This weekend was pretty relaxing, which was nice since classes (and planning for said classes, and culture festivals) are starting again this week. Saturday was mostly cleaning and cooking... kind of. The day had so much promise... and then I went back to sleep and felt rather lazy. It was kinda a meh day outside, and the observatory in one of the cities (asakuchi? Something like that... down near Kasaoka) was open to the public, but the person who was going changed the time he was going to early in the morning at 9ish and I was like yeaaaaah it takes me an hour and a half to get there at least, so yeaaaaah, not leaving here at 7 on a saturday. No thank you. It wasn't really a full day thing anyways. A bunch of people were going to the beach, but I was feeling kind of bleh (I just came back from a food eating binge in the states, after all) so that idea got nixed as well. Plus it was getting late.
And then I discovered Infinity Blade. Ohhhh man. Oh man. It's kind of awesome. It's a game for the iPad where you control this dude who's trying to avenge his father... again and again. You battle enemies in duels, and your finger swipes become sword swings in whatever direction you're swiping. You can block, dodge, and parry blows, plus throw in some hits of your own. You level up your equipment in order to gain experience yourself. Some equipment have magical abilities; what magic they have, you can use. Heal has been my best friend.
Needless to say, my grand plans to get lots of stuff accomplished that day got.... sidetracked. I did finally get out to Juntendo and Polka for doing some grocery and necessity shopping. I also managed to get a couple loads of laundry loaded, and I finally aired out my futon.
Right before I left, this nagging voice in the back of my head told me that I should probably take my futon in. Just in case. Better safe than sorry and all that.
And what did I do?
I ignored that voice.
That was a really really really unwise decision. But the day was so nice; there were few clouds in sight and it was pretty sunny. Plus the weather said that there was no sign of rain last time I checked. I thought I would be alright. I thought wrong.
Right as I got out of Juntendo, the home store, ziploc plastic containers in hand, I looked up at the sky and could have sworn I saw a drop or two. I started to get more nervous. I debated heading back home right then and there, but I still had a list of food things I needed to buy. I'd be fast, I figured. It wouldn't take that long.
It took long enough. When I exited the building, shopping complete (lists really do make things go faster), it was raining. Hard. My mind went into panic mode (and berate yourself for being stupid mode). I secured my stuff to my bike and took off as fast as I could (nearly losing some things along the way). As I rode towards my house, it started to rain harder; the rain actually was hurting as it pelted my face. I had no umbrella, no poncho, no jacket, nothing water proof; I hadn't thought to bring anything since it didn't look like rain. I could have bought one from the store or from the conbini.
I had priorities though. That priority was getting home and taking my futon. I was praying that the heavy rain was slow moving and that it hadn't reached my house yet. Ponchos, umbrellas, would have just slowed me down. I swear that's the fastest I've biked back home. Uphill. In the rain.
My futon was half wet when I got back, so I pulled it inside my house, into the doorway. So much for trying to air it out! This is the SECOND time this has happened.
Jessica: 0 Nature: 2
Sigh.
To make matters worse, my bike, left to stand on its own, was extremely unbalanced and went tumbling over, getting my stuff muddy and denting the basket a little. Nothing big. But I mean, after having biked home in the ridiculously humid rain, pouring sweat from the uphill ride, and getting soaking wet, the bike falling was super extra sucky.
Seriously, did the weather come here from San Diego? WHERE DID THAT RAIN COME FROM. Augh. Nature hates me sometimes, I think.
Yeah though, after that, I didn't get much done because I was too busy drying off and trying to sit still so I wouldn't keep pouring sweat. And then I cooked stuff (meatballs to be specific). I hope they aren't bad yet. >_> <_< They didn't smell bad. I'm still not sick today. That's a good sign, right?
Today was much nicer though. I cleaned. Just did all the dishes. Haven't felt like doing much after that. Met up with the new Kibichuo Town JETs for pastry breakfast. They're super nice. :) We ate at Chalon, the really really awesome patisserie in Takahashi and chatted a bit before going our separate ways. I went to AEON mall to watch the new Ghibli movie.
It's super cute! I didn't understand a lot of what they were saying, but I did understand a good 50% of it! And I think I understood the general story as well. Thank goodness boy-likes-girl and oh em gee drama are pretty easy to read by body language. And even though I'm only 60% sure what was going on, it was still a super cute movie. It reminded me a little of my study abroad time on the Scholar Ship, mostly because the different signal flags play a small role in the story. Really cute though. I'm excited to see it with subtitles, haha.
I suppose I should clean or something before bed. Study. Shower. I think I transferred all the dirt from my dishes onto me. -_-; It was so hot too. @,@
OH. So the whole reason why I titled my entry "the Future":
We were at AEON (we being me and my friend from Okayama :3 ) and I went crazy cause they had frozen spinich, western frozen veggies (broccoli, carrots, cauliflower), and just frozen green peas. Seriously. THis is what I get excited over now. Hooray for my life. I'm so easy to please. But I bought some before I left for Takahashi, and the lady asked me if I needed ice, so I said yes and she gave me a token.
Turns out that token is for a machine. You put your bag of groceries in the machine, on little hooks. You close the door. You put the token in and hit start. AND THEN THE WHOLE MACHINE STARTS TO SMOKE. What you're getting dumped into your grocery bag isn't just regular ice, it turns out. IT'S DRY ICE. They give you dry ice to keep your frozen stuff cold. Holy. Freaking. Shit. Dry ice. For frozen veggies. At the grocery store. At the mall. In Japan. It's time like these that Japan lives up to the "crazy technology" stereotype I had of it before I came over here.
Also, I swear I'm working on the newsletter. Slowly. Yet surely. I swear it'll get out before September, which is in.... 3ish or so days. Yeaaaaah. Yeah. Yeah. WORKING ON THAT.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Swedish Buttery Meatballs
This is the recipe I used to make the meatballs with, courtesy of one of my friends. It was supposed to make the crack-like meatballs from IKEA; added bonus: it was in Internet memes. The recipe itself wasn't too hard, though it did call for something I never would have considered putting in meatballs: mashed potatoes. But it gives the meatballs an interesting, kind of smoother texture when you bite into them. I was worried that that meatballs would all come apart when I cooked them (they nearly did) but the second, smaller batch I made turned out pretty fantastic.
The best part was that it called for half beef, half pork - exactly what they sell here in japan for not an absurd price. The recipe though, is pretty much a heart attack waiting to happen, with the amount of butter it advises to use! I'm going to try it next time with just oil and see how that goes, since I'm really fond of using olive oil. But yeah, you cook the onions in garlic, and then you cook the meatballs in not a little bit of butter, but FIVE TABLESPOONS of butter. Holy woahly that's a lot of butter.
