Saturday, February 19, 2011

今週の食事 (What I ate this week)

I made a few yummy things that I'd like to share!
(no particular order)

Grilled chicken with umeboshi, shiso, and cheese!

Carmel and butter popcorn (plus Andrew's beer). You can drink beer at movie theaters in Japan! And you get this cool tray that fits in the cup holder! Isn't it cool??? And they give you blankets in case you get cold!!!

Treats I made for people at work on V-day.



Chocolate-covered strawberries and banana slices. Aren't they cute? They didn't have big strawberries this time-probably sold out for Valentine's Day-but these were still really sweet.


Mabodofu (a tofu dish) with eggplant and leeks!

Umm, this looks kinda weird but it tasted good. More grilled chicken with umeboshi and shiso, grilled eggplant, and some daikon pickles (tsukemono).



"Mexican beef bowl" YUM!!! Ground beef flavored with taco seasoning and chili powder over "Fiesta sides - Mexican Rice." It was so good! Thanks Mom and Dad for sending me the rice and spices!!!

It tastes better than it looks....

My friend made truffles with Creme de Cassis liqueur.


Grilled cheese sandwich--you can never go wrong.

Egg scramble with spinach, koyadofu (freeze-dried tofu--very high in protein!!), a little ginger and paprika.

It was a great week! I hope to eat a lot of great food this weekend when I go to Osaka!! Can't wait!

P.S. I found this cool blog--I'm in love with the pictures!!! http://bkfst.tumblr.com/

Thursday, February 17, 2011

洗濯物 (Laundry)

Only in Japan.

Why does my laundry always look like this when it comes out of the wash?????????




Something is just not right. My laundry always comes out in a big, tangled mess. I do not put the clothes in this way, but somehow they get BRAIDED together by the time it's done. And by the way, it takes about an hour to do 1 load of laundry. Is this normal? And no hot water. Not even an option. Japan, the leader of technology, but not laundry.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

終わり (Finished)

It didn't snow today and all the snow was melted when I woke up. It was sunny but really windy and cold. When will winter be over? It feels like half of the year is winter and the other half is summer. No in-between. :(

I'm going through withdrawals because I finished reading The Help.



It was such a good book. It made me laugh, cry, love, hate. I'm sad that I'm finished. I definitely recommend the book to anyone who hasn't read it yet. I would say the story doesn't really pick up until halfway through, but the beginning is interesting, too. I'm excited about the movie coming out this August!

The library is closed for the next couple weeks for some reason, so I can't get new books or old copies of People magazine for awhile. :( I love reading old magazines, even though they're from like June, 2010. :)

I guess I'll have to study Japanese instead....at least until I can go to the library again...




By the way, I love this song right now:

Monday, February 14, 2011

雪が降ってる (It's snowing)

It's SNOWING. And it has been since I woke up this morning. I couldn't stop staring out the window. I've never seen it snow for so long.

It started to pile up in the afternoon on car windows and stuff. I am not used to snow, so I didn't know what to do. I stayed inside and kept cozy in my kotatsu and watched episodes of Gossip Girl, How I Met Your Mother, and Top Chef: All-stars. It was so nice.

I finally decided to get out of my house around 5:00 and do some errands. I rode my bike around with the snow blowing in my face.

It's easy to be mesmerized by snow falling when you're not used to it. I felt like a little kid, trying to eat the snowflakes that fell on my face, smiling at the snow blowing everywhere.

After about 20 min, I realized snow is COLD. It's not as bad as rain, but it made my clothes all wet and cold. :( Not good.
The Honeymoon Phase didn't last very long.


I wonder if it will snow more...

P.S. It smells like an ice skating rink outside.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

夜ごはん (Dinner)

Mmm! Grilled salmon for dinner! It's so easy to make, healthy, so tasty, I should make this more often.




You can't really tell, but I put mayonnaise on the middle piece. My mom makes really good grilled salmon with mayonnaise and mustard on top. The mayonnaise adds a sweet, creamy flavor to it. I seasoned it with Trader Joe's Everyday Seasoning ($1.99).

It's easy to do because I have this neat little fish-grill drawer!

On a side note, here's what my room looks like during the week.



It's starting to look more like a home, right? You can see I got a new rug and chair to match my curtains and comforter. I like it much better than the teal curtains that were hanging when I first moved in. I also have some laundry hanging because it was raining this week so I couldn't hang my clothes outside (I really miss having a dryer!!). That blanket attached to my coffee table is called a kotatsu. The kotatsu has an adjustable heater attached to it. You can remove the tabletop and lay the blanket over the frame of the table, put the tabletop back on and voila! you have a nice, cozy coffee table. In the summer, you can remove the blanket, unplug the table, place the cord inside this built-in storage box and screw the tabletop back on so it doesn't slide around.

Here's what the view looks when sitting inside the kotatsu...



Once you lay under it, it becomes impossible to move.....................

Saturday, February 12, 2011

春のトレンド (Spring trends)


I love these new bags for spring!



www.nordstrom.com

kate spade new york book clutch







Which ones do you like?

Monday, February 7, 2011

スローライフカフェ ソファ (slow life cafe SOFA)

I have a new bff in Okayama. His name is Andrew and he just started working with us. We went shopping together to look for a present for his girlfriend (I hope she likes what we picked out!).

I had passed this cute cafe (SOFA http://r.tabelog.com/okayama/A3301/A330101/33006260/dtlrvwlst/) a few times on my way to the library, so we decided to check it out during our excursion. The concept of "slow life cafes" are pretty popular in Japan. It promotes relaxing in a comfortable environment while sipping tea or eating comfort food.



Checking out the menu...

Sometimes we struggle with the Japanese descriptions...

Andrew's choice.

Hot lemonade with soba honey (yes, soba! buckwheat noodles!!) and 2 scones (salt and black sugar & caramel chocolate)

My choice: cinnamon and apple scone with cinnamon tea

The cafe was nicely decorated with eclectic furniture and had an interesting menu-not your typical coffee shop.


I'm not good at taking pictures, but it's cute, right?

The scones were really good and so was the tea! I will definitely come back sometime! :)