things I'm liking (and disliking)

Let's start off with the disliking....Satoshi's nephew, he asked me to "help him" write his speech (in English) for class (he is in high school)....little did I know that "help" meant I would have to write the whole darn thing myself.

Late last Thursday night (the 20th), he faxed over the Japanese version, single spaced--lots of blackness with the kanji (chinese characters), I saw it in the fax machine and freaked, it was only 1 page, but total blackness...I showed the fax to Satoshi and he said "WT?"

He didn't even bother to call to see if I could read it or understood it (and why aren't we emailing me this so that I can just edit it and zoom it back over?)...oh, but writes on his fax that he needs it to be more than 600 words and back to him by Wednesday, the 26th. (ha!)

Since I cannot read many kanji, I ended up looking up each one that I didn't know in my kanji dictionary, which turned out to be almost all the kanji on his draft....dude! if you're gonna ask someone to "help you", at least have the decency to write your draft double spaced, so they can write their notes in between!

And if you really wanted to learn something from the assignment, maybe trying to write the draft in english yourself in the first place, to at least have TRIED, then have your aunty correct it (not have her write the whole thing)...sigh.

I asked Satoshi to read what I wrote to see if I caught all the nuances that his nephew had written. Satoshi said it was good. Of course, instead of faxing it off right after finishing it, I hopefully made him squirm and faxed it on the 25th, at the very last minute back to him (mean?? maybe??...not!)

UPDATE: I must've made him squirm because I got phone calls at two separate times during the day of the 25th from my MIL and BIL to check on my progress, oh, but not enough to warrant a phone call from the nephew. (and why are they calling me on the 25th, don't I have until the 26th?? as my family would say, "poor upbringing".)

Since it was a speech, I wonder if he had to read it in front of the class? THAT should be even more interesting since his topic was about nuclear arms...

Ugh, but enough of the disliking...let's move on to the liking...

Bollicine Pinot Chardonnay, a brut spumante from Italy, 11% alcohol, 200 ml, 470 yen (about US$4.70). Found this at Kaldi (Lalaport Koshien), when I was waiting for Satoshi, they have an extensive import wine/beer area, more about the beers I found there as we try them. I liked this, it was a little fruity but really dry, kinda reminded me of champagne.

Big Island Candies' mac nut crunchies...dark chocolate filled with mac nuts & crushed kettle chips...man, I dare you to stop at just a little piece.

Fauchon's Matcha Latte, this was a little sweet but not gritty like some matcha drinks I have tried.

Starbuck's Qandi Caramel, apparently this came out last year, but they re-did the packaging. I loved the slightly bitter caramel mixed with the coffee and a little sugar and milk.

Family Mart's mint chocolate drink...delicious! perfectly minty and chocolatey.

As for the planter garden, no bell peppers nor goya have been produced as of those photos I posted recently (insert pouty face), I think the evenings may be getting cooler, so it may be affecting them. Good news though, I threw some chili into a pot and it looks to be taking...we'll see what happens. (fingers crossed)

I had some eringi and kim chee in the refridge and made it into a frittatta...it came out pretty good. Chopped up the eringi and sauteed in some olive oil, then added two scrambled eggs and topped with kim chee. Then cooked on low for about 5 minutes, flipped it over and cooked for another 5....delicious!

Santero Asti Degli Angeli, a spumante from Italy...too sweet and fruity but had nice fizz/bubbles. 200 ml, 7.5% alcohol....480 yen (about US$4.80).

This shot from the peep hole in our door...loved the blue sky, fluffy clouds and "fish-eye" effect.

Been also enjoying lavender-honey ice cream. I used David Lebovitz's Philly recipe for vanilla ice cream (no egg) and fused it with his Lavender-Honey ice cream recipe...came out really good.

I didn't put as much lavender as his recipe called for (for fear of using all of what I had!), so the lavender flavor was faint but still delicious. I also used the honey I recently bought in Hawaii....I guess you could call it a Hawaiian lavender-honey ice cream (since both the lavender and honey were from Hawaii).

Boulangerie Monsieur H's anpan...when I first saw it in the box from my host-sister, it looked like a grey-ish english muffin, but when I cut it in half...joy! lots of tsubuan (chunky sweet bean paste) and nuts (macadamia, cashews), the outer bread was hard like baguette, but smelled like it may have been sourdough...toasted it was great without anything else on it.

Sorry this was such a long post...kinda cleaning out photos for the end of the month.

What are you liking/disliking?