initial living costs so a big drop in value can cause some worries.

I'll also be contacting the Japanese Embassy and the Japanese Language School in Tokyo to start my application for a one year student visa. It's exciting to think I will be living in Japan soon.

The night before last, I was chatting with Akiko on Skype. She told me about the advice she had received from her family about our future, and our lifestyle. I started to wonder, will they be happy about Akiko and I living together? Will they be happy with me? I really hope so. I will do my best there.

Moving to Japan will be challenging in many ways,  but I truly believe that with Akiko's love and support I can be happy there, and do well in Japan.