momochoo pees

Again. Momochoo peed.
I made sure spending time with momochoo over weekend. But momochoo must be very keen to my feeling of not liking Monday.

came back

came home yesterday. windy and cold :(

bibimbap (from a memo)

cuku 3 - julian, salt, wring later, sprinkle hondashi (tea sp 1), sasame oil (tea sp 2)

daikon 300g - julian, salt, wring, sprinkle vinegar (50cc), sugar (table sp 1.5)

carrot 50g - cook with daikon

bean splout 200g - wash and clean, cut then roots, boil and drain, cook with water(100cc), hondashi (tea sp 1) salt (pintch), sesame oil (2 tea sp), mirin (tea sp 1) boil till water reduce to the half

zenmai 250g - cut if it's very long, boil and drain, stir fly with sesame oil (tbsp 1.5), add hontashi (2 tea sp) and water (250cc). Add soy sauce(tea sp 2), mirin (tea sp 1), boil till water becomes 1/2.

dried shiitake 10 p - soak in water, julian, cook with water about the same amount (hitahita), sake (tb sp 1), sugar (1.5 tb sp) and cook 3 min. Add mirin (tb sp 1), soy sauce (tb sp 2) boil till water reduced to 1/2.

egg 4 - remove white stuff in egg white, add salt (tea sp 1/2), sugar (tb sp 1/2) and pan bake thin, julian.

eggplant 4 - halve into 2 vertically, create shallow cuts diagonal, steam till 80% done(7-8 min). Cut into 4-5 pieces vertically. Cover with hondashi (tb sp 1), water (150cc), soy sauce (tea sp 2), mirin (tea sp 1), sesami oil (tea sp 2).

spinatch 1 - boil and wring. Cut into 4-5 cm. Marinate with sesami oil (tea sp 2), hondashi (tea sp 1) mirin (tea sp 1).

beef 150g - pan fry with sesami oil (tb sp 2). Add sugar (tea sp 1), soy sauce (tea sp 2) after cooked.

nori
sesami oil
salt
sugar
mirin
sasame
hondashi
kochujan

Put rice in a large bowl. Place the cooked ingredients. Add Kochujan.

rainy season ended

It's hot hot hot today. So hot.. I sprayed water outside of windows, hopeing it would help cooling down the room, but water evapolated in 10 minutes. The government announced that the rainy season is over in the west half of Japan.

I'm gald that the rainy season ended before I take off.

expo

just came back from expo. there was so many people..
we didn't lined up for pupolar pavillions, which waiting time is at least 60 minutes.. we went to government ones instead. we also went to a robot exhibit.

sunny

Today is sunny, fine and clear, no clouds. First time seeing this fine weather after I came back.
Supposedly the pacific ocean high pressure system is not very strong this year. So we came under influence of northern high pressure again. Nice weather today, but it means that the rainy season won't be over for a while.

shinkansen 2

Raining hard today too.
So my train stopped at Hamamatsu for 3 hours and didn't move at all. The conductor was giving us updates and keep appologizing for about 2 hours, and then he told us that the rain is getting less. Finally, after about 3 hours, he old us that the first train is started moving in 30 km/h, and my train followed. Everyone (not me) were drinking at this point. In-train vending services ran out food, but people were still buying beer.

When we arrived, it was past midnight, and most of local lines were over. So I took taxi. At the station, we lined up for receiving reinversing stamp for express ticket, and then lined up again for taxi. We get reinverse for express ticket price (which is about a half of the entire ticket price which include express ticket and train ticket) when the train delay more than 2 hours.

Taxi line was long, and the line was bent in weird shape. I was wondering why the line wasn't straight, but had a kink. It showed actually how much Japan has changed in last few years. Taxi started arriving (later I heard there was a big dispatch of taxi cars over their broadcast to "save" us) and I moved forward slowly. Then I came about the kinked spot of the line. As soon as I reached the spot, I noticed a smell of smoke. I saw one guy in the line smoking. Now I understood.. The line was bent in weird shape, because people were trying to avoid the smoke from the guy.. I moved few step sideway, and let the kink stay as the way it was.

If this were 5 years ago in Japan, probably smoking in line like this wasn't a big deal. So many people were smoking in public back then. However, smoking in public started getting banned in many place including railroad stations, people finally realized that how refreshing the tabacco smoke free air is. Obviously, smokers are becoming minority here. There was only one person smoking, the guy causing the kink, in very very long line waiting for taxis.

For people who missed connection to long distance train from the station, JR prepared "accomodation". It wasn't hotel room like airplane delay. JR pulled out some regular sinkansen carriages for poor passengers to sleep over.

I standed in line for about half hour and finally got into a taxi. I told the driver the address I needed to go, and he asked me where it is. .. I wasn't familiar with the area at all, and we were stuck at a big intersection for few minutes to decide which way to go.. He pulled out a thick map book of the area and let me find the location. I had very little idea of the area, and so did he.

He told me that his speciality is picking up very intoxicated passengers at a bar district after the last train left and send them to their homes in distance. This is very efficent way to make money, because often the charge goes up to $300. They are vaguely consious about what they are doing, so they don't care how much it takes to get home. However, he told me downsides, like putting up with drunk passengers naggy converstations and some passengers try to pick up a fight. I'm sure puking etc could happen too (unfortunatelly it's common in Japan).

