Lunch style

Bringing lunch box to the office and having it alone at a desk is not a common lunch style in Japan. Some people stick to their wife's hand-made lunch box, yet most of us pick from other options such as company's cafeteria or nearby restaurants. And usually, colleagues flock to go for lunch.
On the other hand, here in San Diego, especially in remoted area like the place of my partner's office, local people seem to prefer to have lunch at their house rather than eating at a cafeteria or restaurant. They rush to their house, have lunch with thier family and hasten back to the office within an hour. Since it is only allowed to those who live near their office, the alternative will be to have an unhealthy burger or some sandwiches at a company's cafeteria, or bring in own lunch box; thus I decided to have my partner take a "lunch box" to hinder him from coming back everyday at lunch time. It's impracticable for me to stay at home all day long.
In the meantime, even tough I have a legitimate reason to remain unemployed, I still feel guilty about staying in an unproductive state, and the fact that I've been preparing my partner's lunch box slightly undermines my feeling of guilt.
These are some of typical Japanese lunch boxes.

First lunch box I've ever made after marriage









Fried shrimp mixed with Mayonnaisee and dried white radish etc.









Marinade octopus and rolled pork etc.









Salmon saikyo(Miso)-flavor and Shinoda-roll etc.









Roasted pork and fried seafood with garlic etc.

Ramen

For those who are unfamiliar to ramen... Ramen is a Japanese noodle dish, consisted of noodle, soup and a variety of topping. In general, there are four flavors of soup, which is based on 1.pork bone, 2.miso(soybean paste), 3.salt, 4.soy source. Typical topping is some chopped green onion, sliced roast pork, laver, boiled egg and so forth.

With its elaborately prepared soup and dedicated attempt to make a subtle difference from other shops, some ramen shops won popularity, and these usually have a long line of people waiting for a bowl of ramen even outside the shop.

In San Diego, regrettably, we haven't encountered any of ramen shops satisfying our appetite, and this fact spurs our desire to eat ramen. It frequently ends up leading us all the way to LA only for a bowl of ramen. Our pick yesterday was Shinsen-gumi.

Shinsen-gumi（新撰組） in LA
Traditional ramen of pork bone soup.
Both the noodle (thin noodle) and the soup taste are good, but it's not extraordinary. I will likely to go there again, but unlikely to visit LA only for this shop.

Chabu-ya(ちゃぶ屋) in LA
Modern pork bone ramen topped with fried green onion.
As I slurp, the soup got excessively rich and it's a little too thick for me.



Santouka(山頭火) in Costa Mesa in the OC.
Noodle itself is worse than Santouka in Japan, but I like this the most amongst three.

Muscular pain :(

In San Diego, I seldom have an opportunity to walk unless I try to find it. Driving all the time everywhere is considered as a matter of course, and people cannot survive without cars.
Not since I moved here have I walked other than going to the nearby supermarket which is one minute distance away by foot, or shopping around in a mall.
Moreover, I noticed lately I myself had been even trying to avert walk by dropping by the supermarket on the way driving back home. This situation is extremely insalubrious for the body and it will eventually make me stout.

Therefore, in order to maintain my health and prevent myself from gaining weight, I started taking a tennis class again. This time, it is an intermediate level with the same instructor from the previous beginner class, for two hours on Saturday.
I was worried a little bit if I could keep up with other students, for it was overt I was a beginner. But it turned out to be okay on the first day, anyway.
Since tennis courts are almost always available and San Diego’s perfect weather permits, tennis has become a part of my life. Though this day's excercise lasted more than 3 hours (1.5-hour rally with friends and 2-hour class), it is not something I want to do intensively but something I want to continue little by little as long as my body allows.

English

I heard "have a good one!" twice a day two days straight.
Since these were all after checkout at a car dealer, a hospital, and supermarkets, the situation explained me the meaning of it. It's just a simple or intimate way of saying "Have a good day!"
But I first wondered thinking "what should I have??"

Another unfamiliar expression was "say when!" which a friend of mine taught me.
This can be used at a restaurant when the waiter/waitress serves pepper or cheese etc. We tend to answer "OK", "good" or "thank you" when it's enough, but "when!" can be the answer instead of saying "thank you". I encountered this situation twice or three times at a restaurant for real.

These are simple and often used, but we don't learn them at school in Japan.
Discovering valuable expressions like these stimulates my desire to be natural in speaking :)

Utmost Fresh Sashimi

Five valiant house wives, whose minds were filled with a vivid image of "sashimi" for dinner, went fishing together!
In San Diego, obtaining sashimi or raw fish does not require any huge attempt thanks to two big Japanese supermarkets; however, when it comes to "fresh" sashimi, things are different. Our target was "Mackerel (saba)" and "Bonito (Katsuo)" .

Four out of five among us were novice of fishing, but the total number of the angler was only seven today, and two attendants were on board dedicatedly helping us from setting up a rod to cutting a squid for a bait, so we were able to enjoy ourselves and entirely satisfied.

