My Miso Soup

I wasted some money and spent some on my recent trip to Japan. I paid nearly $70 for my phone service which I should say that it was only internet as the Government of Japan does not allow foreigners who come to Japan as a visitor to have a phone, while I only used 25% of my allowable data! While I only ate once in the entire time I was there and that was a small breakfast, I might have saved a lot but my Shinkansen tickets were nearly $1000! I didn't stay in 4-star or higher hotels, although one of them claims to be, all of the hotels I stayed at were 3-star and that was quite an expense.
I did not buy much as a souvenir or perhaps I should write basically nothing but a few small items but those caused a bit of a nuisance. You must do most of your shopping in the last two days of your trip, as I wrote earlier to avoid hauling too much around, particularly if you're traveling to the end of the country like I did! 
One of the things I bought was a box or container of Miso paste for about $3 or so to make the soup. It's nearly 750 g and you can imagine that a lump with that weight, especially when it is at one corner of a bag, a backpack or sack, is not something easy to move around!  
I made the soup last week eventually and it was not too bad. It only had two issues: 1) One of the ingredients, a taste enhancer was missing! 2) I'm not sure if the Tofu was the best.
Then I compared it with the soup I had nearly one year ago when a colleague took us to this Japanese restaurant in southern Edmonton. That tasted better! Either because they knew how to make it and this was my first time and missing an ingredient or I have no idea! 

(Photo: My Miso Soup. I bought the spoon from Japan as well. It works like a scoop more than a spoon!)