Undoukai (Sports Day) Obento !

Lunch at Undoukai is something special to the Japanese. The whole family would gather on a picnic sheet during lunch break and share a big obento box full of colorful vegetables and rice balls.  It has to be something more special than an everyday packed lunch.  

To tell the truth, I am not an early riser and my obento box during both of my son's kindergarten days were packed with frozen food. As they grew older, small portions of frozen food hamburger steaks and fried chicken were not enough for them, so eventually I started making big portions of stir fries and onigiri balls whenever they needed to bring lunch. Luckily with public schools in Japan, School lunch is served up to Junior High School so I don't need to worry about packing them lunch except when they were going out on field trip.

But this year, I decided to make a big effort and got up early to make them a decoration sushi. Took me almost 2 hours with some distraction from my son asking me to sew an armband on his gym shirt (on the day!).  I don't know if I'll do this again next year, but I'm quite satisfied that my obento box does look like a proper undoukai lunch.