Thrills and Spills

昨日のイベントはすごく楽しかった！たくさん友達と新人が来たから嬉しかったです。
Yesterday's event was great! There were a lot of old friends and new folks who came out. I hope everyone had fun!

でも昨日残念なこともありました。私の手から甕を落として壊してしまいました。
However, yesterday I managed to break our drink container. It somehow dropped out of my hand and broke on the floor. I guess it wasn't meant to be.

Sad day.

今日の昼ごはんにもちろんトンカツむすびを作りました。冷蔵庫にトンカツがまだあります！でも今米がもうないからすぐにもっと米を買わなければなりません。
Today for lunch I made a tonkatsu musubi. There's even some tonkatsu still left in the fridge! However, we are now out of rice so I need to go get some soon...

Big Boy Musubi

トンカツ！

今日はトンカツを作りました。たくさんあるから明日も明後日も食べます。
Today I made tonkatsu for dinner. There's a lot left over so I'll be eating it for the next few days. :)

 The unidentifiable thing is an egg.

今晩はインターバシティーというクリスト教のクラブの今年に最初イベントです。ディディリースのクッキーで自分のアイスクリームサンドを作るイベントです。楽しそうですね。

Tonight is InterVarsity Christian Fellowship's first event of the year. It's a make your own Diddy Riese ice cream sandwich night so it should be fun.

The Last Meal: Crispy Salmon

明日は私の最後の学期を始まります。
Tomorrow is the start of my last semester of college. wow.

今日の晩御飯は鮭でした。ゴードンラムゼイのビデオを見て作りました。
In honor of my last day of "freedom," I made some salmon based off a Gordon Ramsay cooking video.

最初に鮭の皮膚を切ります。
First, make cuts on the salmon skin.

I need to sharpen my knife..

塩、胡椒、バジル、ローズマリーをします。次に鮭をオリーブ油で炒めます。
Season with salt, pepper, basil, and rosemary. Next, pan fry in hot olive oil.

 Making the skin crispy.

できた！

鉢にご飯、鮭、さやいんげん、レモンを入れます。
Finished salmon and green beans in a bowl with rice. A little bit of lemon for some citrus.

My last decent meal? Hopefully not.

おいしかった！下にゴードンラムゼイの鮭の作り方ビデオです。
Yum! Below is the video I tried to follow. Enjoy!

母の誕生日

今日は母のお誕生日だった。おめでとう！
Today was my mother's birthday. Happy Birthday!

母と食べたケーキ

Cheesecake, chocolate, tiramisu, fruit.

Thanksgiving! Kind of not really.

ハッピー感謝祭の週末！ (遅くなってしまった。。笑）
Happy Thanksgiving weekend! (haha I'm late now...)

ロサンゼルスに戻る前に（今いるよ～）十一月の食べ物語をご覧ください～
Before heading back to LA to finish out the semester(back now..), here are a few of my food endeavors from the month of November.

１５才になった

十月末は弟の誕生日だった。おめでとう！
My brother's birthday was at the end of October. Happy Birthday!!

I'll try their regular food next time. :)

キャンパスの近くにトリオハウスというタイ料理のレストランがある。レイと一緒にフライドアイスとタイティーを食べに行った。おいしかった！

Near campus there is a Thai place called Trio House. I went with Reyi to grab some deep fried ice cream and Thai tea. Very good.

Greatness.

自転車パンのベンは聖書研究のグループをピザを作るパーティに招待した。変なトッピングの例はバーベキューソース、アボカド、桃などだった。ベンはおいしいピザの秘密はパンとチーズだと言って両方はよかった。自転車パン、ありがとうございました！

For Southside Small Group, Ben from Bicycle Bread hosted a pizza making night for us. We had some crazy toppings including honey barbecue sauce, avocado, and canned peaches! Ben said that the secret to good pizza is the bread and the cheese - both were excellent. Thanks Bicycle Bread!

