London and Wales and Food... Late Post No. 2

The problem with posting late is that you can't remember every single detail of the trip... oh well, my fault. Went to London and Wales (which is coincidentally my first trip to Europe). Took Virgin Atlantic Air (despite my 4 hour delay going back home, I still highly recommend this airlines). Anyway, food was interesting in the sense that the portions were HUUUUGE! Also, I had to eat fish and chips (although not wrapped in newspaper)...had the fancy one with mashed peas.. Me and Cheska attended a conference at the University of Bangor (very nice, historical university) and had fun since the topic of the conference was on food! It was our first try into academic food writing or at least what we think is academic food writing.

Among other things though, we watched two musicals, Spamalot and Lord of the Rings the Musical. Spamalot was fun in the sense that it mocked musicals. However, it is pretty much a watch-it-once type of musical. LOTR is a very impressive production. However, one should take it as a play with songs rather than a musical. Toad would have loved the "special effects" they had given the limited space of the stage. The songs were great, however, they are the type where nothing gets retained in your head to sing going home from the musical. Anyway loved it!

Of course we also took the tourist route, we went to Madame Tussaud's (me and Jaime Oliver and as a gag, with President Bush and Prime Minister Blair). Also went to the Sherlock Holmes Museum as well as the Tate Modern. Really loved the museum (thanks Cheska for dragging me to it), if we weren't pressed for time since we had to rush through the exhibits.

Would want to go back again, however it was pretty expensive. (How expensive? ask my sisters who took care of my credit card bill) lol!

A Week in Korea...late post 1

Around the end of November, Dina and I went to a Media Conference in Korea. We were pretty much excited, given the fact that it was both our first time to the country. Our trip started out with a HUGE bungle...thanks to me. I have been to Korea...technically. On a trip to Australia, Hanna and I had a four hour stopover at Incheon Airport. I was pretty familiar with the place and thought that we were going to go there. So early in the morning, Dina and I rode the train to Narita airport using the Keisei liner. Out of the blue, Dina asks me which terminal we were heading. Whipping out our "e-ticket reservation" I then realized we weren't leaving from Narita Airport, but from Haneda, the domestic airport of Tokyo. Not only that, we were landing in Gimpo Airport and not Incheon. We were then able to fix the mess and transferred (luckily) to a train going directly to Haneda airport!

The trip was a blast...at a lot of food and got a bit fat! haha! I was glad to meet former dorm mates, Min and Heegon, who toured us around for half a day. Dina wanted to go to castles in Korea, so most of our pictures are of the ones we visited. We stayed for a night in a traditional inn and later transferred to dorm for the same price.

Korea is very different from Japan. as in VERY DIFFERENT! However, after my visit, I realized why the Koreans loved the Philippines. haha! Anyway, I'll let my pictures tell the story of my trip.

Happyou Hell (Reporting Hell)

Again, delays in updating my blog. Apologies! To answer my sister's question: lamingtons is a type of (depends on who you talk to) Australian/New Zealander dessert. Starts out with day-old spongecake dipped in a chocolate coating and then given a shower of coconut flakes. One of the few desserts I can make in a flash! :)

I just came from a month of four consecutive weeks of reporting, both in English and in Japanese. Partially my fault in the sense that I'd rather get everything over and done with with my semester rather than spread out the requirements and still have something to do at the end of the semester. First report is a paper for Nakano-sensei in English which is about how Western Games represent Asia and the problems involved with such games. (Since I reported in English, hardly anyone asked questions). Second was probably one of my toughest reports, under Lee-sensei, I had to report in Japanese about my dissertation proposal. Got a lot of ideas, and now I have to read about Fascism in Japan. Third was a report for the Philippine Studies Study Group, I basically reported in English about Adobo and Philippine identity. Finally, another Japanese report regarding "game rules and fiction." While it was stressful to report in Japanese, the last report was fun since the entire class is done in Second Life (a Sims-type online game).

On other news, I'll be going to Seoul tomorrow, followed by a trip to London the following week. Both for conferences. That will mean pictures!!!!

As for now, my meals have been pretty boring, since I spent more time (haha) making my reports. Went to subway to see how they made a subway sandwich in Japan. The second pic was taken while I was waiting for Jan's parents-in-law at Odaiba. Got some goodies from them, (Thanks Jan!). This is Japan's interpretation of cheese-flavored ice cream. Pretty different from the Philippine one. This tastes like vanilla ice cream with a hint of fromage, while the Philippine one would not only have cheese bits, but would wallop a cheese flavor! :)

Blogging by a non-blogger

Haven't posted for a long time. This happens to non-bloggers who become bloggers for a different reason. For me, it was a matter of being able to communicate to family and friends what is happening to me (sort of) without email each and every person.

Winter term has just started and here is what my schedule looks like:
Monday: 文章表現３（Essay writing)
Tuesday:(forgot the name) but it is basically a class held in Second Life(online game) pretty fun
Seminar with Lee-sensei
Wednesday: Translation
Thursday: Seminar with Nakano-sensei

It seems like nothing, but requirements are somewhat taxing (especially if I have to translate my reports)

I've found a new part-time job teaching an undergrad English conversation once a week. (It doesn't pay well,but at least I earn something)

On other news, will be attending two conferences in November. First one will be in Seoul. The second will be in Wales. Pretty excited for both, but am bogged down with the work of writing the papers for both. Thankfully Cheska is my partner in the Wales conference. She sends me reports of what she has done and it really encourages me to finish (or try to finish) my parts.

