Shquare Meals: I am sooo sorry for the delay

This happens if one is not a blogger by heart. Anyway, a lot of things have happened since Febuary. Firstly, my second wagashi. It is called uguisugashi for the bird it is shaped-like. Unfortunately because I left for Toronto , I skipped one class on making sakura-mochi for spring. Oh well! :)

Speaking of Toronto, I stayed in a serviced apartment along Yonge St. (if you check the street name, it is Guinness Book's Longest Street). I enjoyed walking around. Unfortunately it was twice and something 3 times colder than Tokyo. Didn't have proper shoes, so slush and shoes = wet and stinky socks! Was tempted to buy new weatherproof ones there, but decided against it. My jetlag was terrible though, I woke up around 12 noon and went to sleep around 3 am. :( As for food, if you follow Food Network, you'll be familiar with Wolfgang Puck. Incidentally a branch of his restaurant can be found inside the Toronto airport. I just bought, of all the boring things, a oriental chicken salad. Don't get me wrong, the salad was great. But being "Karl" I should have been more daring or at least unusual with my choice. :)

I went home for a week to help my professor with his conference in Ateneo. As a "reward" I was able to go home (to Iloilo). I pretty much bummed around Iloilo. However, what really surprised me is how big (tall) my nephew (little goblin) Seth became. Quite an energetic kid, and looooves to babble! His smile is really cute! (egad! I sound like an ojisan *ojiisan) haha!

I returned to celebrate my 28th Birthday with friends. However, I decided to have a picnic instead of spending sooo much money in a restaurant. Plus the cherry blossoms bloomed early in Tokyo. We went to Koganei Park, one of the places to go for Hanami (Flower-viewing). Gifts from my friends: A Class gave me a photo album of us since last year! c/o Derya. Cris (New Zealand), gave me a book on New Zealand food essays. Am (Thai) gave me a wallet. Reija (Taiwan) gave me a peppermint scented candle and some special chopsticks! (funny thing is there were 5)

Last week, I took a part-time job doing interpretation for a group of 22 filipinos. There and then I realized how bad my Tagalog is, how bad my Ilonggo is and how bad my Japanese is! :) Oh well! Aside from this, I realized how HARD interpretation is, especially if the speaker to be interpreted does not care to pause for the interpreters! :) I am going back there tomorrow (Ibaraki-ken). But as a bonus I was able to ride a bullet train (the slower ones) for free. And obviously, with a long (1 hour) train ride, includes ekiben! I had kamameshi bento!