I'm so lazy

Today we went to Asakusa again looking for souveniers for Aaron to give to people and were successful. The weather was very nice out and we walked around a whole bunch. Now we are eating some sushis for dinner. We haven't done too much the last few days besides hang out, but it's been nice to not walk around too much because the weather's been rainy. All the cherry trees are blooming and it's very pretty. The other day Aaron and I went to one of those photo booths and took a sheet of little pictures, a couple of them look good and a couple are goofy looking because we were in funny spots when the camera took the picture.

I have my new air conditioner! I tried it the first night and it made hot air very fast. I've already unplugged it, though, to keep it from using electricity justby being plugged into the wall.

I should really look to find out when things are open.

Today we went to Tokyo and went to the Pokemon Center. It was just a store with lots of pokemon things. Pokemon stuffed animals and lunch boxes and candy and cards and lots of small children. It was surprisingly crowded for a Monday morning. Then we walked to the Imperial Palace garden. Which turned out to be closed on Mondays :( Oh well. We saw the outside of the wall. I'll make Aaron look at my pictures of the Imperial Palace in Kyoto tonight. Then in the afternoon we went to Akihabara and looked at many electronics stores. Things weren't much cheaper there, except for really old versions or questionable stores. In some of the alleys the stores had bins of computer bits and other electronica sitting out on the street. Some stores seemed to specialize in erotic manga, so we didn't really go in any comic shops. It was kind of dingy and we didn't go upstairs in any of the buildings because it seemed kind of forbidding. I'm sure had we gone (or figured out where to go up) stairs in some of the buildings it would have been more entertaining.

We came back and went to Saty and got yogurt. We had talked about going out for yakiniku but I think we are both not hungryenough for that and so we decided to just buy meat at the store and eat it. Maruetsu had some dated as being packed this morning already marked down because apparently they are not having meat for the next two days starting at 6 pm and had lots of empty refridgerator space (maybe they are cleaning them or getting new ones or something). But then we saw a pizza by the prepared food. So the meat is right under the freezer to get eaten tomorrow for dinner and the pizza is (mostly) eaten. It was pretty good, it had eggplant, salami, bacon, corn, mushrooms, peppers and olives on it.

There are new air conditioners sitting in the hallway... and worker people working in the empty ones. I hope they either hurry up and do mine tonight or do it tomorrow while we are not here so I can wash clothes and have some place to hang up my laundry. I'm nearly out of socks!

earthquake? what earthquake?

Didn't feel a thing yesterday morning when there was a big earthquake in Japan. It was on the Asia side of Japan. So don't worry.

It rained yesterday a bunch. We ate lunch at Saty (a bowl of ramen and a shrimp burger) and went to Chiba in the afternoon and walked around a little bit and saw a street performer guy do tricks (but the kind of trick that even little kids can see how its done) which was pretty entertaining. Then we came back and had steamed buns for dinner. Kind of a lazy day, but the weather wasn't conducive to going outside.

Today we are going to the pokemon store, possibly to the imperial palace (just to look at the outside) and then to Akihabara (the electronics district).

Asakusa

Today we went to Asakusa and looked at the temples and then walked around Kappabashi, the street with all the kitchenware stores. It was about the same as the last two times I was there, but Aaron seemed to enjoy himself. It was much faster, since we didn't spend anywhere near as much time shopping as I had before. We got okonomiyaki, which has a layer of pancake batter on the bottom, cabbage mixed with some sort of seaweedy stuff topped with noodles, followed by strips of bacon and then the whole thing is flipped ontop of a scrambled egg. Then on the egg side (up) they spread okonomiyaki sauce, which is ketchup and worchestershire sauce and then sprinkle rice puffs, pickled ginger and bonito flakes (which is shaved dry fish flakes). It was yummy. And we had fried chicken - it was so good! I had been wanting fried chicken for quite a while, so it made me happy.

Later we wandered around Saty and got vegetables to slice up and put on pita bread pizzas (Aaron's mom got pita breads as filler to make the cereal boxes not shift around. I used a lot of cheese. But I hadn't had any cheese all day Friday! They were also yummy. And it was nice to eat american-y food.

so tired!!!

