A Sort-Of Introduction-Ish

 I've never "bento-ed" before. Not because I didn't know what bento was, though. I was vaguely aware of their existence thanks to anime, and only became more aware this summer while watching some cooking channels on YouTube that made some bento lunches. I've always wanted to try my hand at making a bento lunch myself, but never actually have. For one, I didn't have any materials (namely the bento box itself). Also, my meal plan for the week largely depends on what my parents buy at the grocery store. With bento, I'd have to be more on top of what food goes in and out of the house and how to ration everything for the week. Thirdly, I'd have to spend time actually preparing the meals and well...I can be somewhat lazy. Well, it's not even laziness actually. Mostly, it's busyness with homework and school assignments, sigh.

But this Christmas, my dad got me THIS SUPER KYOOT PANDA BENTO BOX 

  

Isn't it adorable? I love pandas <3 パンダが大好きです！

I originally found out about this panda bento box from YouTuber ochikeron in the video (shown on left). Anyway, I figured that...well, I have the box now. Why not try my hand at making bento lunches? So that's my goal for (at least) the next couple days.

I don't know if this will just be a phase or not. The bento box looked like it was of an average size in the video, but in real life, it is quite small. In fact, I'm kind of doubtful as to how I'll manage to fit anything in it haha. Oh well, challenge accepted. From the other bento blogs I've been reading, it seems that a lot of people use cute dividers, toothpicks, sauce bottles, and other cute little additions. Again, since I'm not sure how invested I'll actually be in bento (maybe it's just not for me, you know?), I decided to only purchase silicon baking cups for now. My sister loves baking, so even if I end up not using them, at least she will. 

I'm thinking that if I can go three weeks doing this, I'll buy another box. A flat one, not a circular one. I feel like it will be a lot easier to fit things in that way. And maybe other supplies. I don't want to buy a bunch of stuff and then end up not even using it. The reason I decided on three weeks is because that's when second semester starts. My schedule is a lot friendlier in the mornings second semester, so I can pretty much head down to the caf whenever and use their microwave before the lineup starts.

Anywho, I'm super excited for the week. Well, excited to (attempt) bento. Not to go back to school. (maaaaaaaath blaahhhgggh). I'll be using this blog as a sort-of food journal. I may not update every day as I may be busy with homework, summatives, assignments. But when I do update, I'll make sure that all the meals of the week have been included somehow.

If anyone's reading this...thanks for reading <3