To make the gravy (which, is one of the better gravies I've had), the recipe called for beef stock, which I thought I had. But at first I couldn't find it at all! I had bought all the other ingredients at the store the day before, so I figured I'd nip to the close store for some beef stock since they usually have most things.
They didn't have beef stock. It was also pouring rain when I decided to go out and get it. Like POURING cats and dogs. I have good timing, what can I say.
The meatballs turned out ridiculously tasty though; even more so the second day, and cold! Definitely would recommend giving it a shot, though maybe with less butter. :)
Tonight though, I discovered that cooking salmon steaks is ridiculously easy. Like, why wasn't I doing this before easy. The only things I have to clean up are the dishes I used to eat with; everything else got cooked in a tin foil. I used a little garlic salt, sea salt, olive oil (of course!), lemon juice, lemon pepper, and basil and wooow it tasted amazing. I have one of them saved for tomorrow.
I really hope though that the sashimi I ate tonight wasn't bad because of the heat. Normally I don't buy fish in the summer because the heat makes it spoil faster, but I wanted a back up in case the salmon turned out... not so great. It was so tasty though. :3
And here I was, not going to cook earlier today. I'm super excited that I'm more confident about taking advantage of the huge seafood selection (or well, at least the salmon steak part of it - one medium sized piece for only 100 yen!). I guess if I have to eat cheaply this year, I'll be eating lots of tuna fish from a can, pasta, onions, tofu, rice, and salmon! Listed like that, it actually seems like I have a pretty decent variety of stuff going on. Actually, I probably could make a decent kind of variety with the different salts and stuff. Now to work on side dishes... I should try my hand at pickling stuff for sides. :D
Maybe I'll end up losing weight after all!
The best part was that it called for half beef, half pork - exactly what they sell here in japan for not an absurd price. The recipe though, is pretty much a heart attack waiting to happen, with the amount of butter it advises to use! I'm going to try it next time with just oil and see how that goes, since I'm really fond of using olive oil. But yeah, you cook the onions in garlic, and then you cook the meatballs in not a little bit of butter, but FIVE TABLESPOONS of butter. Holy woahly that's a lot of butter.
To make the gravy (which, is one of the better gravies I've had), the recipe called for beef stock, which I thought I had. But at first I couldn't find it at all! I had bought all the other ingredients at the store the day before, so I figured I'd nip to the close store for some beef stock since they usually have most things.
They didn't have beef stock. It was also pouring rain when I decided to go out and get it. Like POURING cats and dogs. I have good timing, what can I say.
The meatballs turned out ridiculously tasty though; even more so the second day, and cold! Definitely would recommend giving it a shot, though maybe with less butter. :)
Tonight though, I discovered that cooking salmon steaks is ridiculously easy. Like, why wasn't I doing this before easy. The only things I have to clean up are the dishes I used to eat with; everything else got cooked in a tin foil. I used a little garlic salt, sea salt, olive oil (of course!), lemon juice, lemon pepper, and basil and wooow it tasted amazing. I have one of them saved for tomorrow.
I really hope though that the sashimi I ate tonight wasn't bad because of the heat. Normally I don't buy fish in the summer because the heat makes it spoil faster, but I wanted a back up in case the salmon turned out... not so great. It was so tasty though. :3
And here I was, not going to cook earlier today. I'm super excited that I'm more confident about taking advantage of the huge seafood selection (or well, at least the salmon steak part of it - one medium sized piece for only 100 yen!). I guess if I have to eat cheaply this year, I'll be eating lots of tuna fish from a can, pasta, onions, tofu, rice, and salmon! Listed like that, it actually seems like I have a pretty decent variety of stuff going on. Actually, I probably could make a decent kind of variety with the different salts and stuff. Now to work on side dishes... I should try my hand at pickling stuff for sides. :D
Maybe I'll end up losing weight after all!
Monday, August 22, 2011
Nerd Day
This weekend was pretty awesome, I gotta say. It had the right amount of active and nerd in it. :) I already talked about Sunday's whitewater rafting adventure, but Saturday was a lot calmer and hurt far less.
Saturday was my nerd day with a fellow JET in Okayama city. ♡ I came into the city on Friday night and stayed the night at her place. I actually came in that day so that we could study at Coco's, one of my favorite family restaurants here (it's seriously fukken delicious). Our reasoning was that because they have a drink bar, we could just stay there and utilize the drink bar as long as we wanted to and study Japanese. Their drink bar is pretty nice; it has a coffee machine as well as loose leaf teas. ♡ loose leaf! It was a very productive night.
We did come to the realization that yes, we were studying Japanese on a Friday night (and not only had looked forward to studying on a friday night, but were also having fun doing so). Kinda lame, I know, but ♡ nerds I mean, we also chatted, but a lot of what we did was study (after dinner, of course). The place was close enough to her house that we were able to take advantage of it not being disgustingly hot outside for once, and walked back to her place.
The next morning, we were back again at Coco's for their morning "baikingu" or viking or buffet style breakfast. Yeah we were there probably less than twelve hours ago, but I mean come ON breakfast foods! ...not particularly like, gourmet breakfast foods, but they did have tasty curry and tasty breakfast breads and jam. And the drink bar. And it was all only 700 yen. ♡
After that, we decided to walk over to the Oriental Museum, since they were having an Egypt and mummy exhibit going on (which was the ultimate reason I had come into Okayama). First though, we stopped at the prefectural library, one of my favorite places in the prefecture. ♡ You can check out books from the prefectural library via your local library (or in my case, my high school library) in the interlibrary exchange program. It's pretty awesome. But you kind of have to know what you're looking for sometimes. That's why I like to browse when I can, and since we were passing by and had a bunch of time to kill...
I swear we hit the jackpot. Or I hit the jackpot. They had back issues of Bon Appetite (though fat lot of help that does us here in Japan where we can't get half the ingredients), but more importantly, their English language selection is pretty vast and really varied. They have a really decent social sciences section too; lots of stuff on gender studies, but also an impressive collection of academic books about food and culture. Hell. They even had the Food and Culture reader by Counihan. It was massive. I practically wept with joy; as it was, I became a library fangirl almost instantly.
Either way though, I found enough literature to keep me busy until probably at least december; and that's if I'm constantly reading everything I check out in a timely manner.
