Friday Dinner

Yes, it's been a long time since our last party, so we decided to just have a random party today.

Nah, I was just joking. The reason why we had a party was because なるwent to 飛騨[HIDA]area last Sunday for his soccer game, and he bought some chicken there. He says the chicken is very good, and he always buys the chicken whenever he goes to 飛騨. It wasnt a really special party, but we still had a good time. I also brought all the お土産[souvenirs] that I bought from 神戸[KOBE].

The cheesecake from 神戸 was really good. There were only 6 cheesecakes, but there were 7 of us there. I was teasing 弓子 that she can't eat the cheesecake because she didn't get me my Evisu jeans. Later, I asked her if she wanted the cheesecake as her birthday present, and she said no. Oh well, that's too bad =,= So, I devoured the cheesecake and savored the taste.

[side note]: pictures will come later (as always) hehe :-)

Kaitei Sushi for Dinner

So today after class, my student's grandmother asked if I had time to have dinner with them.  Of course, I said yes!!  Food is always NICE!!  So they took me to a Kaitei sushi restaurant to eat sushi. YUM YUM~~  So First I had hotate (Scallop)  It's really fresh and tasted very very good!!I also had this "Ebi Mayo" slightly torched shrimp with mayonnaise.  Man, it was delicious.  I couldn't find anything wrong with it.  The shrimp was not dry like regular shrimp sushis.  I think the mayo added some moisture to the sushi.
I think this is some oil from some fish.  Or it could be the fish skin?  Anyway, it tasted very oily, but it's all good.  I love those creamy, oily texture in my mouth.  This sushi was very GOOD!
This is ume with jellyfish and shiso.  The texture is really interesting.  The combination of the three ingredients have taught my taste-buds a completely new taste.  It was a little bit too salty, but that could be because I dipped it in soy sauce before I ate it. 
This is a small squid sushi.  Very nice.  But kind of usual.
Ahh... How can you eat sushi without Otoro.  One of my fav!!  I actually ate uni too, but after I got the uni, I just devoured it right there.  There was no time for pictures.  I realized before it was all too late T.T
This is marinated nasu (eggplant), which is one of Japanese people's favorite.  It was rather good, but kind of plain.  Not very exciting sushi.
The girls are really funny and ate like eggs and corn. sigh~ kids.  But I also had um miso clam soup.  Gosh, I love seafood.  i wish I was a little hungrier at the time we ate.  I knew I shouldn't have eaten that much before my lesson >"<

iPhone Guide

I know I shouldn't really be watching this..... BUT.... sigh I just can't resist the temptation!! sigh~~

So apple released a 20 min (i think) quick guide to the iPhone although apple's products generally don't need any guide because it just works so seamlessly. duh!! it's Apple

Anyway, after watching the video has made me..... okay I know I shouldn't complete that sentence. I just want to say it is a GREAT thing that I am not in the US now. Even though I know the 2nd gen would be a lot better, but I'd be one of the sucker dropping $499 USD for that "Jesus" phone.

Okay I should stop talking and just let you go ahead and watch the videos if you haven't already... So here are the videos







Oh and one more thing (snickering), this is the new commercial about the 12th application on iPhone. OMG, what could it be? that's right, it's youtube!! Wow, you can watch youtube videos on iPhone!!!!!! How amazing!!

Naruto Whirlpool + Kobe Trip

After the training, I went to see the Naruto whirlpool. I thought the whirlpool would be one giant whirlpool, but instead it was a bunch of small whirlpools that were formed from time to time. It was kinda disappointing. After the whirlpool, I took the bus to Kobe. After I arrived at Kobe, I ate ramen for dinner. Then, I was heading to the hostel. The hostel was really good AND CHEAP!! I met this guy from guma ken. It was nice talking to him.