I went and got Aaron from the airport yesterday, which was fairly uneventful, but it's nice to see him. Went to bed a little earlier than we should have, but he was falling asleep and I figured it was 8, that's when I go to bed. Too bad he is used to less than the 10 hours of sleep I usually get, so needless to say, we were awake well before 4am. Now I feel like I have jet lag too, and I was finally over it.

Today we just wandered around and munched on different things - we had curry rice for lunch, so we weren't veryhungry and had crepes for dinner (I got the mochi ice cream one again). I got a bunch of snacks from both my mom and Aaron's mom in the extra suitcase, so I have lots of cereal and munching type things. I may not have to buy snacks the rest of the time I am in Japan.

The weather today was really nice, it was in the 60's and sunny and not too windy, so it was a good day for wandering around. Tomorrow we are going to go to Asakusa and look around there.

blah blah blah

Went to Costco. Bought bagels for us to eat the first week Aaron is here (he'll be here tomorrow afternoon!!!) because he "doesn't want to eat icky healthy granola". That's fine by me, granola (which I got more of too since I'm to the last serving in the bag) is awfully expensive. And I don't like sharing. I also got a block of cheese. It's colby jack this time, I thought I'd go for some variation on cheddar, and there was no mozzarella. I also got a box to store my carrots in! It's a three sided box from some sort of pasta, which I think works quite well. By which I mean all the carrots fit.

I noticed on the bagel bag the bar code sticker is all in Japanese except for one line identifying the product in english - these are "PICK YOUR OWN BAGELS". To me, that makes it sound like I went to a bagel orchard with a basket and plucked bagels off trees. But really that means they have them bundled in half dozens (by flavor, there are only four types) and you have to get two and put the two half dozens into the larger bag with a bar code. They smell really good...

We're supposed to get new air conditioners, at least according to a sign on the front door, and I saw workers yesterday, but they never came to my room. This morning I put the desk back against the wall in case they came to replace it while I was out but I haven't heard any hammering so I put it back the way I like it. Maybe we are not all going to get new air conditioners, and only half the rooms were slated to recieve new ones.

I decided that I should write more about things that aren't how I made dinner. So I made another blog in which to write about making dinner. The address is: http://magdacooks.blogspot.com/ . I have already written a riveting account of making carrot risotto (for which I decided to get a new spatula (I spent a whole 105 yen on it) to not stain my clear one orange, but the new spatula doesn't seem to be quite strong enough for stirring anything. And it's already bent after one meal. I might have to buy a wooden spoon or something).

An Embarrassment of Carrots

On my way home from the grocery store, I went past the vegetable store and they had very large bags of carrots for 200 yen. I debated getting it. Then I went home and talked to James and decided that, yes, 200 yen for a giant bag of carrots was worth it, even if I didn't use many of them because to buy them in small quantities carrots cost around 20 yen apiece. So I'd only have to eat ten to make it worthwhile. I went back (with my bike this time, there was no way I was going to carry what I'm guessing was between 10 and 15 pounds of carrots any further than I had to) and got the carrots. Thankfully I didn't see anyone so I didn't have to explain what I was doing with that many carrots. Clearly, I am going to eat them. I just laid them all out on the floor and counted and there were 41 in the bag. Super cheap for food, even by American standards. I thought I was going to have to wash them but they seem to be very clean. Not clean enough to eat, but I guess the condensation in the bag might have been because they were put there while wet. I'm letting them dry and then I guess I'll stick them back in the bag. So far I've found a couple good ideas to make with them. Mostly, though, it's cutting them in circles and either baking or sauteeing them with sugar and butter to make them be like candied sweet potatoes. Carrot risotto will be good, I'm sure, and I can grate a carrot and cut up a second one for extra carrotiness. The most interesting recipe I saw was to cut them up into slices like noodles and thenfry them in butter until they're soft. That could also be done in the steamer and then I could put cheese on them like regular noodles. I just hope Aaron likes carrots....

Tonight I made something like spaghetti carbonara. It was sort of close to what I was aiming for, but I bought the generic store brand bacon, which tasted like lunch meat. And I used yakisoba (stirfry noodles) instead of actual spaghetti. I just rinsed them under my overly hot tap water and then dumped them in with the bacon (to which I had added a splash of white wine and ground pepper and oregano) in the wok and poured a beaten egg in. I didn't add enough pepper, and the bacon wasn't bacony enough to really make it work, so maybe if I try this again, I will buy more expensive bacon. It's not something I have a desire to eat that often, but I onlyused half the bacon, so I'll be eating bacon in something in the next couple weeks (I put it to freeze though, so who knows when it will reappear? Perhaps with a carrot).