The first two books I picked up were Afternoon Tea and Foodways and Folklore (Thursby 2008). Afternoon Tea is a cute (short) book with lots of pictures that briefly talks about the origins of tea and then primarily focuses on the origins of tea customs and practices in the West (ie, England mostly). It was a very interesting, if short read that I finished when we decided to kill more time after visiting the museum at a cafe, reading and drinking tasty tasty tea. ♡ The other book is pretty interesting as well. It's a bit longer, and is more academic. There are countless numbers of articles and books I can grab references from, and it's interesting to read. It focuses on the food and foodways of mostly America, which, at the moment, I find incredibly fascinating. My views of what American food is (and isn't) has changed a lot since I've left for Japan. I used to mock the way Americans, in Japanese manga and anime anyways, are portrayed as always loving hamburgers (and sometimes fries, shakes, and apple pie). I only agreed with maybe one of those things as American - apple pie. To me, before, American food was ridiculously complex and near impossible to define because there were so many variations, so many immigrants, and so many regional differences that there was no one or two things that could be defined as "American food" (turkey, apple pie... and maybe BBQ style foods were the only ones I could think of).
American food is complex in that sense; that there's a lot of people who make up "America" and defining one thing over the other is really hard to do. However, after spending more time here in Japan, American food - to me - has come to mean "stuff that you can eat only in America and can't really eat anywhere else and also is pretty popular plus foods that lots of people eat and that the rest of the world thinks we're weird sometimes for eating plus stuff that people in America have eaten for friggin ages"
American style breakfast is, I think, pretty unique. Proper breakfast anyways. Slow, weekend breakfast. A full breakfast I guess you can call it. The British have quick and not so quick breakfast too, but the contents are vastly different. Here in Japan... some students have told me they have miso soup and rice for breakfast. Others have natto, and still others will have just bread (pastry bread from conbinis) or rice balls for breakfast. Sometimes, I too have rice balls for breakfast from the convenience store. I don't actually know if people eat pancakes or waffles for breakfast here (though waffles, often with ice cream or fruit and whipped cream, are a popular dessert). The closest thing I've seen to an american breakfast is the "breakfast set" some cafes offer: toast, salad, and coffee or tea and maybe eggs. Maybe not eggs. Oh yeah, salad for breakfast is a thing here (and sometimes, french fries are too).
It's funny though, cause yesterday in the car ride home, to stay awake I talked with the driver and we pretty much made ourselves ridiculously hungry by talking about the foods that we loved to eat. We went through like, top three desserts, top three chocolate bars, top three cakes, top three ice creams, top three savory foods, top three burgers, foods for your last meal, top three people you'd eat your last meal with, where you'd eat your last meal at... yeah, we were pretty much starving by the time we got back. We even stopped at a rest area because my friend had such a huge craving for chocolates (he has a huge sweet tooth to make things worse). This is sometimes a downside of talking to me.
Anyways. The museum exhibit was pretty cool. There were even things in English that we could read (I think the exhibition came from London) and they had two mummies and a couple sarcophaguses (sarcophagi?) on display. It was freaking RAD. They also had these gorgeous Egyptian style dresses, but those were kind of expensive (about 14,000 yen, or ~$150 which... isn't actually that much compared to a formal style dress). They had this area too where you could smell frankincense and uhhhh... something else. Some kind of wood - not sandalwood but uhhh... something else that was really earthy smelling. I forgot. But I sweartogod I've smelled frankincense somewhere else - and not at a funeral home or crematory.
After, we killed time at a cafe and read for a while until it was time to go to a Book Exchange that someone in AJET was starting. Brilliant idea. If only I hadn't just gone to the library. So much reading to do~Good thing classes haven't started yet. I meant to go back home earlier, but a couple of new JETs came and I was like ahhh I want to say hello since they both live pretty close to where I am. I totally meant to go back and make swedish meatballs. I'm doing that today, actually. I ended up eating dinner hella late (omnom curry from Coco Curry House~) so I wasn't hungry at all by the time I got back home, and so ended up not making them. I get tired kind of early now. But yes. That 24 hour block was kind of amazing. Like I said, saturday (and friday night) was like, my nerd day. ♡
You need slow (but still productive) quiet days like that sometimes, I think. Recharge the soul and the mind!
Saturday was my nerd day with a fellow JET in Okayama city. ♡ I came into the city on Friday night and stayed the night at her place. I actually came in that day so that we could study at Coco's, one of my favorite family restaurants here (it's seriously fukken delicious). Our reasoning was that because they have a drink bar, we could just stay there and utilize the drink bar as long as we wanted to and study Japanese. Their drink bar is pretty nice; it has a coffee machine as well as loose leaf teas. ♡ loose leaf! It was a very productive night.
We did come to the realization that yes, we were studying Japanese on a Friday night (and not only had looked forward to studying on a friday night, but were also having fun doing so). Kinda lame, I know, but ♡ nerds I mean, we also chatted, but a lot of what we did was study (after dinner, of course). The place was close enough to her house that we were able to take advantage of it not being disgustingly hot outside for once, and walked back to her place.
The next morning, we were back again at Coco's for their morning "baikingu" or viking or buffet style breakfast. Yeah we were there probably less than twelve hours ago, but I mean come ON breakfast foods! ...not particularly like, gourmet breakfast foods, but they did have tasty curry and tasty breakfast breads and jam. And the drink bar. And it was all only 700 yen. ♡
After that, we decided to walk over to the Oriental Museum, since they were having an Egypt and mummy exhibit going on (which was the ultimate reason I had come into Okayama). First though, we stopped at the prefectural library, one of my favorite places in the prefecture. ♡ You can check out books from the prefectural library via your local library (or in my case, my high school library) in the interlibrary exchange program. It's pretty awesome. But you kind of have to know what you're looking for sometimes. That's why I like to browse when I can, and since we were passing by and had a bunch of time to kill...
I swear we hit the jackpot. Or I hit the jackpot. They had back issues of Bon Appetite (though fat lot of help that does us here in Japan where we can't get half the ingredients), but more importantly, their English language selection is pretty vast and really varied. They have a really decent social sciences section too; lots of stuff on gender studies, but also an impressive collection of academic books about food and culture. Hell. They even had the Food and Culture reader by Counihan. It was massive. I practically wept with joy; as it was, I became a library fangirl almost instantly.
Either way though, I found enough literature to keep me busy until probably at least december; and that's if I'm constantly reading everything I check out in a timely manner.