The next day was my vacation in Kobe. I thought Kobe would a fairly big city, but it wasn't at all. You pretty much can see everything in one day. I liked the fact that you can pretty much walk to anywhere in the city. First, I took the train from the hostel to Sannomiya, which is kinda like the downtown area with all the department stores. After I arrived in Sannomiya, I went to the big shopping street something "center street" After that, I went to motomachi street, which is like a continuation of that center street starting from sannomiya. The motomachi area has lots of izakayas because of the horse racing place. Then, I went south to Harbour land to the mosaic park and saw the kobe tower, marine museum. Then, I went back up to Motomachi area to see the Chinatown, which is in Nankinmachi. After China town, I went around kyukkichi? This is where the first settlers stayed. It had some really old western style buildings and is loaded with high end shops. I walked around the area and ended back to Sannomiya area. Then, I headed north to the Kitano area. That area has lots of old foreign style houses because this is where the foreigners settled. After that, I went back to the harbor land area to see the spectacular nightview of kobe. I think the Kobe night view was one of the best 3 night views in Japan. After that, I went to see the shopping street under the bridge between motomachi and sannomiya. I also saw the ikuta area, I believe, which is loaded with Izakayas. I bet that area has at least 1000 different clubs, restaurants, fast food places, izakayas. After a full day of walking around Kobe, I was exhausted and was ready to head back to the hostel.

At the hostel, I talked to this cool guy, ryan, from Australia. I wish i had talked to him the night before, then we could have gone out partying. >"<>"<>"< I think I will build my own PC if my ibook dies sigh~~ I can't believe i will switch back to PC. After, I went back to find the girls. We shopped around for the last 30 mins before the department store closes. Hiromi found a pair of Prada sunglasses that fit her REALLY REALLY well, and she pretty much just bought it on the spot and dropped 30,000 yen. I was surprised that she didn't really have to think that long before deciding buying them.

For dinner, we went to the Irish bar. The salad there was REALLY good, but the scrap steak and the fish n chips were really so so. I finally got home at about 12 and was absolutely exhausted by that time. And that concluded my naruto/kobe trip!!

Naruto Training

So last thursday and Friday, I went to Naruto for training. I took the Hida express train from Minooota to Nagoya, then the Nozomi from Nagoya to Shin Kobe. After I arrived at Shin Kobe, I took a bus from there to Naruto. The whole commute took 5 hours. The Nozomi was great. It waas very fast and had much bigger leg room than the slowest Kodama Shinkansen. When I took the regular train from Minoota to Osaka, it took a little more than 3 hours, but the Nozomi only took one hour to get to Shinkobe. We got to the Naruto wellness center about 1:40pm. It was kinda like a mansion. It was really great. It had a pool, a piano, a tennis court, and big screen TVs. After a short lunch break, we started our training.

The training was pretty relaxing and ended at SEVEN. hehe :) For dinner, we had temaki sushi. It was kinda okay, not amazing food. I heard the group before us had yakiniku >"<

Nagoya

We went to Nagoya again today, me and Yumiko. Well, actually, I should have said, Yumiko and I went to Nagoya today? I had to picked up my key chain, and Yumiko had to exchange shoes at Birkenstock and buy a new pair of shoes from strippen, if I remember the name correctly. The strippen or trippen shoes were very cool. I thought she has made a good decision. After that, we entered the dangerous section of town, Osu. I didn't get close to Evisu today because I know I just don't have that much money to buy the jeans although I really want it. The only thing I bought today were blank CD-R's. They were pretty cheap, but I think it is still cheaper back in the States. I also played piano at the big second hand shop in Osu, and I realized that how bad I have become. q(T.T)p

Allright, moving on the important part. Yes, that's right --- DINNER! Well, we went to this buffet style restaurant at LACHIC because I kind of sensed Yumiko wanted to eat there. They serve lots of vegetable dishes, and some of the vegetables are organic! They are "SUPPOSED" to be really healthy, but the way it is prepared made it to be not healthy at all. I was not impressed at all, and I think it was the worst dinner I've ever had in Japan. I wish I could have thrown up all the food that I've eaten and get a refund. It was that horrible. Well, I shouldn't say it's all that horrible, but comparing the price and the food being served....... It was just very very ordinary [>"<] sigh~~! Okay, I have really decided. I need to become really healthy from now and save money because I have a shopping list now. Piano Computer : (iMac/Macbook pro/Windows Desktop) Evisu Jeans Raid Tower Camera is that all? well, I am sure that I will come up with more very very soon. Meanwhile, I really need to save money. I guess I won't eat at all from now on =,=||  So in Osu, I saw this clothing store, and immediately thought of one of my students.  If Chris you are reading, then You should definitely know who I am talking about.   She must have gotten all of her clothes from this place.  It looked 1000% completely identical to what she would wear.

