2011 has been a year full of excitement, challenges, up and downs, personal as well as professional. 2012 will be for sure a year to move ahead, preparing for the worst and hope for the Best to come. It has been such a blast last year with this Blog site of mine and with technology advancing (iPhone 4s) and new cameras about to hit the market (Panasonic Lumix GX1 and Nikon D4) I look forward to embrace this year with full of excitement in blogging.
Since month I am working on a new design of this Blog site with the help TH from Canada who tirelessly works to fine tune a new theme. Will soon announce the launch and perhaps can introduce you the man behind coding and designing a all new look of SugarHead to come!

All pictures shot with a iPhone 4 and iPhone 4s

Duck peak & a great salad dish

Two different breakfasts

Black Mussels & spicy sausages from North of Thailand

Thai Omelett & a hot-pot

Grilled and salted fish

Mussels & some noodles with pork

Fried chicken and pork

and here we go; Ganesha!

Yamagoya Ramen is not an easy place to find like so many other places here inBangkok. It took me two attempts but it is worth the search. Advertised as in Tong Lor Soi 13 one needs to venture into a side street where Yamagoya is tucked away.

Reading a post in Kat’s Blog “Spatula, Spoon and Saturday” awakened my curiosity to check out Yamagoya Ramen. Kat, a Thai Blogger living inMelbourne,Australiadid a wonderful post on Ramen I love to devour with great passion.

Needless to say the Ramen I had was wonderful and rich; the miso broth was not overly salty and well balanced in its taste. Pork was finely sliced and the soft boiled egg just perfect in texture. I am not a big fan of Angel hair noodles; I rather opt for the thick and juicy Udon type of noodle. However said this I perhaps change my mind and taste soon as it is much easier to eat with those types of noodles than slippery Udon.

Yamagoya Ramen (Thong Lor)
Address: Soi Thong Lor 13, Sukhumvit Rd.,
Khlong Tan Nuea, Watthana, Bangkok 10110 Thailand
Phone number: 02-185-3796

Onigiri is almost fast food considered in Japan; no wonder; it is easy to consume, cost very little is a meal for itself! First time I ate Onigiri was of course in Tokyo, there Onigiri was almost the size of a large Tennis ball, covered with Nori and with a variety of fillings. This rice dish comes in a wide range of size and shape, found in many Bento Lunch boxes all over Tokyo.

Onigiri (??? or ???; ????), also known as omusubi (???; ????) or rice ball, is a Japanese food made from white rice formed into triangular or oval shapes and often wrapped in nori (seaweed). Traditionally, an onigiri is filled with pickled ume (umeboshi), salted salmon, katsuobushi, kombu, tarako, or any other salty or sour ingredient as a natural preservative. Because of the popularity of onigiri in Japan, most convenience stores stock their onigiri with various fillings and flavors. There are even specialized shops whose only products are onigiri for take out.

In Lady Murasaki’s 11th-century diary Murasaki Shikibu Nikki, she writes of people eating rice balls. At that time, onigiri were called tonjiki and often consumed at outdoor picnic lunches. Other writings, dating back as far as the seventeenth century, state that many samurai stored rice balls wrapped in bamboo leaves as a quick lunchtime meal during war, but the origins of onigiri are much earlier even than Lady Murasaki. Before the use of chopsticks became widespread, in the Nara period, rice was often rolled into a small ball so that it could be easily picked up. In the Heian period, rice was also made into small rectangular shapes known as tonjiki so that they could be piled onto a plate and easily eaten.
From the Kamakura period to the early Edo period, onigiri was used as a quick meal. This made sense as cooks simply had to think about making enough onigiri and did not have to concern themselves with serving. These onigiri were simply balls of rice flavored with salt. Nori did not become widely available until the Genroku era in the mid-Edo period, when the farming of nori and fashioning it into sheets became widespread.
It was believed that onigiri could not be mass produced as the hand-rolling technique was considered too difficult for a machine to replicate. In the 1980s, however, a machine that made triangular onigiri was devised. This was initially met with skepticism because, rather than having the filling traditionally rolled inside, the flavoring was simply put into a hole in the onigiri, and the hole was hidden by nori. Since the onigiri made by this machine came with nori already applied to the rice ball, over time the nori became unpleasantly moist and sticky, clinging to the rice. A packaging improvement allowed the nori to be stored separately from the rice. Before eating, the diner could open the packet of nori and wrap the onigiri. The limitation of the machines that required using a hole for filling the onigiri instead of rolling the filling with the rice actually made new flavors of onigiri easier to produce as this cooking process did not require changes from ingredient to ingredient. Modern mechanically wrapped onigiri are specially folded so that the plastic wrapping is actually folded between the nori and rice to act as a moisture barrier. When the packaging is pulled open at both ends, the nori and rice come into contact.