Played VTES a couple of weeks ago to celebrate the post release of Lord of Night. Chose the Setite deck and I think I got 2nd place. (Did a straightforward bleed) I guess, I was channeling Johann and made it a point to win instead of make a "karl" deck. :) However, performance of my deck waned when a second Setite player came and we ended up contesting crypts often. :(

With regards to food, found a nice bakery near the church in Tachikawa. Bread and coffee was cheap. Got myself a Doraemon anpan! hee-hee!
One lucky day, Lara visited the burbs of Kunitachi and had dinner with her and Hanna! We had an after dinner tea as well. Had a green tea latte and wagashi.
Probably the highlight for the week was morning tea with Cris and Dina. This was Cris' way of thanking me and Dina for giving him a present for his new born baby girl, Kua-chan. I made some lamingtons (since Cris insisted they were New Zealand food and nit Australian). He prepared a spread. Probably the most memorable one is apple bread with umeboshi! Ah! 男の料理 Tasted interesting. After having it, tasting the plain apple bread felt like it missed something.

What a busy week!

After finishing summer class, I pretty much have one week free before the second semester starts again! I didn't realize it, but I booked myself a pretty busy schedule. haha. (feeling pa-important)

First was the Tokyo Game Show. I went with Ker Wee and Siao. Wasn't able to take as much pictures, but was able to try out a lot of games. Well, technically not the HUGE games since you have to line up for about 2 hours just to try out the games. So we decided to line up in the games made by smaller companies and get freebies. Tried a stupid-fun Japanese Wii game. Even tried Cooking Mama 2 for DS and got myself a new shopping bag!(Save the earth...recycle) . The best part of the TGS was the new Monster Farm Online CD I got from the booths. To the unfamiliar, it's Monster Rancher! Probably Nowd and Toad will flip to hear that one of our favorite games is turning MMORPG. Unfortunately you only get a few choices of your pet and you can't breed, combine, etc. (As far as I know). But a MAJOR Bummer was when I tried to install the game in my laptop and my old clunker can't play it. Tempted to buy a new laptop....but No. haha!

Coming back home from the TGS, the shrine near my place was also having a festival. So I checked it out. Wanted to play the games for a chance of winning either a PSP or DS Lite or games, but chickened out in the last minute. (Karl + Games of Chance = Loser) However, I did buy Okomiyaki (picture didn't turn out right though) and Kakigori (the origins of Halo-halo).

Monday, went to meet Bac-san and his wife who are now living in Yokohama. Unfortunately, Ker Wee had to go with a friend to Disneyland, Derya is in Turkey, Diaby is in Guinea and Angel cancelled in the last minute. So it was just me and Nomi who went. We were treated to a home-cooked feast. Lai mentioned before being invited to her Vietnamese friend's place for a meal and I imagine it would have been as good as this. I had two heaping bowls of Chicken Pho (pronounced as Fhu), a lot of the spring rolls (with ground chicken because Nomi can't eat beef or pork), a plate of the bihon salad and A lot of dessert which I forgot to take a picture of. What really surprised me was the dessert. Everyone in my family knows that I hate monggo (which is a family food coupled with spam). But Lan-san made a simple dessert made out of monggo, water and a bit of sugar, topped with sesame seeds. And I was able to eat it! actually a lot of it. The funny thing was they first brought out one plate of this pudding-like dessert and after seeing me wolf down about half a plate, they brought out a smaller one that they were saving for later, for me to eat! (baboy! lol)

After lunch, we went to this zoo which was on top of a very steep hill. It was nice, but at the same time sad since the cages, especially for the larger animals was small that you'd actually see the animals walk back-and-forth from the small space. The advantage of this zoo is that it is free, hence the space problem. After the zoo, we went to Chinatown to buy mooncakes. Unfortunately, I hesitated a bit and only bought one kind. :(

For food this week, I decided to treat myself before going to my one-a-month part-time job in Tachikawa. There was this French restaurant that I always passby. Knowing how expensive French food is, I decided to go there for lunch (in Japan, lunch menus are ALWAYS cheap). I ordered the specialty of the day, which was fish. The plate looked delicious, and it was. Probably my sister and brother-in-law would have loved it because the sauce was a very sumptuous butter sauce.

On another day, I finally tried this pasta place near my place and ordered the house specialty. The noodles were made fresh(Wow!), the meat sauce was simmered for an entire night (which made it very thick! Double Wow!) and....the clincher, topped with Natto! Khursten would probably want to try this out. The taste, was great for me. Actualy the feeling was like eating nutty mozarella cheese. :)

An interesting place opened in Kunitachi a couple of days ago. A Singaporean restaurant which serves....Chicken Rice. It was pretty authentic, serving chicken rice with the clear soup (which nobody actually drinks in Singapore). I ordered what seemed to be Roti Prata (curry with roti bread). Good, but the curry wasn't spicy at all. As Ker Wee said "it's a nice place, a little piece of Singapore from a tiny Singapore" Lol

Finally, I bought some wagashi or Japanese sweets for Autumn. I got two. Not only did they look beautiful, they were delicious too.