Speaking of strange things to do to vegetables, I had bought lettuce about a week ago and had only eaten half of it... it was getting wilty so I had started looking for recipes to cook it (I had read a lettuce risotto recipe once), but when I went to tear it up it was still pretty crunchy, especially once I got past the first layer of leaves. So instead I bought some salad dressing. There was a sample lady with little cups of salad and 8 or 10 different dressings but I tasted one white creamy one and decided it was close enough to a creamy garlic or ranch. It's way liquidier than American dressing, it's really watery and not at all like dressing usually is. I like it a lot more than I like regular dressing because it's less goopy. And I can always put it on carrots, I guess.

cherry blossoms with bee

I shudder to think of how many bees I've harassed over the years attempting to get a non-blurry photograph of them.

Today's pictures are from Nikko

Grape Tofu on St. Patrick's Day

I bought some stuff at the grocery store today that waskind of magenta colored. It was in the tofu section, so I can only assume it was some sort of grape kool aid flavored tofu. It definately didn't have the consistency of jello. But it was light and refreshing, the sort of thing you'd want to eat at the beach on a hot summer day.

I also bought a giant grapefruit. I think it's giant, anyways. Everything else is so small here that maybe this is just a normal sized grapefruit, replete with Florida sticker, and I just think it is gargantuan. `

This morning I made something that vaguely resembled Irish soda bread - I used yogurt instead of milk in pancake mix and added some raisins. It turned out okay, but was definately missing something. I think the lack of caraway and the fact that it was fat free yogurt (making it less rich and dense than the traditional sour cream would have) may have played a part in why it only resembled soda bread. But it was tasty.

ann wants pretty pictures

I went to Lalaport finally.

And all I got out of it was pain in my knees, 500 extra calories and a subscription to the LLBean catalouge.

I feel bad for the people who will live in this room after me.

It was really windy when I was riding my bike there, but it wasn't as cold as I'd thought it would be. I put on sunblock before I left. I got there a little before ten, but I walked around (even though my knees did not want to move at all) and ended up going to Wendys and eating fries and a frostee (one of those chocolate soft server type ice cream things). Which was really yummy. Then I found the LL Bean store and tried asking someone for help. She ran off to get someone who could speak english. The lady who helped me was very nice and said she was from Michigan. She was also asian. The velcro sandals weren't on display, and I said I had seen them online so we were going through catalouges but apparently it's still too early in the season for them to haev even hit the catalouge. I asked if they had last summer's catalouges and she pulled out this giantbinder that had the American catalouges from all of last year in it. I did manage to find some velcro sandals in there, and I think she told me that those wouldn't be in the catalouge for two or three more catalouges, so if I wanted them now I'd have to order them online myself. If I waited until they were in the catalouge, though, the store could order them for me and I could try them on before I got them. So she may or may not be calling me when they have velcro sandals in the catalouge. I might have to learn how to answer my phone or set up voice mail. She also got me to fill out a form to get the catalouge. I just hope the next person with my address either likes LL Bean or knows more Japanese than I do and can call and cancel it. She also thought I was in high school. Then I rode back home. And then my knees hurt even more.

I may need to go to the doctor to complain about my knees hurting once I go back to America.

Also, LL Bean only stocks up to US size 8 in women's shoes... and only up to size 10 in men's. I wish my feet were that small. Its nice that they would order the shoes and let me try them on before I buy them.

And I successfully cooked my meat to medium doneness on the thicker edge of the second steak. The thin edge was medium well, but finally I managed to have pinkness in my meat. I'm going to need more granola soon, though. I have maybe a weeks' worth left. Maybe next Monday I will go buy some more. I don't think Aaron will want to eat it, but if he is hungry enough when he wakes up I am sure that granola is more appealing than not eating breakfast.

going to the grocery store early pays off

I went to Maruetsu just a couple minutes after they opened in the hopes of getting some meat that had a 20% off sticker. The stores here must have incredibly fast turnover, becauseafter about 6 pm they put 20% stickers on most of the meat. Some of the more expensive stuff gets 10% off and then 30% off stickers the next morning... I am quite happy, I ended up spending too much money on steak. So I got 12 dollars worth of meat for 8 dollars, just because it was packed on Sunday night or Monday morning. Keeping in mind that it is Tuesday morning. I had to buy another loaf of bread to go with my meat, but I'll have it today for dinner and tomorrow for dinner too :) I also got a giant head of lettuce... and it was the special of the week lettuce too, so it was only a dollar. It's America-sized, instead of Japan sized. I just hope I can eat all that lettuce in three or four days.

