Today's Work

I baked this bread today.
Cooking or baking with friends is my favorite time of day.

Karuizawa

I took a one-day trip to 'Karuizawa', which is a famous town as people spend their summer coolly.
I heard that John Lennon loved to stay here with his family on vacation.

THai Cuisine

It's called "GAPAO rice".

'Kushiage' Restaurant

I had a farewell party for my coworker at this restaurant.
I really loved this building and atmospher.

Smiley Hamburg Steak

I cooked it with my friend.
Look! The rice is smiling at you!
Recently, I've been attending a cooking school to learn various recipes and how to bake bread.

hanami

on March 31st, at the Shinjuku Gyoen Park

on March 6th, at the gate of the Ueno Park

When I'd just come back from Shanghai, I came across to see the first Sakura of this year.

Shanghai

I've just came back from "the city".
I was longing to go there.
I'm studying the language spoken there.
Tom Cruise was hanging and swinging between skyscrapers there in MI3.

Can you guess where "the city" is?

Before Shanghai　'07 March 2

I felt a chill while I was working in the office and I found I had a slight fever.
I went to see a doctor and he diagnosed me as having a cold.

I hardly ever have a fever even if I catch a terrible cold, so I was afraid it was caused by the flu.
I’m going to Shanghai this weekend. If I have a fever, I won’t be allowed to depart from Narita airport.
I asked the doctor to do an examination and give me some medicine for the flu but he didn’t accept my idea because my symptoms weren’t appropriate to the flu.
I also told him that I was vaccinated against the flu last autumn and it made my symptoms mild.
He explained to me thoroughly why he didn’t prescribe a flu medicine.

Recently, it is said that an antiviral drug called “Tamiflu”, which is used in the treatment and prophylaxis of flu, is very dangerous for young people as it can cause abnormal behavior.

He didn’t want to take the risk and only gave me some antifebriles and anti-inflammatories. It stuck in my throat but I went home.

This morning when I woke up, I found he was right. Thanks to his diagnosis and enough sleep, my temperature has dropped now. I can go to Shanghai.

I really appreciate it! Thanks, Doctor!

Friday, January 05, 2007

New Year Resolution

Dearest Everyone!!

Happy happy New Year!!!!!!

How have you been?

Well, do you wanna know my New Year resolution?

To tell you the truth......
I'm gonna study to be a local tour guide of Japan. I need to learn not only foreign languages but about Japanese culture, economy and history. I'll do my best, so someday if you come to Japan, I'll be your guide.
Please look forward to seeing around Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka with me and having delicious Sushi!!

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Hong Kong "Eat! Eat! Eat!"

Hi! How are you doing?
I'm sorry that I couldn't write for a while.

Well, I show some photos I took in Hong Kong.

As you know Hong Kong consists of 3 parts; Hong Kong island which is a very livery business centre, Kowloon which is very traditional and New Territories.



Hong Kong Island ; a livery business centres















Kowloon
















Our theme of this trip was "eat! eat! eat!".
Actually, we kept eating all day long.
For example;
-morning:moodles, rice porridge
-lunch:dim sum
-afternoon tea
-dinner: Shanghai cuisine, Cantonese cuisine















Piles of dim sum!
In Cantonese and Japanese, we call dim sum "yum cha" maybe because they are very yummy.
















egg tarts:
They weren't as sweet as I expected. I was a little disappointed:-( boo!
I prefer Macao ones, which are slightly sweet with delicious caramel sauce.

















I didn't go but some of my friends went to Macao as an option.
Macao is a beautiful city which is a World Heritage Site and is also famous as a casino place.
How colorful, isn't it?

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Motherboard Problem

My PC has another problem, so I sent it to its factory to have it fixed.
It takes about 410 US dollars to change to new motherboard. How expensive!!!!!

By the way, I'm just back from Hong Kong. I took some photos, so I'll show some of my "works" when my PC is fixed; maybe this weekend or next week.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

LOST

I'm watching "Lost" season1 on DVD.
It's so interesting that I can't stop watching it.

I especially like the couple from South Korea. They only spoke the Korean language at first.