So he wasn't used to picking up a sobber passenger at railroad station and going to a in-town residential area. He told me that all taxis in town were called up to take passengers from the delayed shinkansens so they won't get left out at the station. It was already 1 a.m.

When we arrived at the area, we circled around for about 5 minutes to find where I was supposed to get off. He went to far, and stopped the fee meter. We arrived the spot and he let me call my family from his cell phone. No one answered.. So I assumed that my father proabably came out to wait for me in front of the building, but I didn't see him. Instead, there were one homeless guy sleeping at the bench, and also a young guy waiving a hand to the driver to catch the taxi. The driver didn't let me get out insisting it's not safe to step out. Japan became less safer in last 10 years.

We were double checking the map and called my family again for few more minutes in the taxi.. Then my father showed up told us he was at the other side of the building waiting for us. I thanked taxi driver and got off. I wish his luck with catching more good "deals" and someday make his dream of owning and driving a large tourist bus come true.

shinkansen :(

Stuck in Shinkansen for 3 hours on Saturday:( I left Nagoya 7:30, and around 8:00, my train stopped because of heavy rain. The "super-express" didn't move even an inch for 3 hours

The conductor kept giving us updates every 15 minutes. Every time he gave us new updates after the second one, he said "I'm sorry that I have to repeat the same news... " and to prevent us to go mad, he kept talking about details of the situation. So all of passengers include me, except the ones sleeping or already drunk, became experts on how JR (Japan Railroads) mesure rain fall, and how much is minimum for making super-express stop, and how they check the rails after the rain weakens.

JR staff has been super polite recently, despite their stereotype of being not so nice attitude they inherited from the days they were government owned. I think the recent derailment accident, which killed many passengers, making the staff extremely polite. After the accident, people outraged about their attitude. On top of that, some weirdos placed rocks on rails. I don't understand the crazy people try to create more accidents after the tragity. However, I was pretty upset about the train delay (I know it wasn't JR's fault).

My laptop will shutdown in few minutes.. I'll continue my train story tomorrow. Japanese rainy season doesn't seem to end soon...

rainy season

Yesterday was fine. The northern high pressure system pushed down the "pacific" high pressure system, and my hometown came under the northern high pressure. So the weather was very nice, drier, cool and sunny.

Japan has a rainy season from June to early July. It rains every day during the season except a "break" day like yesterday. When I arrived on the 4th, rain was pouring really hard. At the end of the rainy season every year, we get heavy rain. Land slides and floods happen in some areas. The rainy season should end anytime now. I hope it ends while I'm still here.

Entering and coming out from the rainy season is a big deal here. The government declairs the end of the season city by city, and you'll hear it on news shows. That's the official beginning of summer here. Supposedly Okinawa is already up, but the rest of the islands are under the rain clouds. The season creeps up from the south, and provinces get out from the season one by one from the south. My home town is in the middle of the country, so unless the cities in more south, like Osaka, don't get the ending declairation, we won't see the end of this humid and rainy season either.

The rainy season is sort of a fight between spring weather and summer weather. In June, a high pressure from the pacific ocean start pushing up toward north. Then it hits another high pressure system from the northern sea already occupying Japan. Then the two systems push against each other, and the areas fell under the border of the systems get a lot of rain. The systems keep fighting for about a month, and eventually one gives its way to another. This is the end of the rainy season.

Normally, the southern "pacific" system, which brings hot and humid air, wins and brings normal hot and humid Japanese summer. This is the way it supposed to be. However, sometimes the northern systems doesn't give up and push the pacific system back. Then we get nice dry and cool sunny day like yesterday. If the pacific system is too whimpy and loose against the northern one, it brings cool sumer to Japan. This is really bad, because rice won't grow properly and we won't get enought rice grain for next year. People used to die from starvation in the history when this happed.

Anyhow, yesterday was nice, and we are still on the north of the systems' border right now. But the pacific system is supposed to push back a bit today, and we are supposed to come under the system's front again this afternoon. We are going to a beach tomorrow, so I wish the northern one push back a bit again, but I also know that as long as the northern one stays the fight between the systems continue and rainy season won't end...

update about the kimono store

OK, my mom just came home and saw the shopping bag from the store. She was obviously familiar with the name of the store..

She told me that she has shopped at the kimono store too. The same store and similar unbelievably good deal... which is actually a red kimono I have. I didn't know that my red kimono I wore for this year's conmersment came from the store..
She told me that the store called her up few days later and told her that she won the prize and wanted her to come and pick up the prize, which is a set of kimono. She became suspicious and didn't go back to the store.

So it looks like they will call me and tell me that I "won" the prize too.. :( No wonder my mother didn't pick up phone for a while during daytime last year.. sorry mom, I have to ask you to bear agressive sales calls again...

Stupid me... but if we can dodge the sales calls fine this time again, I guess we have scored 2 good kimono sets for very good prices..

I thought I'm kind of a person who don't give out personaly information easily, but it was wrong.. I don't even have Fred Meyer card or Safeway membership, but now I'm on a stupid customer list of the damn kimono store... My mother told me that she knows only one lady who said no to sign up for the prize. So I guess everyone else couldn't leave the store without signing up...