I also made cookies this morning before going to the store because I really wanted a cookie. They spread out a bit in the toaster, but otherwise taste really good. And now I need to buy more butter.

Still didn't vacuum.

meat

I want to eat meat. This is unusual coming from me. While I'm definately not a vegetarian, I also don't eat meat very often. But I really want to for some reason. I might have to buy some beef tomorrow to eat for dinner, although I was trying to finish all the food I have in the fridge (eggs, cheese and a jar of tomato sauce, plus lots of yogurt). Maybe I am getting anemic. I read something about if your tongue didn't look very pink it meant you needed more iron. But I just looked in the mirror and my tongue is definately a bubble gum-like pink. I need to not eat chocolate in such large quantities - I'll decide to buy a chocolate bar, and then instead of eating only a quarter of it, I'll eat a quarter and then decide to eat another, and then poof, I ate the whole thing in one day, instead of letting it last four days. Its much easier for me to only eat four hershey kisses, because they are each wrapped up as an entity. And these mini meringues from trader joe's my mom brought are so yummy... and surprisingly unbad for you. Well, as not bad anything consisting solely of sugar and egg whites and chocolate powder can be, I guess.

I want to try to make gnocchi, since I've found lots of recipes that use instant mashed potato flakes (which I have plenty of) and then I wouldn't be buying more bread, but using things I have. I mean, I still do have 3 and a half pounds of regular pasta, but I think gnocchi would be an interesting change. Assuming that they actually taste good. Maybe I will make some sort of meat sauce thing... one that is not tomato-based, just for a change of pace. I love tomato sauce, and the stuff I got at costco is really good, especially this jar, because I added an onion, pepper and some mushrooms and let it simmer with more garlic and oregano and fennel. The sauce straight from the jar is just tomato and basil (no sugar, which is really good, most jar sauces are too sweet), but after adding stuff it's much better.

I was trying to not write so much about food... but as you can see, in not writing about food, I failed to write about anything else. I think it's because I usually write immediately after eating dinner, so I'm thinking about food.

I really should vaccuum one of these days.

the beginning of pictures

The Imperial Palace Wall in Kyoto, the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto, the gate in the water at Miyajima (near Hiroshima), the original hear-speak-see no evil monkeys at Nikko, and a temple and pagoda at Horyuji (near Nara).

Too many photos, I had a hard time picking ones to post. I took over a thousand pictures in that one week, and I have to still go through and label all of them :(

my plan for the day.

Today I'm going to ride my bike to Lalaport and go to LLBean and see if they have any velcro sandals. On the way back, I'll stop at costco and buy some more cranberry juice. Other than that, I haven't got anything planned for the next two weeks.

happy pulaski day

Which is, of course, even more of a non-event than in Chicago.

Friday: Went to Harajuku. Saw the Meiji Shrine, walked around and looked at shops and ate lunch at a French restaurant that served pasta. It was really good and was actually quite a lot of food for the price. Then we went to a big souvenier type store where my mom found a really good present for the remaining people. But I can't say what it is lest they find out. Then we went back to the dorm.

Saturday: We left quite early in the day and took the train to Asakusa and then took another train for about two and a half hours to Nikko, which is where the first shogun of Japan, Tokugawa Ieyasu, is buried. It's up in the mountains to the northwest of Tokyo. We got a little lost on the way to the hotel, but there were some other people wandering around too and eventually we figured out where we were. We went to the hotel and dropped off our stuff and found out that the temples were all closing at 4 (it was 3) so we went and ate at a place the people we talked to said was good. We both got yakitori (grilled chicken on a stick) with rice and yakisoba(stir fry noodles with vegetables). Then we wanted to take the bus to a hot spring (the pass we bought included the train to and from Asakusa, the 5 main buildings and the bus) but the restaurant lady had the bus schedule and it wasn't going to come for an hour. So we walked there on a little trail that followed the river. It was getting kind of dark but we got there fine. The water was really hot. They had an outdoor pool with big rocks, we sat out there most of the time. Then we took the bus back.