The first two books I picked up were Afternoon Tea and Foodways and Folklore (Thursby 2008). Afternoon Tea is a cute (short) book with lots of pictures that briefly talks about the origins of tea and then primarily focuses on the origins of tea customs and practices in the West (ie, England mostly). It was a very interesting, if short read that I finished when we decided to kill more time after visiting the museum at a cafe, reading and drinking tasty tasty tea. ♡ The other book is pretty interesting as well. It's a bit longer, and is more academic. There are countless numbers of articles and books I can grab references from, and it's interesting to read. It focuses on the food and foodways of mostly America, which, at the moment, I find incredibly fascinating. My views of what American food is (and isn't) has changed a lot since I've left for Japan. I used to mock the way Americans, in Japanese manga and anime anyways, are portrayed as always loving hamburgers (and sometimes fries, shakes, and apple pie). I only agreed with maybe one of those things as American - apple pie. To me, before, American food was ridiculously complex and near impossible to define because there were so many variations, so many immigrants, and so many regional differences that there was no one or two things that could be defined as "American food" (turkey, apple pie... and maybe BBQ style foods were the only ones I could think of).
American food is complex in that sense; that there's a lot of people who make up "America" and defining one thing over the other is really hard to do. However, after spending more time here in Japan, American food - to me - has come to mean "stuff that you can eat only in America and can't really eat anywhere else and also is pretty popular plus foods that lots of people eat and that the rest of the world thinks we're weird sometimes for eating plus stuff that people in America have eaten for friggin ages"
American style breakfast is, I think, pretty unique. Proper breakfast anyways. Slow, weekend breakfast. A full breakfast I guess you can call it. The British have quick and not so quick breakfast too, but the contents are vastly different. Here in Japan... some students have told me they have miso soup and rice for breakfast. Others have natto, and still others will have just bread (pastry bread from conbinis) or rice balls for breakfast. Sometimes, I too have rice balls for breakfast from the convenience store. I don't actually know if people eat pancakes or waffles for breakfast here (though waffles, often with ice cream or fruit and whipped cream, are a popular dessert). The closest thing I've seen to an american breakfast is the "breakfast set" some cafes offer: toast, salad, and coffee or tea and maybe eggs. Maybe not eggs. Oh yeah, salad for breakfast is a thing here (and sometimes, french fries are too).
It's funny though, cause yesterday in the car ride home, to stay awake I talked with the driver and we pretty much made ourselves ridiculously hungry by talking about the foods that we loved to eat. We went through like, top three desserts, top three chocolate bars, top three cakes, top three ice creams, top three savory foods, top three burgers, foods for your last meal, top three people you'd eat your last meal with, where you'd eat your last meal at... yeah, we were pretty much starving by the time we got back. We even stopped at a rest area because my friend had such a huge craving for chocolates (he has a huge sweet tooth to make things worse). This is sometimes a downside of talking to me.
Anyways. The museum exhibit was pretty cool. There were even things in English that we could read (I think the exhibition came from London) and they had two mummies and a couple sarcophaguses (sarcophagi?) on display. It was freaking RAD. They also had these gorgeous Egyptian style dresses, but those were kind of expensive (about 14,000 yen, or ~$150 which... isn't actually that much compared to a formal style dress). They had this area too where you could smell frankincense and uhhhh... something else. Some kind of wood - not sandalwood but uhhh... something else that was really earthy smelling. I forgot. But I sweartogod I've smelled frankincense somewhere else - and not at a funeral home or crematory.
After, we killed time at a cafe and read for a while until it was time to go to a Book Exchange that someone in AJET was starting. Brilliant idea. If only I hadn't just gone to the library. So much reading to do~Good thing classes haven't started yet. I meant to go back home earlier, but a couple of new JETs came and I was like ahhh I want to say hello since they both live pretty close to where I am. I totally meant to go back and make swedish meatballs. I'm doing that today, actually. I ended up eating dinner hella late (omnom curry from Coco Curry House~) so I wasn't hungry at all by the time I got back home, and so ended up not making them. I get tired kind of early now. But yes. That 24 hour block was kind of amazing. Like I said, saturday (and friday night) was like, my nerd day. ♡
You need slow (but still productive) quiet days like that sometimes, I think. Recharge the soul and the mind!
Sunday, August 21, 2011
White water
Today I went with a couple of AJET folks down to Kochi Prefecture to the Yoshino River for some whitewater rafting. I was suuuper excited, since I've wanted to go for quite some time. Our group chose to do the half day tour, since today was a sunday and most of us have work tomorrow (or have to wake up early), and from okayama it's about a two hour drive (though you can get there by train as well). The half day we went on started at 2, went until 5ish. There was a place we went for lunch that had pretty tasty gyuudon and felt like we were eating at this quaint little, almost rustic cottage house run by grandmas. Dinner was at a road side ramen/katsu shop. So freaking tasty. I think that's one of the things I wish i had a car for.
I had no idea driving in Japan was so expensive! Oh my god. The bridge toll to cross the Seto-Ohashi? 3,300 yen. WTF. That's like, about $40 with the current (crappy) exchange rate. FOR A BRIDGE TOLL. I won't complain about the bay bridge being $6 any more.
I didn't expect there to be so many mountains down there; it seemed like that area was pretty much all mountains and valleys. It was absolutely gorgeous, and though the day started off kind of rainy and drizzly, the rain let up by the time we got going for a really nice day. It wasn't too humid (for once), it wasn't too hot, it wasn't really cold. It was nice. :) We were split into two different cars going down; I was in the car without a GPS since I had my wifi and my iPad. Never thought it'd come in so handy like this! Very glad I bought it. :)
We went with a company called Happy Raft; they have a bunch of international guides and stuff, so we were speaking English the whole time we were down there. It was ridiculously fun. I love water sports :D The river we were on was only a 3 (out of 6) so it wasn't too too bad, though there were a couple of fun white patches. We didn't flip. We got stuck a couple times, and very nearly flipped. Our boat was getting pulled into the calm space behind a rock and we were starting to lean towards there... so our guide had all of us move over to the opposite side, and thankfully, we managed to balance ourselves out and break free. there were a bunch of calm stretches we got to play games on. Every one of us went for a swim, but nobody fell out without someone putting an effort into it. We also managed to rodeo flip our boat, head over end. That was pretty sweet. We had a huge boat too (since there were 8 of us).
t'was loads of fun; I definitely want to do this again! Interestingly enough, I did get injuries. Blisters, for one. But it wasn't from the rafting. It was from putting on the wet suit. I put it on BACKWARDS by accident, since I'm used to having the zipper in the back (that's what it was like for scuba diving). So I got to put it on twice. Now I have two blisters: one on each ring finger. Stings like a mofo. My shoulders are also really sore, but that's not from paddling. It's from being hauled back into the boat several times. Seriously, that and getting on the wetsuit were the hardest parts of this trip.
