Return of Bento (Image Heavy)

I ordered my bento box from http://www.jlist.com on the 3rd and was able to pick it up at the post office yesterday. I loooove it. I loved everything about the little box it came in, too.

The mailing slip.

I was amused that they put “Toys” as the content of the package. I suppose it’s accurate, but J-List also sells adult toys, so I just hope that anyone at my post office who saw the package doesn’t know that.

I also loved the packing material – authentic Japanese newspaper! I have dutifully saved this and put it in my altered book material stash. How could I not?

I think the above is the games page and below is … I don’t even know. At first I thought it was the weather for the US, but it looks like there’s a trail or something. Maybe it’s a map of the route a bicyclist took? The rest of this page looked like sports, so maybe.

I ordered sauce bottles. They’re fish-shaped, which is admittedly weird, but it works.

I filled them all with soy sauce because I don’t know what other sauces I would need to take with me and it’s not like salad dressing is going to fit into these guys. I included my hand in the picture for a size comparison.

But the real treasure, my very own bento box!

Yeah, it’s kind of small. But I figure this will help my portion control. And I had been finding that with the tupperware thing I was using before, I was feeling stuffed after eating all of it anyway.

It’s got a top and bottom section. I just hope all the Japanese writing on the lid for the bottom section doesn’t say “DANGER!” or anything.

All opened.

The dividers are movable and removable, which is helpful. The bumpy thing on the left in the below picture will shape my rice if I put a scoopful of it in the bottom section.

Here’s a picture (not mine) of what the rice would look like after being formed with the bumpy thing.

The whole shebang. I got the box, the carrying case and strap and the matching chopsticks (with case!) all together. I am in love with the adorableness of it all.

I like the chopstick case a lot.

Preparing to put the box in the bag.

All packed up and ready to go.

Bunny tail love.

Afterwards, I got my bento stuff out of the cupboard and put it in its own bin. Here are my cookie cutters for bento purposes (and cookie purposes if I ever want cute, tiny cookies). Clicking through to the flickr page will allow you to see notes where I’ve labeled all the shapes, if you are unable to decipher what they are.

I made my lunch today as I couldn’t resist the awesomeness of taking my bento box in all its glory to work with me today.

Again, it looks like not a lot of food at all, but it filled me up just fine. Hopefully this will help me get healthier and all. Little onigiri, steamed gyoza (except not really – this was a failure on my part – I need oil again so I can fry these suckers instead, which is much better and easier to ensure proper cookage). Tomato slices, cookie, trail mix, nectarine slices. The partitions are not leak-proof so I had slightly soggy cookie today when it was time to eat lunch. I will keep that in mind for the future and use baking cups or something similar as needed.

I feel somewhat bad for being so in love with bento because it feels like I’m appropriating a richand varied cultural tradition by being “OMG! So cute!” Then again, kawaii has a place in Japanese culture as well, so I suppose I’ll give my cultural morals a rest.

More Answers to Your Questions in the previous entry. Still accepting new questions, if you’re interested.