二日間の昼ごはん

クロッケと焼きそばサンドはやまざきパンでキャベツを入れて作った。

Croquette and yakisoba sandwiches, both with crunchy cabbage and soft Yamazaki bread.

わぁ、きれい！

大学のいい点：ＴＧエクスプレスから真夜中の出前です！普通な晩御飯時間だったが夜中食べ物をもらえることはよかった。

The greatest thing about college life: late night delivery from TG Express! Although this set came at normal dinner time, it's great to know that you can get good food at almost any time at night.

Look, mom! I do eat vegetables! (sometimes..)

牛肉、さやえんどう、にんじん、たまねぎを入れた赤いピーマンだ。そしてごはんは外で、中じゃなかった。
Stuffed bell peppers with ground beef, peas, carrots, and onions. And rice on the outside, not inside.

流星の絆というドラマ見たことがある？

最後ははやしライス！ブライアンと一緒に作ったはやしは赤いワインをいっぱい入れたから伝統的じゃなかった味だったがおいしかった！
And finally... hayashi rice! Made with Brian Chung, we added a lot of red wine so although the flavor was not traditional it still tasted great! 

すみません。。今からこのブログでもっと書いてみる予定です。よろしく。
Sorry... I promise to try and write more often here...

Dinner Time!

今日は長かったです～～今日本語の宿題をしたくないから...ブログをアップデートします！

今度のテーマは今学期が始まったから料理です！

It's been a loong day.. Taking a break from Japanese homework, here is a sample of some of the meals I've cooked up this semester.

キューピ～

まずはお好み焼きです！キャベツ一玉は一人でなかなか食べられないから大きくてたくさんお好み焼きズを作りました。小林さんと他の友達が食べて助けました！

First up, okonomiyaki! This is basically a cabbage and batter pancake, but since one cabbage goes a long way I was forced to able to make about 4-5 giant servings. Thanks to Jillian, GianCarlo and friends, and roommate Jiyeon for helping me eat them all! :O

トウイックスもあるよ！

カレー、クロッケー、豚肉、キャベツ、ミルク
カレーが辛かったからミルクと食べてうまかったです！お好み焼きから残りキャベツと豚肉も出ました。

Curry, croquette, cabbage, pork bowl! The cabbage and pork strips were left over from the okonomiyaki. I had to use them somehow!! The curry was a tad bit spicy so it went well with a big mug of milk.

8 )

肉ジャガ、クロッケー、オムレツ
写真で肉ジャガはちょっと...やばいですね。でもおいしかったよ！そしてその日にクロッケーが嬉しかったね。

Nikujaga (meat and potatoes), croquette, omelet. The nikujaga doesn't look so hot in the picture, but I assure you it was good. As you can see, the croquette was trying to charm me with a bashful smile in hopes of escaping the dinner bowl that night. I enjoyed devouring his mushy insides. :D

Wow.. definitely one of my top bento efforts.

お弁当！ソーセージのおにぎりは昼ごはんで右の食べ物は晩ごはんでした。

お弁当：　豚とねぎのダンプリング、 パイナップルのソーセージ、さやいんげん、うめぼしとごはん

木曜日は一番忙しい日だからたいてい昼ごはんと晩ごはんをアパートに作ってみます。ソーセージがすごっくうまいから最近はまっています。そしておにぎりはおかかのふりかけをごはんに混ぜました。

Bento time. The sausage onigiris were for lunch and the bento for dinner.

Bento: Pork and green onion dumplings, pineapple sausage, green beans, ume and rice

Thursdays are my busiest days, so I try to pack a lunch and dinner before heading out. The pineapple sausage is highly recommended btw. I also added okaka (fish flakes) furikake to the rice balls before sticking the sausage slice into them.