Also, I saw this all suited up minivan, which is really really unusual in America since no one would suit up a minivan.  However, in Japan, people do!!  Some of them have really crazy minivans too, all painted purple or yellow with wings and stuff attached to them.

Oldboy

I just finished watching the Korean movie Oldboy at Mike's apartment. It's 3:32AM right now, and boy, am I tired today. The movie was quite interesting. It was totally messed up though. The movie overall is very interesting, but some parts of the movie could put me to sleep. If you love movies that are not really understood by the general public/movies that win awards, then this would be a great movie for you. I was surprised I kind of liked it. Oh I guessed also because the bad guy is so cool. He just seems so evil!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldboy

YUMIKO'S PICS @ APPLE SAKAE

WWDC

I guess I should say something about WWDC, but there was really nothing important to say about it. Well, except I think it was the worst Keynote that I've seen.
Boy, was the WWDC boring. It almost made me hate Apple inc.
There was no real news at all in the keynote presentation.
All Steve talked about was already discussed a yaer ago.
The 'one more thing' was totally not shocking.
The 'one last thing' was boring.
I guess the highlight of the whole keynote was the first part where the PC guy was pretending to be Steve Jobs.

sigh~~!!

Crazy building

Check out this weird building where the wall will rotate!! yup, you heard me right. The wall rotates!! Check it out for yourself

Grr

Last night, Yumiko and the other people ate at engiya. I didn't know until this morning. Yumiko, you should have just come over to my apt and picked me up!! Oh well, I shouldn't have gone anyway since I really need to lose some weight. sigh~~!


But still, I will never forget this SHIT!!!

Thursday party

Today, we had another party. Yes, you've heard me. We had another party, and guess where it is? Yup you've got it. We had another party at kani school. We had salad and kimchi pork. It was the farewell party for Chris. After the party, I had to go with Yumiko to drive Chris back to Nagoya. I ended up getting home at 3AM? It was tiring >"<

Tokyo Architecture

Here's an eight-minute video that shows you a grandiose idea somebody dreamed up: building a 3000-foot-tall pyramid in Tokyo Bay. This megacity would be so tall, and would have such tremendous volume that 24 80-story skyscrapers could be suspended within, and people would travel inside it via the tubes that are also supporting the enormous structure. It's extreme engineering, indeed.

You gotta feel sorry for those people living in Tokyo, all crammed together like sardines in a can, so maybe this wild idea could give them some elbow room. To rent the amount of space made by this huge structure, it would cost $10 billion a year within the city of Tokyo. If built, it will be the largest structure in the world. Go for it! – Charlie White











Also, the sky tower is pretty amazing also. I just love the extreme engineering series from Discovery Channel <3

iPhone

Well, this is the Jesus phone. It's so nice~~

Hopefully, the true video iPod will come soon after the phone. We are less than 3 weeks away from the release date of the phone. I just can't wait. If the memory is bigger, I will drop 500USD in a second. >*< So, I am pretty glad that the price and the size of the memory are restraining me from buying one.

Yakiniku party at Morimori

This Sunday we wen to a yakiniku restaurant in Seki for Chris. There were a total of 10 people there. We had so much food that it was crazy!! The highlight of the night is the real "kuro ge wa gyu" It was so good and looked so nice with all the fat spread out on top of the steak. It was absolutely the best. The chicken and the pork was also good. I really need to eat less and start losing weight T.T

Funny Videos

Criss Angel Gets Hit By A Car!!


Philips - Drawing on the Wall
Well thanks to Philips, now parents do not have to worry about their kids drawing on the wall using crayons anymore. However, I don't think this is cheap though.


