A jillion happenings in one

As my previous post mentioned, I was busy with my entrance exam. But that didn't mean I was not "busy" with other stuff! hehe! Out of the prodding of Johann, I finally mustered up the courage to email and contact the VTES playgroup here in Japan. (To those who are in the know, this is my Vampire game, and I've made new "Vampire" friends. hehe) I asked for advice where I can buy gaming stuff, and VTES cards. The group was soo nice enough to tell about "Yellow Submarine" a gaming shop in Shinjuku. When I came there....I was in heaven. Imagine a shop with a better collection of games than Landes/Hobbes and a hobby shop a kajillion times better than Neutral Grounds. Johann egged me to take pictures. My nerve was very limited to these.

On another note, Valentine's day came and passed. Or should I say "Single Awareness Day." To those who are familiar with the Japanese customs, I was supposed to receive chocolates from my friends who are girls. (Even giri "obligation" chocolate) was fine with me. My total haul.....one. From my Turkish friend, Derya. Don't get it wrong. She has a boyfriend and everything. I just helped her out a lot. Here is the chocolate she game me!














I ate one before thinking of taking a picture of it. This is what giri chocolate is....if someone likes you, it should be homemade stuff. haha! oh well!

Next up, Cheska now has classes in Tachikawa every Thursdays. Which gives me and Hanna the opportunity to meet up with her and have a nice dinner. In one of our dinners, we decided to go to "Iron Chef Chinese" Chen Ken'ichi's restaurant which served Mapo dofu! Sooooooooooooo delicious and spicy. The only thing in the menu is mapo dofu. No wonder he is the Iron Chef. hehe. The set meal is 1050 yen.
To make extra income, I go to Japanese grade schools and talk about the Philippines. It isn't much, but it is fun most of the time. In one of these schools, I got to eat the famous or infamous, school lunch. On the menu was a salad, chicken dumpling curry, orange pudding and milk. Unfortunately, it was a Friday during Lent....so I wasn't able to taste the Chicken dumpling. Overall it was nice and nutritious. But the milk in the bottle was delicious....fresh, creamy....Wow! Too bad the kids didn't really appreciate it. :(














Another evening, me and Angel decided to eat at the nearby Russian restaurant. I love Archie comics, and one of the most disgusting food they would portray is goulash. I was curious what it was and this was a great opportunity to try it. What does it look like? Here:
Archie comics is sooo wrong. Either that or this betrays the taste of Americans. Basically it is a stew. Disappointingly, it actually tastes like giniling in tomato sauce. I wanted to taste something unusual. dang! haha! After the meal, me and Ker Wee went for coffee in a real coffee house. Not the commercial Starbucks type thing. This was a cozy little nook. As a plus, coffee is served with a small bit of "nama choco" or chocolate cooked with cream and coated with cocoa powder. It went very well with my coffee. the bitterness of the cocoa powder matched the coffee and the sweetness of the chocolate made my coffee go down easier. Sigh.

Finally, it was the twins birthday. I sent Nowd one of my favorite card games, Bang. And I sent Toad a book on climate change and a cellfone accessory. A few days later, Toad blogged about it and one of the things he missed is the Cathedral Windows cake Manang Beth would give to him every year. I scoured the net for a recipe since it was pretty much a jello cake. I didn't know that this was actually just unique to the Philippines. Anyway, I tried out the recipe with good but imperfect results.

Mental note: Next time, deeper container, cut the colored portions into smaller sizes.

Finally, I finished my entrance exam. For the interview part it went fine. Not perfect though. I had to defend my Master's Thesis and my Ph.D proposal in Japanese...or what I call my version of Japanese. There were some questions which I couldn't really understand and had to ask the interviewers to simplify further. The second part was more disastrous. I was asked to read a short essay in 10 minutes in Japanese to myself and answer questions from the panel. Firstly, I never read fast. But I was able to read, not understand the entire thing. Secondly, the reading had 3 pages. Stupid me thought that the third page was a just mistakenly photocopied. During the interview, they asked me to translate some parts to English. I wasn't able to do so. :(

Oh well. I'll know the results at 1 pm today. Que sera sera!