June 26, 2006

If sleep's for the weak, you can call me a sissy...

I feel fine now, but wow was my weekend tiring! I got up early to hit the closest mall so I could pick up a small birthday cake for my friend Mari. Early for me on a weekend being before 10am. I wasn't able to buy one the weekend before (which was her actual birthday) because I didn't have any money. Don't act shocked, it's a constant of my life over here.

Anyway, she dropped by around 11:30 laden with groceries!! She'd said she going to make sushi but she also made niku-jyaga, which a kind of stew with beef, noodles, potatoes, carrots and onions. It's pretty tasty.

Of course most of you have probably eaten sushi before, and some of you may even have made it, but I never have. It was a lot of fun and really isn't that hard to do. Once you have the rice cooked (don't forget to add sushi vinegar!) and everything you just lay it out on the nori (seaweed sheet) and roll things up. Like this:
After you roll it up, gently of course, just plop it down on the cutting board and slice it up. The rice is really sticky so you can't just sit there sawing away at it. One cut or everything'll fall apart. Luckily I didn't make a mess of anything and they turned out to be pretty tasty. Best part of it all was that I didn't have to cook again until well...maybe tonight I guess!

Saturday night I headed down to the regular pub and had a few drinks with the regulars. I didn't stay too late as I had plans for Sunday, but apparently the rest of the crew stay out late enough to be able to go to McD's for breakfast! I'm glad I went home long before that, because Hiro came to pick me up at 7:45am! I don't care who you are, that's early for a Sunday morning, especially when you don't get home until almost 3.

Sunday was a fun, if tiring day. I met up with the folks from Project Luck (the same people I went planting / made pizza with last month) to play some badminton and have a barbecue. That was a good time, but of course i totally neglected to take any pictures. Sorry. Anyway, I finally got back to my place around 6:30 pm, utterly beat.

So I'm thinking, "Great. I can sit down, relax, maybe watch a movie and just chill." Right? Nope. Hiro informs me that we're going to Hiroshi and Michiko's for yakiniku (kind of an indoor barbecue) at 8! Cool, but man I was full and I was tired. We went anyway and had a great time. Everyone is always really nice at these things, but I have to admit that sometimes I get a little embarassed. More often than not (most notably it you're the only non-Japanese) almost all of the conversation revolves around you. I will usually do my best to deflect it and ask questions of the other guests to keep them involved, but that doesn't always work.

Long story short, I got home at 11, was very tired and slept until 10am Monday. Good weekend, but I think I need a break just to catch up! :)

Jya, mata neh!

4 comments:

Brian said...

Uhh... you don't know me, but I thought it'd be nice to say hello.

Thanks for the recipe and the sushi lesson. The first time I tried making sushi, they turned out looking a little to much like slugs. I'll give your advice a try. :)

Obsidian3D said...

Well thanks for stopping by. It's always interesting to hear from folks that might be reading what I'm writing. That's the one thing that I find a little strange about the whole idea of posting this stuff: you never know who's reading!

Don't be afraid to drop in again. :)

Anonymous said...

That's right Chucko- we could be stalking you through this thing. You never know who'll be waiting with bated breath for your next update. ;)

Richard "Virge" Barkman said...

Charles has a stalker! Sweet!!!

Good post by the way. You've managed to make me incredibly hungry. Now I have to go out and find the ingredients and make sushi. Thanks alot !:P