Planes
well, all I will say is that do not watch this before you go on a trip =)


Amazing Helicopter
Whoever is flying this helicopter is really good!!


Smoke Ring Gun
I wanna have one of these :)


Fastest Jap Secretary
We all know that Jap ppl are so crazy, and this really proves it. It is truly amazing.

Click Here for more great videos and pictures!

People fainitng at Weddings
It is funny to see peopl faint any time


Jesus vs Buddhist.......
Im sorry if I offended you Christian believers, but you can't be so close-minded all the time, right??


How to Dance like a white Guy

Click Here for more great videos and pictures!

Fattest kid in the world
I need to go on a diet >"<


Fattest Child In The World - video powered by Metacafe

Boys on Wheels
This is a boy band from Norway? Well, basically all the people are handicapped and are in a wheelchair. It's pretty stupid, but their songs are pretty hilarious though.

Jen An's new love

Jennifer Aniston has a new boyfriend. His name is Paul Sculfor, a 36-year-old british model. He is most famous for his Levi's commercial in Britain where 3 mermaids ask for his jeans. I guess Jennifer Aniston really can't forget Brad Pitt because Paul does have some resemblance to Brad. Well, hopefully Jen will find her love.

Commercial:

Indiana Jones 4

Sigh >"<~~~

Sean Connery will not be in Indiana 4 T.T He is considering retiring??!!! WTF!!??

Full coverage: http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/sns-ap-people-sean-connery,1,3197998.story?coll=chi-entertainmentfront-hed

Fri 6.8.07

Today, I planned a seminar to explain the supplementary textbooks that my company has to my students. I really want my students to know the benefits of the books and how to use them. i think it would really improve their english level. However, to my surprise, only two studetns showed up!! I am really disappointed.

Anyway, after the seminar, I went to Kani school and finished the leftover food from the party on Thursday. There were only Yumiko, Seiji, and me. We had ginger pork, seafood, yam, and pudding. We also watched "Karei naru ichizoku." I really liked this drama because its seriousness.

Party at Kani

The teacher before me, Chris, came to Japan on Thursday, June 7th, 2007. We had a welcome party for him at Kani school. We cooked Okonomiyaki at school. Also, Friday was Masao's birthday, so we had a birthday party for him. Yumiko made "ero" pudding with plum on the top of the pudding for Masao. Ah~ "ero" japanese neh.....

I also saw Shiko and heard that she is getting married in November. CONGRATS!!! shiko~~!! Hopefully, she will have a merry, long-lasting marriage with her fiance. Well, not hopefully, I know it will.

People at the party include: Yumiko, Michael, Hiroshi, Kaoru, Asuka, Tazuko, Manami, Naru, Masao, Seiji, Shiko, and me.

We had this daikon salad. As you can see from the picture, Naru pretty much finished that big plate all by himself >"< It was pretty sick. Watching him finishing the daikon has made me full and want to throw up. @,@"

Amazing Alarm Clocks

Hi guys,

Have you ever wondered that it is very difficult to wake up? Do you always end up going straight back to sleep after your alarm clock or alarm clockS go off? Well, now your life can be changed. You can finally really wake up (hopefully) though there are a few people that I know will still not be helped by this. =m=" Well, it is okay. I won't name any names here, but you should know who you are!!!

One of the alarm clocks is an alarm clock with wheels. When the alarm activates, the alarm will run around the house making you have to actually get up to find the alarm clock. The other alarm clock will send a 竹蜻蜓 (bamboo dragonfly), the thing Doraemon put on his head to fly, up flying around your room. After that, there is this really loud alarm that will not go away until you find the "bamboo dragonfly" and put it back to the alarm clock.

Videos follow:

Crazy super rich indian man wants to build a 60 story house

Just like the title suggested. This is REAL!!!