Today I visited another Cosplay, part of the Japan Festa Bangkok 2011 at Parc Paragon. Somehow Thais are fascinated by everything Japanese and lately Korean. Is  it now J-Pop or K-Pop, Anime and Cosplay; they are putting up a show like anywhere in Tokyo or Osaka. Thousands of people attended the gathering with music, food and display. Could not help it to get my Nikons ready, roaming around Paragon and discover the beauty of Thais trimmed Japanese. For almost three hours shoving through visitors and shoppers in hot and humid weather I finally got the images I was looking and expecting for.

Cosplayers obtain their apparel through many different methods. Manufacturers produce and sell packaged outfits for use in cosplay, in a variety of qualities. These costumes are often sold online, but also can be purchased from dealers at conventions. There are also a number of individuals who work on commission, creating custom costumes, props or wigs designed and fitted to the individual; some social networking sites for cosplay have classified ad sections where such services are advertised. Other cosplayers, who prefer to create their own costumes, still provide a market for individual elements, accessories, and various raw materials, such as unstyled wigs or extensions, hair dye, cloth and sewing notions, liquid latex body paint, face paint, shoes, costume jewellery and prop weapons. Most cosplayers engage in some combination of methods to obtain all the items necessary for their costume; for example they may commission a prop weapon, sew their own clothing, buy character jewelry from a cosplay accessory manufacturer, and buy a pair of off-the-rack shoes and modify them to match the desired look.

In order to look more like the character they are portraying many cosplayers also engage in various forms of body modification. Contact lenses that match the color of their character’s eyes are a common form of this, especially in the case of characters with particularly unique eyes as part of their trademark look. Another form of body modification cosplayers engage in is to copy any tattoo or special marking that their character might have. Henna tattoos, permanent marker, body paint and in rare cases having a permanent tattoo done are all methods used by cosplayers to achieve the desired look. Permanent and temporary hair dye, spray-in colouring, and specialized extreme styling products are all utilized by some cosplayers whose natural hair can achieve the desired hairstyle.

Cosplay has influenced the Japanese advertising industry more than it has the commodity market.
Print media increasingly retain cosplayers as models. Good cosplayers are increasingly viewed as fictional characters in the flesh, in much the same way that film actors come to identified in the public mind with specific roles. Cosplayers have model for print magazines like Cosmode, cosplay photography studios,
ADV Films has retained cosplayers for event work previously assigned to agency models. The ability of cosplayers to re-create their chosen characters with accuracy and vitality plays a part in this trend, as does the ability of cosplayers to appeal to an already existing market. E3 was occupied by a mix of both agency girls and cosplayers.
Japan’s burgeoning anime industry has been home to the professional cosplayers since the rise of Comiket, Tokyo Game Show, and other such powerhouse conventions.
A cosplay model, also known as a Cosplay Idol, is a promotional model who models cosplay costumes for anime, manga, or video game companies. A successful cosplay model can become the brand ambassador for companies like Cospa. The phenomenon is most apparent in Japan but exists to some degree in other countries as well.

The appearance of cosplayers at manga events makes such events a popular draw for photographers. As this became apparent in the late 1980s a new variant of cosplay developed in which cosplayers attended events mainly for the purpose of modeling their characters for still photography rather than engaging in continuous role play. Rules of etiquette were developed to minimize awkward situations involving boundaries. Cosplayers pose for photographers in designated areas removed from the exhibit hall. Photographers do not press them for personal contact information or private sessions, follow them out of the area or take photos of exhibits in the hall itself without permission. The rules allow the symbiotic relationship between photographers and cosplayers to continue with the least inconvenience to each.
Recent cosplay events in Asia show an increase in the popularity of non-Asian fantasy and science fiction characters. This reflects the international success of films such as The Dark Knight, The Matrix, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings and their associated books.