 

 お母さん、見て！大学で野菜も食べるよ！

最後は一番最近の作ったごはんはにんじん、玉ねぎとさやいんげん、ソーセージでした。
野菜が多くて体によかったです！

Finally, my most recent cooked meal: a beautiful rice bowl with steamed carrots, greenbeans and onion, and sausage. Recently I realized that most of my home cooked meals are about 60% rice and 40% meat/other starches so I decided to go with some fresh produce this week.

で、宿題を続けます..
And now back to the homework..

The Future of This Blog and Korean Idol Sighting

Waa.. it's been a while but since Japan is over (for now..) I'm going to try and update this blog with random things from everyday life. Okay!

そして日本語の練習のために今からいつかまで英語でも日本語でも書くつもりです。間違える時日本語が分かる人直してください。お願いします！
I'm also going to attempt to write things in Japanese as well for practice. So sorry in advance for the messiness. :)

~~~

今日は面白いことがありました。FXという韓国の女子のアイドルグループがUSCに来ました。新しいキャンパスセンターでバラエティ番組をやって来ました。そのニュースは昨日友達から聞きましたが韓国のアイドルズに興味がないからちょっと忘れました。
So today apparently a girls Korean pop group was suppose to come to campus (and they did!). The information was covertly shared between a few select people who then passed it on to people like me. Because I know almost nothing about Korean groups (and don't really have that much of an interest in them.. yet) I actually forgot that this was suppose to happen today.

Thanks Google Images!

今日図書館からパークサイドに行っていた時韓国アイドルが大好き友達に出会いました。トーミトロジョンの前に彼女とほかな友達と一生に一時間ぐらいFXを待ちました。でもFXが遅かった。私は友達とランチの予定があったからチックフィレーに食べに行きました。
Until.. I ran into Joanne and Kit while boarding over to Parkside. They convinced me to stay and wait for them (this is what you do in college!) but after an hour they were still no where in sight. I had a lunch date with Lisa so I left to eat my first Chick-fil-A (!!), which we ended up bringing to the campus center to eat.

キャンパスセンターでほかな友達と食べたらFX三人来ました！FXにすごく近くに行けて番組を取ることを見えました。そして携帯で写真が取られました。
At the end of our meal, we noticed a mob of Asian people coming towards the campus center.. accompanied by a few camera wielding Koreans! Three of the FX girls (Veronica, Sulli, and Luna) were taping a program for a Korean variety program, and I got to be up close to the "action". There was one part where the producer people were asking (..in Korean..) for a non-Korean person to participate (once one of the many Korean spectators translated I tried to stretch my hand in their faces) but they picked another girl instead of me. :( But I did get to take pictures. :)

Each FX member was paired with someone and had to teach them how to write something in Korean. The guests then had to try and write it without any help and were casually judged on who was the best.

FXが遅くて予定が大変だから一時間だけでUSCにいました。終わった時から速く出っていたから少数しかいなかったファンにサインを書いてあげました。 私のアイドルが大好きな友達はシャツで三分の二メンバーのサインをもらいました。おめでとう！
When they wrapped up, it was a wrap. The manager rushed the girls off to their van, but not before Joanne managed to get a few signatures! She had brought along a USC shirt (which they actually borrowed as a prop for their show (!!) ) and waited patiently to bust it out on them.

Joanne's shirt! To show they were at USC.

Overall, pretty exciting. My impression: the girls seemed like normal girls to me (only with nice hair and flawless skin) except during filming when they were over the top energetic and gesture-y.

今日までFXが知らなかったからFXを来る前の待っていた時に準備をしました。面白いことを習いました：wikipediaによるとFXの名前は数学のF（x）からそうです。そしてFの意味は花でXは・・・日本語で説明出来ません。（笑）
Also.. random note. To prep myself for viewing these idols, I looked them up on wikipedia (har har). Apparently their name FX stands for the mathematical function F(x) with the "f" standing for "flower" and the "x" for the two x chromosomes found in female dna. (yeah.. wut the random?) I wonder if the group members had a say in their name..