I haven't felt this sore in a while. I didn't even feel this sore after fuji or the six hour bike ride. This is like, a deep kind of achey sore that makes me feel rather... old. And tired. But I totally want to do it again sometime. :D
Hopefully I'll be able to get pictures up sometime. One of us bought the CD with pictures on it... so I suppose eventually it'll make it up here somehow.
I had no idea driving in Japan was so expensive! Oh my god. The bridge toll to cross the Seto-Ohashi? 3,300 yen. WTF. That's like, about $40 with the current (crappy) exchange rate. FOR A BRIDGE TOLL. I won't complain about the bay bridge being $6 any more.
I didn't expect there to be so many mountains down there; it seemed like that area was pretty much all mountains and valleys. It was absolutely gorgeous, and though the day started off kind of rainy and drizzly, the rain let up by the time we got going for a really nice day. It wasn't too humid (for once), it wasn't too hot, it wasn't really cold. It was nice. :) We were split into two different cars going down; I was in the car without a GPS since I had my wifi and my iPad. Never thought it'd come in so handy like this! Very glad I bought it. :)
We went with a company called Happy Raft; they have a bunch of international guides and stuff, so we were speaking English the whole time we were down there. It was ridiculously fun. I love water sports :D The river we were on was only a 3 (out of 6) so it wasn't too too bad, though there were a couple of fun white patches. We didn't flip. We got stuck a couple times, and very nearly flipped. Our boat was getting pulled into the calm space behind a rock and we were starting to lean towards there... so our guide had all of us move over to the opposite side, and thankfully, we managed to balance ourselves out and break free. there were a bunch of calm stretches we got to play games on. Every one of us went for a swim, but nobody fell out without someone putting an effort into it. We also managed to rodeo flip our boat, head over end. That was pretty sweet. We had a huge boat too (since there were 8 of us).
t'was loads of fun; I definitely want to do this again! Interestingly enough, I did get injuries. Blisters, for one. But it wasn't from the rafting. It was from putting on the wet suit. I put it on BACKWARDS by accident, since I'm used to having the zipper in the back (that's what it was like for scuba diving). So I got to put it on twice. Now I have two blisters: one on each ring finger. Stings like a mofo. My shoulders are also really sore, but that's not from paddling. It's from being hauled back into the boat several times. Seriously, that and getting on the wetsuit were the hardest parts of this trip.
I haven't felt this sore in a while. I didn't even feel this sore after fuji or the six hour bike ride. This is like, a deep kind of achey sore that makes me feel rather... old. And tired. But I totally want to do it again sometime. :D
Hopefully I'll be able to get pictures up sometime. One of us bought the CD with pictures on it... so I suppose eventually it'll make it up here somehow.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Today, one of the students who is really eager to learn English came and talked to me in the staff room. :) IT MADE ME SO HAPPY. He's also one of the most eager students who's doing the exchange diary that I started as well.
He wants practice for the interview test he's hoping to take to get into a good university, but since that's not until Novemberish I figured we could start a little bit more slowly. So today, we talked just about casual things. Basketball, our families, pot stickers... I also introduced him to the wonders of blackberries and confetti cake. Oh, and Dr. Pepper. It was a jelly bean flavor (I brought back jelly beans as souvenir gifts) and he was like, "What's Dr. Pepper?"
"A soda," I told him.
"What flavor?" he asked in return.
To that, I could not come up with an answer. The only thing I could think of was "Well, it's kind of unique... it's not like coke or pepsi... but it's a cola... it tastes kind of like Dr. Pep- oops..." Licorice? Is that the flavor of Dr. Pepper? I don't know. I don't drink Dr. Pepper; I was never fond of the taste.
Also that gymnasium comes from the Greek word which meant "exercise naked." Thanks Dictionary.
These are some of my favorite parts of teaching here in Japan. :) Just being able to talk to students and exchange ideas and opinions. I suppose eventually we'll get to the deeper stuff, but for now, I'm perfectly fine with talking about food. I just noticed that all the things we talked about were food (and basketball). Go figure. :)
He wants practice for the interview test he's hoping to take to get into a good university, but since that's not until Novemberish I figured we could start a little bit more slowly. So today, we talked just about casual things. Basketball, our families, pot stickers... I also introduced him to the wonders of blackberries and confetti cake. Oh, and Dr. Pepper. It was a jelly bean flavor (I brought back jelly beans as souvenir gifts) and he was like, "What's Dr. Pepper?"
"A soda," I told him.
"What flavor?" he asked in return.
To that, I could not come up with an answer. The only thing I could think of was "Well, it's kind of unique... it's not like coke or pepsi... but it's a cola... it tastes kind of like Dr. Pep- oops..." Licorice? Is that the flavor of Dr. Pepper? I don't know. I don't drink Dr. Pepper; I was never fond of the taste.
Also that gymnasium comes from the Greek word which meant "exercise naked." Thanks Dictionary.
These are some of my favorite parts of teaching here in Japan. :) Just being able to talk to students and exchange ideas and opinions. I suppose eventually we'll get to the deeper stuff, but for now, I'm perfectly fine with talking about food. I just noticed that all the things we talked about were food (and basketball). Go figure. :)
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Expresso Time
Ugh. I'm jet lagging so badly right now. I know I shouldn't go sleep right now... but I'm just so tired...
I went to bed kind of late, like around 1 am. Then I woke up again around 4 am, and promptly started hating my life. ...I pretty much watched My Little Ponies: Friendship is Magic (a surprisingly decent show) until I had to go to work cause I couldn't go to sleep.
So tired... =_=
I gave the staff room omiyage today, in the form of Jelly Belly jelly beans. I think it went off well. I hope. I put them into individual cups since they weren't actually originally packaged that way.
Arg, I still need to eat lunch but I don't know what to eat. It's already almost 1 pm. Sigh... Not having classes is throwing my schedule off, because I don't really keep time well on my own. I'm a structure kind of person; I need it otherwise I'll just kind of laze about until it kicks in that, oh yeah, I should be doing XX or whatever. Then I'll do it. I've gotten pretty good at self imposed deadlines, and those for the most part, keep me on track but for some things... and some times (like now) it's just so... hard.
HOORAY FOR EXPRESSO COFFEE CONBINI DRINKS. I have energy again, can't you tell?