The actor who's playing the Korean husband looks familiar to me.
I suppose that he acted "agient Baker" in 24.
And didn't he appear at the beginning of "Spiderman1"?

I'll continue watching it!
See you!

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Burning Sunset

It was a fiery suset.
It looks abnormal, doesn't it?

....like aliens are coming
....or a big fire is happening there.

Actually there was no fire and alien.

I think it was because of approach of a typhoon No.7.

Gyuu Tan! Tan!

Grilled beef tongue called "Gyuu Tan" is very popular in Japan. Sendai-city is famous for Gyuu Tan. This is my lunch which were sooooo delicious!

My Wish

Seeing Star Festival was the biggest purpose of this trip.


It was the first time for me.
There were a lot of colorful decorations.

We write down our wishes on small pieces of paper, then bind them on bamboo trees.





Of course, I made a wish
Do you want to know?

I wish...
I'll improve my foreign languages skills a lot and I'll have neat handwriting.

My handwriting isn't that good. You can see it on this site.

Baseball Balloons

We went to see a baseballgame.

And my friend bought balloons.

We blew up them and...

flew them into the sky!!!!!

Have A Break!

It was a scorcher!
So we took a break at a Japanese outdoor cafe near a temple.















Chilled green tea.










Rice cakes with green soybeans paste on top.

This green paste is called Zunda which is very common in Sendai-city.

I really love this Japanese sweet!
VERY YUMMY!

Feed The Birds

I went to Sendai which is my ex-coworker's hometown.

We went on a cruise and fed Japanese gulls called "Umineko".

Umi means sea, and neko means cats. We call them "Sea Cats" because they chatter ...




"meow! meow!"

Thursday, August 03, 2006

herb

I'm raising herbs on my veranda.
It's like my tiny little garden.

You can see what they are: one is basil and the other is mint.
(this photo is of basil. Upload a photo of mint doesn't go well because of a server problem.)

Whenever I water them, they smell very nice and I imagine myself cooking tomato spaghetti with fresh basil.

It's one of the most relaxing time of day.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

a day trip

Yesterday was a holiday, so my friend and I went to a hot spring. It was a day trip.




We took the outdoor bath.

From the spa, we could see green mountains feeling a lovely cool breeze.

















After bathing, we had foot massages.
Mmmmmm....very comfortable.







Some hotel offers a bath for doggies.

He's saying, "ohhhh, heavenly!!"
He looks so comfortable, doesn't he?


Doggies like bathing?
My cat hated, so whenever she took a bath, she made a wry face and looked uncomfortable

"meooooow!" :-(

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

your camera

I'm very curious to know what kind of camera you are using? And how many cameras do you have?

My previous digital camera has been broken.
I'm just wondering if I should get new one...but I'm sitll thinking what camere I should buy?

Questions
#1 How many cameras do you have right now?
#2 Are you using a single-lens reflex?
#3 What brand of camera are you using?
#4 If you have the photo of your camera, I want to see it. Is it possible?

Friday, July 07, 2006

Baton?

Piccola gave me some themes to post. This system is called Baton.
I've once came across Baton on Erika's blog written in Japanese.
Okay, I'll write.

[1, What is your name?]
Handle: Peach
Japanese nick name: Pi-chan
Chinese name:chongzu
Japanese name: **secret** which means smart child

[2, What did you eat last night for your supper?]
Boiled eggs

[3, What is your job?]
A pharmacist working for a pharmaceutical company

[4, What do you like to do?]
Blogging, chatting, eating, studying languages, listening to music etc anything enjoyable!

[5, What is you favorite type?]
Someone who's kind and reliable

[6, What is your special ability?]
Having entusiasm to learn.

[7, Do you have any license or qualification?]
Driver's licence. Pharmacist licence. Kimono teacher licence. Japanese tea ceremony licence.

[8, Do you have concerns?]
A little.

[9. What is your favorite food and dislike food?]
I love paella, pao de quejo, green curry, Chinese noodles, spaghetti, potato salad, sweets etc.
I hate just one food called Kusaya which is one of the worst smelly food.

[10. Say a word for person you love]
Te quiera muchicimo. Wo ai ni.
It's very embarrassing for me to say "I love you" in Japanese.

