Japan Diaries #2 Making OBento!

HI GUYS, I'm back with a second post in my "Japan Diaries" series! Today, I'm going to teach y'all how to cook! JUST KIDDING, those of you that know me, know that I can't cook to save my life >.> SOOOO, what I meant was I'm going to make a 'bento' with one of those small candy cooking packets. I've always seen these in supermarkets but never reached out to try it. However, since I'm in Japan and have heaps of spare time I thought, why not? They have lots of variety, you can make sushi, candy, fast food sets and much more but I choose the panda bento because ISNT IT ADORABLE?! This box only costed around 300yen so I wanted to recommend it to you guys if you need an idea to kill time and bond with friends and family!

So the box itself looks like this:

On the back there are a bunch of instructions in Japanese (If you can't read it, google translate will be your best friend!)

These are the things that are included in the box (I've labelled everything according to steps for you guys)!

The packaging itself is important as well so don't chuck that out! We are going to cut it up to make the plate for the bento and also the flag and other decorative pieces.

Step #1: Cut off the little triangle compartment on the side. We are going to use this as a little measuring cup for the water. 

Step #2: Pour powder packet #1 in the large rectangle compartment to the right. Pour in 2 cups of water and mix. This will make the rice for the triangle and panda onigiri. Break this rice into two big lumps and select one lump from which you will make one lump for the panda head and two small lumps for the ears. 

Step #3: Pour powder packet #2 into the small rectangle on the left and the panda eyes/mouth, then place the remaining into the oval shaped compartment. This powder is super yummy btw! Taste like sour whizz-fizz if anyone remembers what that tastes like ;D Now we are going to stamp the rice blobs we made before into the panda face to make the face and then the rice ball into the rectangle to make the seaweed. Dump the ears into the oval and roll them around until they are fully covered in the black powder. Assemble to make the panda. (Try not to be messy like I was haha). 

Step #4: Pour packet #4 into the original large rectangle compartment. Mix two cups of water. Separate into two blobs and you get two pieces of karage chicken! 

Step #5: Pour packet #5 into the same compartment and add two cups of water. Mix and then put the final mixture into the plastic bag given. Cut a small hole in the corner of the bag and pipe out the mixture (like you would with cream) onto a plate. Then wa-lah you get spaghetti. 

Step #6: This you can do all together. Pour packet #6,7,8 into their allocated compartment. Add one cup of water to them all, mix and wa-lah. You get a broccoli, egg and octopus (looks nothing like it...). 

Step #7: Now all you have to do it cut out the plate and decorations from the packaging and assemble everything! Taaa-daaaaa, how's that for cooking skills? ;D

Right guys, hope you had fun either making it with me or 'watching' me make it! 

Thanks for reading, see you again soon! ^_^

xx H.