GOSH!! This guy is ... idk too bored or something


more info : http://www.mumbaimirror.com/net/mmpaper.aspx?Page=article§id=15&contentid=20070530022210718d7460de5

New MacBook Pro

The new macbook pro~~~!!!!

looks so nice!!! and im so TEMPTED

faster speed - santa rosa chip
LED display - only the 15'' one

but it is still not the time to buy bc LEOPARD isn't out yet >"<

2012 London Olympics

To the right is the picture of the 2012 Olympics logo. A lot of people are hating the logo saying they don't understand it or it looks like the Nazi symbol. I personally think that it is not all that great, but I don't really think it looks like the Nazi symbol although it does have some resemblance to it.

TUES

Today is just a normal Tuesday. Nothing really special happened. Oh except Yumiko really liked my "Chotto matteyo" joke which I got from Kimura san. Other than that, let me see~~! Oh PARTY!!! We'll have another party on Thursday for the teacher who taught at the same school before me. So, that should be fun.

MON - June 4th

Today was a relaxing day - went to the post office, bank, and library. Afterwards, Mike and I went to the game store and played PS3! Man, the graphics is good. Then, I went to Mago shopping mall in Seki. In Mago, I met my student's mom. When I finished shopping and getting ready to go back, I met her again. She offered to give me a ride home. HEHE!!

I was thinking things to say to her, and I asked if the watermelon in Japan is always expensive. She said it wasn't really expensive, and she asked me why I asked her. [Sidetrack]: the watermelon is expensive in Japan. About half the size or 1/3 of big watermelons we have in America. And it costs $10USD. Anyway, so I told her that I liked to eat watermelons. She told me that she has watermelons at home and asked me to go to her house and eat watermelon!! hehe. It is nice being a teacher and having nice students who will treat you!!

Nagoya

I think I will really start to blog seriously now.

Anyway, here we go!

Sunday -
Yumiko and I went to Nagoya to "window shop." Before we got to Nagoya, I had some trouble >"< I couldn't find my post office cash card before. So, I brought my coins to the station. However, to my dismay, my coins were not accepted by the machine O.O" So, I immediately turned and walked to the ticket booth to buy my train ticket there. However, there were already 10 people in line. WTF!! So, I went back to the machine and tried again. "Fuck" I said to myself because the machine still wouldn't take my coins; therefore, I asked the old lady besides me if she would exchange money with me. However, the old lady asked me so many questions: "Where are you going? How much does it cost? How much do you have?" Man, GOSH!! Why couldn't you just give me 1000yen for my 2 500yen coins. Argh...!! Anyway, she finally let me use her machine, and that machine accepted my coins. Sigh~ finally!!

Anyway, so I was late and didn't catch the train that I needed to catch. When we arrived in Nagoya, we ate um.. ramen for lunch at nagoya station. The ramen is from Wakayama. The base of my ramen is garlic. On top of that, I added abbout 2/3 of the garlic jar of garlic into my ramen. Therefore, I had garlic smell that could kill all vampires for the rest of the day. We also, well I more or less, finished 2 jars of bean sprouts. =)






After lunch, we went to Sakae, La Chic, to be more exact, because Yumiko wanted to check out Birkenstock. While yumiko was trying on her shoes, I went to Camper to take a brief look. I was gone for maybe 3 minutes. By the time I came back to Birkenstock, Yumiko was already at the counter with her credit card! O.o}} Hayai ne~!!

Of course, how can I go pass by an Apple store and not go inside!! And look at what happened to Yumiko.


After that, we were just walking around Sakae, going towards Yabacho and Osu. We also went to Parco (dept store?) Anyway, everything was just too expensive for me. Then, we went to WEGO, and was goofing around.





After WEGO, Yumiko suggested that we went to Osu, but I didn't really wanna go there because it was dangerous. After we just left Yabacho and just got to Osu, I saw the evisu store. I found a really really nice pair of jeans, but it was so so so so expensive >"< Sigh.. I think I will buy it eventually. See, Osu is a really dangerous place T.T We didn't have time to walk around Osu, and that was a very good thing. We had to hurry back to Nagoya station for sushi buffet!!! hehe~~ We ate so much sushi, and I felt like I was going to die after that. Kureshi desune Grrr... next time, I need to watch out what Yumiko orders. --- The toro, uni, and the awabi were SO good! =)