I was going through my pictures and videos of California, which has mostly just made me pine with longing for things like Farmer's Markets and ridiculously cheap fruit. I keep having to tell myself that I'm in Japan - Japan! - and that it's kind of awesome. Because it is. I'll be able to go back to cheap fruit some day. Really... it's not that bad...
My personal goal, now that I've returned to Japan, is to eat more fish. Tuna fish from a can doesn't count. I'm talking like the fish that they sell at the supermarkets because it's supposed to be cheaper (I think?). The seafood section of our grocery stores are kind of amazing. They're more like Ranch 99 (the super huge Chinese supermarket chain) in that sense, without the live bits. Which, now that I think about it, is a lot of it. They don't have any live fish at the supermarket here, but they do have a spectacular amount of dead marine life, from whole squid and whole fish to fish steaks and scallops. My goal is to start buying and cooking the things like salmon... so long as they're cheaper than meat. I haven't actually looked at the prices (I keep getting distracted by the omg whole squid or other interesting selection they have there).
This is kind of a random, ramble-y post. Moreso than the others.
The librarian at our school is super awesome. I can have conversations and stuff with her, and she's super super nice. Plus she doesn't mind if I occasionally go up there to study or whatnot, so I don't have to worry about nodding off in the teachers room. I don't do that very often, but sometimes the day is just so. freaking. boring. This is usually during the break periods between actual class. Like now. I don't have classes because it's summer vacation, but, I still have to go in to work. Some of the students (ie, all the academic ones) have summer classes that they're taking, or club activities they continue to do during the summer, so it feels like there are always students here. To fill the time, I'll study Japanese, or look through my lesson plans and brainstorm different ideas. But that only lasts for so long during the day. Eventually, after a couple days/hours of just doing that, I either get sleepy or stir crazy. It's fine when it's in the winter, since you just go outside and walk around a bit and BAM you're awake. But in the summer... it's pretty awful gross. I go outside only when I have to, or when the staff room gets too cold. (I suppose I should be thankful it gets too cold at all, since that's much better, in my opinion, than not being cold enough. Also, I happen to sit in the path of the air conditioner, so it blows straight over our row of desks, providing good weather-esque conversation when everyone around us is freezing cold).
My vice principal continues to amaze me with the topics that come up in conversation. Today was the etymology of Japanese words. Hajimemashite はじめまして, which is translated as "nice to meet you" has a much deeper meaning, I found. The way my VP explained it, you're saying something that literally translates to something like, "for the first time." You say this when you first meet someone. In essence, he explained, it means that this meeting and introduction was not a work of fate, nor of destiny; it was a completely random accident. When you say "hajimemashite" you're conveying something like, "I'm lucky to have met you" since, after all, it was complete happenstance that out of all the billions of people in the world, you meet each other. It conveys, I'm told, this sense of gratitude of this random accident occurring.
It made me like the greeting a lot more, that's for sure. It's so... poetic and kind of almost philisophical, all rolled up into this "nice to meet you" phrase that we have translated so clumsily. Etymology is pretty freaking cool.
He also asked me why we call them "tank tops" because we were talking about how he had a difficult time understanding the phrase, "the market tanked." I had to tell him that honestly, I had no idea. Actually, I'm looking it up now, since I'm curious. But my internet is ridiculously slow (though, at least the signal just *barely* stretches up this far).
UPDATE: Ha! My original guess - that it had come from the soldiers and marines wearing tank tops inside of tanks - was completely off. ね、知ってる？ Tank top comes from "tank suit," which was the word for a one piece bathing suit. The tank part of it was because it was worn in a swimming pool, or, as it was known back then, a swimming tank.
NOW YOU KNOOOOOOOOOW.
I went to bed kind of late, like around 1 am. Then I woke up again around 4 am, and promptly started hating my life. ...I pretty much watched My Little Ponies: Friendship is Magic (a surprisingly decent show) until I had to go to work cause I couldn't go to sleep.
So tired... =_=
I gave the staff room omiyage today, in the form of Jelly Belly jelly beans. I think it went off well. I hope. I put them into individual cups since they weren't actually originally packaged that way.
Arg, I still need to eat lunch but I don't know what to eat. It's already almost 1 pm. Sigh... Not having classes is throwing my schedule off, because I don't really keep time well on my own. I'm a structure kind of person; I need it otherwise I'll just kind of laze about until it kicks in that, oh yeah, I should be doing XX or whatever. Then I'll do it. I've gotten pretty good at self imposed deadlines, and those for the most part, keep me on track but for some things... and some times (like now) it's just so... hard.
HOORAY FOR EXPRESSO COFFEE CONBINI DRINKS. I have energy again, can't you tell?
I was going through my pictures and videos of California, which has mostly just made me pine with longing for things like Farmer's Markets and ridiculously cheap fruit. I keep having to tell myself that I'm in Japan - Japan! - and that it's kind of awesome. Because it is. I'll be able to go back to cheap fruit some day. Really... it's not that bad...
My personal goal, now that I've returned to Japan, is to eat more fish. Tuna fish from a can doesn't count. I'm talking like the fish that they sell at the supermarkets because it's supposed to be cheaper (I think?). The seafood section of our grocery stores are kind of amazing. They're more like Ranch 99 (the super huge Chinese supermarket chain) in that sense, without the live bits. Which, now that I think about it, is a lot of it. They don't have any live fish at the supermarket here, but they do have a spectacular amount of dead marine life, from whole squid and whole fish to fish steaks and scallops. My goal is to start buying and cooking the things like salmon... so long as they're cheaper than meat. I haven't actually looked at the prices (I keep getting distracted by the omg whole squid or other interesting selection they have there).
This is kind of a random, ramble-y post. Moreso than the others.
The librarian at our school is super awesome. I can have conversations and stuff with her, and she's super super nice. Plus she doesn't mind if I occasionally go up there to study or whatnot, so I don't have to worry about nodding off in the teachers room. I don't do that very often, but sometimes the day is just so. freaking. boring. This is usually during the break periods between actual class. Like now. I don't have classes because it's summer vacation, but, I still have to go in to work. Some of the students (ie, all the academic ones) have summer classes that they're taking, or club activities they continue to do during the summer, so it feels like there are always students here. To fill the time, I'll study Japanese, or look through my lesson plans and brainstorm different ideas. But that only lasts for so long during the day. Eventually, after a couple days/hours of just doing that, I either get sleepy or stir crazy. It's fine when it's in the winter, since you just go outside and walk around a bit and BAM you're awake. But in the summer... it's pretty awful gross. I go outside only when I have to, or when the staff room gets too cold. (I suppose I should be thankful it gets too cold at all, since that's much better, in my opinion, than not being cold enough. Also, I happen to sit in the path of the air conditioner, so it blows straight over our row of desks, providing good weather-esque conversation when everyone around us is freezing cold).