[11, Write 5 people you want to give this baton message]
Scott, Erin, Erika, Rabenstrange, Chocobo, Tary, Mickey, Dblk(I repay you), Hana.....if it's ok with you, please receive the baton from me.

I know some people don't like this kind of game but Baton shows the writer's personality that I haven't noticed yet. I like that discovery.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Portuguese Cuisine

I went to a Portuguese restaurant with my friends.

We, once a few months, go out to have dinner from various countries. We've already had Okinawan(southern Japan), Indian, Rumanian foods.

It's our rule never to say "I can't eat" even though restaurants serve something which doesn't suit our palate; too spicy, strong smell etc. Meeting new taste is an exciting adventure! Don't you think so?
We are planning to complete "a cuisine travel around the world" while we are staying in Japan.
Next country might be Morocco ^_^

All of us really liked Portuguese cuisine! It's very delicious! I think Japanese people love this kind of tase as same as Spanish dishes.
Before this restaurant, I'd never eaten Portuguese food 'cause it's not common here in Tokyo.

Is it common in your place?

..and I have one more question about food.
Do you know
arroz cubano (Cuban rice)?
Have you ever had it?
Is it yummy?
I heard about it on the radio this morning.

Well, let me show you what we ate at the restaurant.
Cataplana(very delicious soup!!!)


Bolinho de bacalhau(croquettes of cod...my best!!!!)

Pao de quejo ( cheesy buns....mouth watering!!!)


Pasteis de Nata (a Portuguese egg tart.....heavenly!!!!!)


mmmmmmmm...yummy.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

blogs for practice

I've opened new blogs in Mandarin and Spanish.

It's from Bernat, Fabi and Piccola 's ideas.

Please visit 桃花的冒险(my Chinese blog) and La aventura de Melocotón(my Spanish blog)
...and break the code what I wrote ^___^

Nihao!! and Hola!!!

Friday, June 30, 2006

Japanglish

I had a good opportunity to listen to a lecture by a linguist who is working for The National Institute for Japanese Language. He is an expert of various Japanese; accurate Japanese, words of foreign origin, honorific, dialect etc.
Today's point of the lecture was how medical staff should communicate with patients who don't use medical terms.
It was surely interesting.

During the lecture, I remembered that the institute suggested how to paraphrase words of foreign origin called Gairai-go.
Parhaps you've already known that we've adopted lots of words from foreign languges and use them in daily conversation.
Let me show you some examples with clues.
Can you guess what they mean?

From English
chokoreeto (is sweet)
koohii (is bitter)
basu (to take to go to somewhere)
terebi ( do you watch?)
raihu sutairu ( I'm very interested in your ..)
toraburu (what happened!?)
depaato (I went shopping)
botan (press, fasten, undo)

From Spanish or Portuguese
pan ( for breakfast)
koruku (wine bottles have...)

From German
arubaito (to earn money..)
karute ( square-shaped)
wakuchin ( to guard against infection)

We still keep adopting foreign languages and some of them, especially economic terms and IT terms , are impossible to understand without Google.

Surprisingly, the linguist didn't deny Gairai-go. He also said that Gairai-go can make sentences sound soft and easy to understand by women and young people.

That makes sense.

Sunday, June 25, 2006

result

My Chinese examination is getting harder and harder.
Today I only got a mark of 63/100. It's embarrassing.
Our teacher was really worried about our enthusiam. Because she said we looked very disappointed just after the exam. For me, there is no problem.
I tend to be too nervous before exam but I'm optimistic about the result.

But I noticed that I had to change my style.
Do you want to know my new strategy to improve my Chinese skills?

I'm going to take other 30-minute one-to-one lessons besides weekly class lessons.
Fortunatelly, my school offers that kind of lessons which is called "a pronunciation clinic". International students from China teach us as their part time jobs.
We can ask them about prununciation, how to say and anything we want. In stead of their lessons, we can also take 30-minute practice examinations.

Well....*sigh* Chinese pronunciation is TOO difficult for us.
I think Japanese is one of the easiest languages to pronounce, so if you are interested in Japanese, please try to learn convasational short phrases at first. You could improve fast and it must be enjoyable and actually useful.
It's just my opinion but.........I bet!

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