Lunch time

It must be very cold today… and it is. The cold winter winds are blowing at full force and you can scarcely see anyone walking along the streets at lunch time… all in mole city (underground).

It must be usually cold also, because most if not all of the bento lunches are gone at my B1 of the office building by 12:30 pm. Usually, even at 1:30 pm, I could still have a good selection of bento boxes. Not much to choose for today though.

Mind you, bento boxes are not exactly cheap, they cost between 550 to 650 per box, about the same price as your ramen. Add a salad and drink or two and its 1,000 yen or more, no difference from a usual lunch set at the restaurant.

I like the bento sets because it give more variety of vegetables and meat and are much less oily. On top of that, I can continue with my self-study Japanese after lunch in the office cafeteria.

One thing that makes me feel guilty about eating bentos is that amount of trash (albeit recyclable) I generate per lunch. My usual lunch, now, is one yummy tofu salad (with seasame dressing) and a bento set. If I feel more hungry, like today, I get some inari onigiri. Its a big bag of waste after I’ve gone through with them! Guilty!!

I bought my own chopsticks (totoro, from dear Tim…luv) so that at least, I don’t keep throwing away used chopsticks everytime, but some bento come with chopsticks whether you want it or not. Now, I think that I will make my own tofu salad at home and eat it for dinner instead, so that I don’t have to buy it and add more trash. Initially, I was thinking of packing my own boxes salad, but knowing me, I will not wake up in time early enough to box it, let alone having to cut the vegetables and stuff.

Heard from the news today that the Japanese govt. is planning to introduce a billing to restrict the amount of free plastic bags and to make people pay for plastic bags. I think its a great idea and I am quite surprise it took them so long to even think of it, when Taiwan already have it in force some 2-3 years back.