My vice principal continues to amaze me with the topics that come up in conversation. Today was the etymology of Japanese words. Hajimemashite はじめまして, which is translated as "nice to meet you" has a much deeper meaning, I found. The way my VP explained it, you're saying something that literally translates to something like, "for the first time." You say this when you first meet someone. In essence, he explained, it means that this meeting and introduction was not a work of fate, nor of destiny; it was a completely random accident. When you say "hajimemashite" you're conveying something like, "I'm lucky to have met you" since, after all, it was complete happenstance that out of all the billions of people in the world, you meet each other. It conveys, I'm told, this sense of gratitude of this random accident occurring.
It made me like the greeting a lot more, that's for sure. It's so... poetic and kind of almost philisophical, all rolled up into this "nice to meet you" phrase that we have translated so clumsily. Etymology is pretty freaking cool.
He also asked me why we call them "tank tops" because we were talking about how he had a difficult time understanding the phrase, "the market tanked." I had to tell him that honestly, I had no idea. Actually, I'm looking it up now, since I'm curious. But my internet is ridiculously slow (though, at least the signal just *barely* stretches up this far).
UPDATE: Ha! My original guess - that it had come from the soldiers and marines wearing tank tops inside of tanks - was completely off. ね、知ってる？ Tank top comes from "tank suit," which was the word for a one piece bathing suit. The tank part of it was because it was worn in a swimming pool, or, as it was known back then, a swimming tank.
NOW YOU KNOOOOOOOOOW.
Friday, August 12, 2011
Festival Prep
I meant to take pictures of us doing beef teriyaki skewering here in Concord. Oops. I forgot. Or well, I was too busy actually skewering and catching up with people to pull out my camera. We must have skewered for ages though. 31 tubs of meat, and our beef teriyaki skewers aren't just meat like the Japanese gyuugushi/meat on sticks. We're, y'know, healthy. Kind of. Between each meat slice there's a green bell pepper. Totally healthy. Yep.
Actually, I should really bring this back to Japan since bell peppers are actually cheap, and if I just use the thin sliced beef it won't be too too expensive. Just need to make the teriyaki sauce and figure out the best way to make it - oh wait, I have a grill. Hopefully it won't explode into flames again. Like literally. The last time I used it, I got a couple of fireballs that blossomed from the grease that was falling down. Very pretty. Probably not safe.
But preparations for the Concord (California) Diablo Summer Festival, our Japanese-American summer obon festival, have been going on for the past week, so I've been popping in to help out in between running around taking care of business and seeing friends and stuff. Helped cut the bellpeppers. Sliced the shrimp. Skewered the beef teriyaki. Will probably be working tomorrow in beef teriyaki and inside at calligraphy. Just what I want to do right before I leave. Of course. It's fun though, working at festival and being part of the Japanese/Asian American community out here in the suburbs.
It's awesome though, because I get to go from one festival straight to another, since Matsuyama Odori will be happening when I arrive back in Takahashi. YAAAAAAAY.
I'm excited. I also have mixed feelings about going back though. I missed California a lot. I'm worried about my grandma. I missed my friends. I missed the food. I think I might be good on that front though. Maybe. But the weather here... is amazing. It's been cool, even cold in some places. I've been wearing jeans and a sweatshirt sometimes. Can you say heaven? So... I'm not looking forward to going back to the humidity. But it's Japan! And Takahashi! And bugs! I'm afraid to come back to my house lol. Mostly I'm terrified that the bugs have taken it over while I've been away. And that's actually a valid concern. I left it clean... but I'm paranoid I forgot something. And that the spiders will take over.
Takahashi has become home for me though. I have home in two places: Concord and Takahashi. This time around, it doesn't feel like I'm off to Japan on a grand adventure (even though, I am) but it feels kind of like I'm leaving one home for the other. I suppose that's a good thing. :)
I leave on Sunday morning though, at 11:30. gahhhhhh. I'm not packed at all (of course)! I have so much to do I don't know what I have to do before I leave. It's kind of ridiculous. I've also been scheming how I can get a deli sandwich from Genova - this amazing Italian deli near where I live that makes amazing sandwiches - to take with me on the plane. And what I'm going to do for 11 hours, since my laptop battery will definitely not last that long, nor will my soon-to-be-disconnected-iPhone.
iPhone. Smartphones. It was beautiful having you again. Perhaps I made a mistake in not waiting for you in Japan, but I regret nothing. Being connected somehow for not all my money was kind of important.
The past two weeks have been a complete whirlwind of activity, food, and friends. My trip has only reminded me of what amazing friends I have not only on both sides of the pacific, but also around the world, as everyone continues to scatter to the four winds. It's also reminded me that I'm old. I met up with one of my friends from elementary school (Elementary!), a couple middle school friends, college friends, Scholar Ship friends, basketball friends, and soon, I will be traveling back to my Japanland friends. I've been quite lucky indeed. Eventually, (maybe) there will be pictures. :) I keep saying that. Eventually it will come true... right?
Right?
*
Actually, I should really bring this back to Japan since bell peppers are actually cheap, and if I just use the thin sliced beef it won't be too too expensive. Just need to make the teriyaki sauce and figure out the best way to make it - oh wait, I have a grill. Hopefully it won't explode into flames again. Like literally. The last time I used it, I got a couple of fireballs that blossomed from the grease that was falling down. Very pretty. Probably not safe.
But preparations for the Concord (California) Diablo Summer Festival, our Japanese-American summer obon festival, have been going on for the past week, so I've been popping in to help out in between running around taking care of business and seeing friends and stuff. Helped cut the bellpeppers. Sliced the shrimp. Skewered the beef teriyaki. Will probably be working tomorrow in beef teriyaki and inside at calligraphy. Just what I want to do right before I leave. Of course. It's fun though, working at festival and being part of the Japanese/Asian American community out here in the suburbs.
It's awesome though, because I get to go from one festival straight to another, since Matsuyama Odori will be happening when I arrive back in Takahashi. YAAAAAAAY.
I'm excited. I also have mixed feelings about going back though. I missed California a lot. I'm worried about my grandma. I missed my friends. I missed the food. I think I might be good on that front though. Maybe. But the weather here... is amazing. It's been cool, even cold in some places. I've been wearing jeans and a sweatshirt sometimes. Can you say heaven? So... I'm not looking forward to going back to the humidity. But it's Japan! And Takahashi! And bugs! I'm afraid to come back to my house lol. Mostly I'm terrified that the bugs have taken it over while I've been away. And that's actually a valid concern. I left it clean... but I'm paranoid I forgot something. And that the spiders will take over.