Sunday:

We got up and left by 7:30 and were to the temples for when they opened at 8. It wasn't crowded at all, which was nice, especially considering I was pulling the suitcase (since it wouldnt have fit in the lockers they had there). We managed to see everything in 4 hours (the book says it takes two hours to see everything). Then we ate lunch at the same place (for a major touristy place there was a surprising lack of tourist oriented businesses). The train back was rather warm. Eventually we got back to Inage and started packing the suitcase. There wasn't going to be enough space in the one suitcase for all the stuff my mom bought, much less the stuff I wanted to send home, so she took my second suitcase home. Aaron will have to bring it back in a couple weeks empty. It was midnight by the time I went to sleep.

Monday:

That's today. We got up early and I opened the door because it was so nice out. It was really windy. We finished packing and went to the 100 yen store and bought a few more things. I finally got a scrub brush for the bathroom, last time I used a retired kitchen sponge to clean it. We walked to Saty on the way back and had crepes for lunch. Then we went back and put the stuff we got into the suitcase and pretty much left for the train. Pulling two big suitcases wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, but luckily I only live on the second floor. Carrying them down was harder. At the airport there was no trouble checking in and there was no line at security. Then I took the train back. It's gotten a lot colder and I have shut the door and the window.

I cut up an onion and the last mushrooms and I got somelittle green peppers and cooked them with a jar of spaghetti sauce from costco and then put some of it on french bread I got at Maruetsu and toasted it with cheese. Quite yummy.

Now its windy and rainy. I might go to costco on Wednesday and get some bagels. Also I might upload some pictures one day soon. I took so many that I need to go and look at them and see what is worth putting up.

across the universe

Monday:

We took the train and went to Shinjuku and went to the largest English language bookstore in Tokyo. My mom got two bird books in Japanese and we got an origami book, two novels and a cookbook that treats American food as foreign cuisine. It's really quite interesting. Although, their pizza recipe was just using plain tomato sauce without any seasoning. Then we walked around a few department stores and then went back. By the train station here, we went for yakiniku and ate a lot of grilled meat...so yummy.

Tuesday:

Took the train to the Tokyo National Museum. They have four buildings, and one was closed because they rotate all the artifacts on display every three months and was being switched. We did see the Japanese Art building and Japanese Archaeology and a traveling exhibit on Maori (from New Zealand) stuff. For dinner when we got back we cooked some cherry blossom soba noodles and had fake crab (which in Japan tastes just like real crab, it's much better than fake american crab) with it.

Wednesday:

I took the train with Silke to Yokohama to meet a history teacher to go to the Yokohama City Archives on a field trip. There were supposed to be four other people but they never got there. We walked around with the two teachers and looked at docks and a big boat and then went to Chinatown and had dim sum for lunch. It was a LOT more expensive than Chinatown is in Chicago and seemed very clean and Japanese and not particularly interesting. But the food was really good. The archive was about as exciting as an archive could be, we met someone who worked there and he showed us their finding aids and talked in Japanese a bunch. Then we walked around their small museum with him and looked at the old photos they had on display. It was interesting. Then we took the train back but there was some sort of accident on the rapid train(maybe because of the wind, a different line was marked as having accident delay and wind). So we had to take a local train to the other local slow train that goes to Inage. So the hour and a half trip to Yokohama ended up taking two and a half hours back.

Thursday:

Today we went to Chiba and shopped. I got a light gray rain-trench coat with a full skirt. My mom got a pair of shoes. We had some really good tempura for lunch. For dinner we went to a grocery store in a department store in Chiba and bought two kinds of mushrooms and had mushroom and onion risotto for dinner. It was okay, but the mushrooms didn't really taste like anything so it wasn't as exciting as it could have been.

Tomorrow we are going to go to Harajuku and go to a large souvenier shop. Saturday we are going to Nikko and spending the night. Monday my mom is going back. Tuesday I am going to sit around and not do anything. I don't think I can take many more days of walking around all day looking at stuff and getting to bed later than normal. My legs have recovered from mountain climbing, though, just in time to go to another mountain :/

Now I am going to go read the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy before I go to bed.