cuddlefish | (no subject)

HAY GUYS. I'm back nao. But I'm gonna leave again in another week or so. >3> Just so it's perfectly clear to everyone who reads this,

I'M GOING TO JAPAN AGAIN

with five other people. I've decided that even though I've been to the country before, I'm allowed to worry and stress and get all jazzed up because I have more baggage this time. And by baggage, I mean people who don't speak Japanese. Did I rant in here already about how I had to convince my mother that she could not go to Kyoto without me? Mmm. I praise you fearlessness, but, no, Mommy! No!

Is anybody who's going to Japan interested in this? Yeah, like I don't already have a hundred thousand things I want to eat. :/ Also, the average is $100 a head! YAY! >:| And we'd have to dress up...this looks like just about the worst idea ever. Can we please not do sukiyaki at Marunouchi Building? (But can we please eat something else there? Like their bento nom nom?)

Nothing really notable happened. Went to the usual places, did the usual walking, talking, eating and buying. Best discovery was bubble solution that I inexplicably remember from my childhood, Pustefix. It excels in making colorful rainbowy bubbles, though not so much in making big ones. I am deeply appreciative of shiny rainbowy things. So sometime at the end of the week, I got kicked outside to blow bubbles, and ended up with 8 mosquito bites on my legs. I was outside for 10 minutes? On a sunny, breezy day, in the middle of the lawn. Holy crap.

The house we stayed in was seriously in demand, because we had two different parties contact us during the week and ask to see the house. While we were there. They're not supposed to do that. The second set of people knocked on our front door and said, "We just thought we'd warn you that we're going to look around now." Mom's response: "No. Go away." <---really!! She said "go away!" AWESOME.

For some reason this year my favorite purchases weren't bags or jewelry, they were cookbooks from the 60s with horrible pictures and recipes. The winners are "Frosted Ham" (in a cookbook I lost, WHY), "Tomato Soup Cake" (with cream cheese frosting), and "Perfection Salad" (pretty obviously the green version of "Rosy Perfection Salad"). Since Perfection Salad's name isn't descriptive enough, I will explain that it is gelatin filled with shredded cabbage and pimientos.

I made sushi mostly by myself one night (mom was sous chef, so she did some crappy unskilled stuff for me). This especially was a win. I put together three different kinds of sushi with the help of a Japanese cookbook, and I got a sushi-phobe to like them. I liked it, too. The futomaki had dried shiitake that had been simmered in soy sauce and sugar. I wonder if I could modify that recipe so I could eat them without putting them in sushi?

I spent a lot of time rereading manga, namely Seikimatsu no Angel and Good Morning Call. These must have been more fun the first time around, because they felt really inferior when I read them last week. GMC is mostly notable because the author's notes in volume 5 are about Takasuka Yue's trip to Las Vegas, and ever since I read that I've had fantasies about Tanemura Arina coming to Boston and then writing about it ♥ That reminds me that I recently seriously considered writing a fan letter to Takeuchi Naoko. ...

I read more Renai Catalog, and Hanamoto Tane is still consistently awesome. She is my favorite, forever. Seriously, people, I understand that there are like 30 volumes to this and scanlations are nowhere to be found and there are no superpowers and it's not really outrageously exciting, but it's supercute and comforting. Oh, yeah, and I've pretty much decided that the main character's boyfriend is Roy In High School. =_= READ THIS.

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heheh, I can totally picture your mom doing that, and I love it.

..and the restaurant.. *drool* ..I can't wait til I'm rich and eccentric.

Oh, man, I thought you were talking about Mom wanting to go to Kyoto and I spent 10 minutes responding to THAT...yes, she said "go away." I think she would have been nicer, but these people showed up when everybody in the house (including me) was having an afternoon nap. DDDDDD:

I think if I eat at Marunouchi Building, I'd like to try Okowa Yonehachi (http://yonehachi.co.jp/obento/index.html). I guess their sell is bento with great rice? Looking at these menus, every one of their bento AT LEAST has rice with red beans for the rice. I want that one with the five different kinds of rice... *_*

the food is almost too pretty to eat.. ....almost.

..it's things like this that show you exactly why most of the world is thinner than America.

quality food in small quantity. (not like American food.. which is actually not food at all, but there's enough of it so that people don't seem to care.)

Jello with shredded cabbage?! EWWWWWWWWWWWW.

Have fun in Japan (again)! XD

And one of the guys in Ryuu no Hanwazurai is Roy with an eyepatch and Chinese clothes, so read it. :P I wrote about in my latest entry~

KYA♥ He...he really is Roy...ohmygod, I'm actually getting interested... ><

Thank you. And I'll put up the full recipe for Perfection Salad someday. It must be seen to be believed.

Actually, that's the amazing thing about bento, especially well-packed ones like these. They're frickin' dense, but ideally most of it is rice and vegetables, and when you wash that down with green tea...you get the idea. And, of course, when they're colorful and pretty like this, your eyes get to eat, too =w= I like those ones I linked to because they go light on the fried food and condiments, and IF there's a dessert, it's usually a few candied beans. BEANS ARE GOOD, AMIRITE? (Oh crap.)

It's actually a little weird about Japan, because if there was ever a country that didn't hold back on the lard and the cream, it's them. But then again, you don't have the same massive piles of french fries and cheese and beef and bacon and chicken fingers everywhere you go. And the servings are smaller. And thousands of times prettier. And Tokyo's the kind of place where you have to walk a lot.

..makes me miss being able to walk down the street to get a demi-baguette with cheese or veggies.

..now, as I would hypothetically walk down the square, I would see.. McDonalds, Burger King, Chinese food, pizza, and the ever popular liquor stores.

..you know, it's strange.. never once in France did I see a "liquor" store in France. ..they sold vodka next to the diapers at the supermarket, and that was about it.. (and of course, the overflowing wine aisles at the market ..and *wine* had it's own separate stores.. with big wheels of cheese in the windows.)

They do have liquor stores in Japan, but they're usually small. I imagine there's a focus on Asian alcoholic drinks, like sake and shochu. I don't remember if they kept beer and chuhai etc. at convenience stores, but it seems like a possibility. They do have vending machines with those. I think plenty of people just go to restaurants and bars to drink because they're very forgiving of public drunkenness there.

At least you have a square to walk down. The nearest food seller to my house is...Dunkin' Donuts! Whee! :( And it's not that close. Another problem with suburbia, no walking to your food.

oh, those Japanese lushes..

I'd really like to go at some point, there seems to be so much to see. cherry blossoms, beautiful food, girl trains, and now Japanese drunken people..

(ah yes, good old Dunkin's.. heart attack in a small tasty package..)

where have all the krispy kreme's gone?

Oh, man, don't you know? Dunkin' Donuts, like, owns the New England donut world. =_= It's scary. They're not even as wonderful as Krispy Kreme. ...then again, I'm under the impression that Krispy Kreme is the one that will kill you good if you eat enough of it. Either way, I only have a donut about every other week. (I have other vices. =_=)

Yeah, I'm sure if you walked around for a while at night you'd find a couple of specimens. Of the drunken people.