It was no wonder that the baits were alive and full of vigor, and I first feared to put that tiny fish on hook. But by the end of this tour, I got used to pierce a hook on their foreheads. My pity against the brutal work didn't disappear, though. These small fish can be our beautiful dinner if they were deep-fried, can't they?

Only my concern was... as most beginners were worried..."what if I turned to be the only loser??" but it was unnecessary anxiety. Everyone caught enough fish for dinner. I caught six fish, but two of them were out of season which means illegal if I took them away, and one was too small to eat, so there was no other way to release them. Two men released almost all fish they caught and sometimes kindly asked us if we eat them and gave us... :)

I haven't experienced for a long time this sort of pleasure of the moment when the fish bit the bait and pulled the wire.
Although gutting and scaling these fish before eating is a painstaking job, utmost fresh sashimi is luxurious dinner for us living in the U.S.
Knowing this exhilaration, I'm sure I'll come back here for fishing targeting another kind of DINNER.

★Our Today's Count★
14 mackerel (saba)
3 sand bass
2 calico bass
1 bonito (katsuo)
1 sculpin

Seaforth SportsFishing

at Peet's Coffee

It is a Martin Luther King Day today. Schools are closed while companies remain open. Although I was free all day long, I decided to stay away from being busy. I didn't make any appointments, didn't go shopping, didn't see any of my friends, and went to a nearby cafe called Peet's Coffee to read a book alone and relax.

While I was sipping a cup of mocha, an old couple who looked neat in appearance suddenly talked to me. They said that about 30 years ago they lived in Tokyo for 5 years. They seem to have recalled their life in Japan and kept talking about how their experience in Japan was great. Our dialogue provoked another guy, who was a big fan of Japan and visited there several times, to join us. They all looked happy talking about Japan showing me the pictures from Japan trip in the computer. It somewhat made me delighted :)

Come to think of it, while sitting at Peet's Coffee reading a book about two months ago, I met another nice guy who was also fond of Japan, and his daughter & son is taking a Japanese language class at her collage and his high school respectively. I equally felt happy knowing that there were many people striving to be a Japan freak.

And I noticed that, either case, THEY first talked to me upon finding I'm a Japanese.
Even if I were at a cafe in Japan and found someone from a foreign country where I lived or traveled, I still don't know if I'd talk to them.

But isn't it great to encounter some nice people who love "Japan" at such a place as Peet's Coffee where once in a blue moon Japanese people are seen?
Aside from its rich taste of coffee and welcoming atmosphere, the Peet's Coffee has become my cup of tea :)

Made it big "literally"

The first picture is from Sep 20 '06 and now ｔhe color green turned to be perfect yellow as yolk. It's already fit to eat and I'm just thinking what I should eat it with.

Skiing at Mountain High Resort

Some of my friends and their husbands, my husband and I all went skiing in Mountain High Resort last Saturday. Mountain High is probably the closest satisfying ski resort from San Diego (also from LA), yet took us 2 hours driving. Half of the group did ski and the rest half did snowboard. It was a perfect weather and as you see in the picture, some people were skiing only in T-shirt.
Although it was machine-made snow, the snow pile was plenty enough to ski and the quality was not bad for me. The slopes which were relatively the intermediate/advanced-oriented never tired us. I appreciated the slopes not being too long since, despite our lack of daily exercising, we were able to ski for a long period of time without getting exhausted. I'm sure I will visit there again in the near future, maybe for snowboarding next time :)

☆The three favorite things
Location/Slopes/Animated atomosphere
★The three worst things
Ticket price($59/day)/Waiting time at a lift/too many jibs

I'm sure I will visit there again in the near future, maybe for snowboarding next time :)

After skiing, we got together again in San Diego for dinner. We were going to "Jasmine", the famous Chinese restaurant, but the wedding party was occupying four fifth of the space with tons of colorful balloons and feast. Therefore, we changed our plan and headed a small chinese restaurant in the same mall, named "Dumpling Inn". It looked shabby but was a hit and beyound our expectations! According to a Chinese colleague of one of us, it seems to be one of the best two Chinese Restaurants in San Diego. The dumplings were juicy, and all other dishes were delectable too! The best part was the price. Wow! It's incredibly reasonable. We were 8 in total, and cost $120 (only $15/person). They should have lots of repeaters.

New Year's day

Happy New Year to all of my friends. I wish you all the best in 2007 !!
My resolution this year is to enjoy myself without regret... as usual ;)

===and back to my diary====
Our next door neighbor is an old couple originally from Croatia. They are so generous that they let me into their house whenever they see me outside. Yesterday, it was around noon that they came over to my house, when I was away, to say a happy new year and give us a holiday gift of a bottle of wine & a chocolate box.
Therefore in return, I baked an almond cake today and waited for an opportune time until they drove back home from somewhere. We thought they might not let us go back home without any hospitality and it was true. We were invited to an afternoon tea and they treated us with a glass of champagne, cold cuts and homemade cookies. Our topics were diverse from our cars to cooking, and from Sea World to the difference between Croatia and Japan. It was interesting to get to know that there's an enormous disparity between their industry and ours, and their population and ours and so on. We had a great and precious time which we would never be able to have if in Japan.
One-minute visit came to a happy two-hour small party :)