Takahashi has become home for me though. I have home in two places: Concord and Takahashi. This time around, it doesn't feel like I'm off to Japan on a grand adventure (even though, I am) but it feels kind of like I'm leaving one home for the other. I suppose that's a good thing. :)
I leave on Sunday morning though, at 11:30. gahhhhhh. I'm not packed at all (of course)! I have so much to do I don't know what I have to do before I leave. It's kind of ridiculous. I've also been scheming how I can get a deli sandwich from Genova - this amazing Italian deli near where I live that makes amazing sandwiches - to take with me on the plane. And what I'm going to do for 11 hours, since my laptop battery will definitely not last that long, nor will my soon-to-be-disconnected-iPhone.
iPhone. Smartphones. It was beautiful having you again. Perhaps I made a mistake in not waiting for you in Japan, but I regret nothing. Being connected somehow for not all my money was kind of important.
The past two weeks have been a complete whirlwind of activity, food, and friends. My trip has only reminded me of what amazing friends I have not only on both sides of the pacific, but also around the world, as everyone continues to scatter to the four winds. It's also reminded me that I'm old. I met up with one of my friends from elementary school (Elementary!), a couple middle school friends, college friends, Scholar Ship friends, basketball friends, and soon, I will be traveling back to my Japanland friends. I've been quite lucky indeed. Eventually, (maybe) there will be pictures. :) I keep saying that. Eventually it will come true... right?
Right?
*
Monday, August 8, 2011
City Kind Of Sort Of Nearish The Bay
I keep having these alternating moments of "oh my god I work and live in Japan" and "oh my god I'm in California" while I'm over here. Been pretty busy the past week or so since arriving, especially since I've been eating making my way down through California, and have had little to no internet access (or time) since last saturday.
Did you know California has at least two safaris in it? I didn't know that either. I knew about one - Wild Animal Park in San Diego, since it's affiliated with the San Diego Zoo. But the other one is up in the hills/boonies of Santa Rosa. Santa Rosa, who knew! I went up there with my family (it was the one weekend all five of us were in the same spot) and like, it's a legit animal park safari thing. There are no Lions, but there are a bunch of cheetahs, though not out in the safari area. There were pretty much two areas: the animals in the cages/habitat areas (they were pretty roomy) and the open area that the ranger people drove you through. That was really cool. That area had a bunch of giraffes and ohmireeeses antelope. Antelope? Gazelles? I think they were gazelles not antelope. ...things with four legs and horns and generally fast. Tons of different types. It was really cool to see. I'll eventually get pictures up.
There were also wildebeests. MUFASAAAAAAAAAAAAA. And zebra. Those were cool. And cows. They reminded me of oregon trail.
After that though, we drove down to the petaluma outlets (omg shopping for clothes that can actually FIT me), and had lunch with my grandma at this awesome dumpling place in Oakland chinatown. I think I could eat dumplings and rice for the rest of my life. Om nom. I missed Chinese food. Like hole in the wall kind of chinese food.
Lunch ended with us buying char siu bao (bbq pork buns) (baked) and then my brother and I headed off towards San Diego. From there it's been a crazy short five days of friends, mexican food, friends, beach, couch surfing, more food, more beach, and "jessica is not in a planning mood right now." And oh yeah. DISNEYLAAAAAAAAAAND. San Diego though, was perfect. Like, weather, beach, food, friends... perfection. Why did I leave? Oh yeah. To go to Japan. Which is epic in its own sense. But seriously. I love the beaches in San Diego. Also crashed at a friend's place in Irvine and got to see another old friend at the farmer's market in the morning before I drove back up to the bay. That was super nice.
One of my biggest fears, I suppose, is that I'm going to get back to where ever, or go visit where ever and nobody will be there because everyone has moved away. It's kind of happening now. My friends are scattering. But it's okay, I think. Despite scattering. We'll always be able to see each other and stuff, I suppose. It'll be fine.
I can't believe I'm vacationing in California and working in Japan. Duuude.
Eventually I will have pictures up! Hahaha.
Did you know California has at least two safaris in it? I didn't know that either. I knew about one - Wild Animal Park in San Diego, since it's affiliated with the San Diego Zoo. But the other one is up in the hills/boonies of Santa Rosa. Santa Rosa, who knew! I went up there with my family (it was the one weekend all five of us were in the same spot) and like, it's a legit animal park safari thing. There are no Lions, but there are a bunch of cheetahs, though not out in the safari area. There were pretty much two areas: the animals in the cages/habitat areas (they were pretty roomy) and the open area that the ranger people drove you through. That was really cool. That area had a bunch of giraffes and ohmireeeses antelope. Antelope? Gazelles? I think they were gazelles not antelope. ...things with four legs and horns and generally fast. Tons of different types. It was really cool to see. I'll eventually get pictures up.
There were also wildebeests. MUFASAAAAAAAAAAAAA. And zebra. Those were cool. And cows. They reminded me of oregon trail.
After that though, we drove down to the petaluma outlets (omg shopping for clothes that can actually FIT me), and had lunch with my grandma at this awesome dumpling place in Oakland chinatown. I think I could eat dumplings and rice for the rest of my life. Om nom. I missed Chinese food. Like hole in the wall kind of chinese food.
Lunch ended with us buying char siu bao (bbq pork buns) (baked) and then my brother and I headed off towards San Diego. From there it's been a crazy short five days of friends, mexican food, friends, beach, couch surfing, more food, more beach, and "jessica is not in a planning mood right now." And oh yeah. DISNEYLAAAAAAAAAAND. San Diego though, was perfect. Like, weather, beach, food, friends... perfection. Why did I leave? Oh yeah. To go to Japan. Which is epic in its own sense. But seriously. I love the beaches in San Diego. Also crashed at a friend's place in Irvine and got to see another old friend at the farmer's market in the morning before I drove back up to the bay. That was super nice.
One of my biggest fears, I suppose, is that I'm going to get back to where ever, or go visit where ever and nobody will be there because everyone has moved away. It's kind of happening now. My friends are scattering. But it's okay, I think. Despite scattering. We'll always be able to see each other and stuff, I suppose. It'll be fine.
I can't believe I'm vacationing in California and working in Japan. Duuude.
Eventually I will have pictures up! Hahaha.
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