- miyako part 4 -
currently listening to - shingiru (LOVEHOLIC)
mood - bored
mid march. woke up in this cool morning, only to find that it's snowing. well you can't actually consider it to be proper snow.. more like frost or something. but it's definitely not rain, coz i'm sure that raindrops don't drift away in mid-air when blown by the wind.
it's our last lesson in gaidai (or rather, outside gaidai?). a study tour in kyoto. couldn't sleep well the previous night, and woke up in a rush around 8am (students were supposed to gather at the car park at 8.30 and the bus was scheduled to leave at 9). i thought i was one of the latecomers but apparently not. there were a few who didn't even turn up at the car park because they overslept (or simply didn't wanna come). including my Korean friend, who's officially turning into a hikikomori who watches dramas and movies day in and day out.
*****
first we came to this okashi shop/restaurant. and we learnt how to make the yatsuhashi - a kind of triangular japanese mochi-like confectionery (famous kyoto sweets).
the yatsuhashi comes in different flavours - for its "skin", we used cocoa, cinnamon, maccha and strawberry; as for the inner bit, we added chocolate, bean paste, maccha and strawberry respectively. the original shape's triangle, but we were allowed to create our own unique-shaped yatsuhashi based on our imaginations. Ms. Kiss-Me was praised by 3 different people who passed by and saw her masterpiece. *grinnnn*
later, we had our buffet in the very same place. the food served consisted of a mixture of western and japanese styled dishes.. and some of them were really weird... the japanese-style gratin was fine for me. so were the fried fish (but it said "kaki" for the japanese description), mini curry rice, deep-fried bean curd, salad, fried eggplants, as well as the simmered vegetable stew thing.. the tofu was almost alright, but i thought it tasted a bit like solidified soybean milk. the deep-fried potatoes would've tasted better if only it was deep-fried POTATOES and not deep-fried potatoes-plus-some-other-unknown-substances. and the sushi with dry-yellow-noodle-like-thing toppings was totally..... new to me. i'm sorry i've not been studying the culture of kyoto properly.
anyway this is just personal preferences. personally, i would've liked a buffet of kyoto dishes instead of fusion dishes. i mean, this is a kyoto study tour. the main purpose is to experience the food and culture of kyoto, so i guess there's no need to consider about regional preferences. it's not prom night, you know. what's more, it's NIHON-JIJOU. not global-jijou or what....
but yeah.. then we came to Arashiyama, a tourist attraction in kyoto which is popular for sakura and kouyou. unfortunately we couldn't see any sakura nor kouyou (obviously) coz we're in a very confusing season, where you see ume flowers blooming over here, and frost coming down from the sky on the other side.. a few of us had a walk in the bamboo grove. back then, we were discussing nonchalantly about how the place looked like settings that we've seen in movies (when later at night, i was told that it's really used for filming of many famous movies, including... crouching tiger hidden dragon?).. a couple of us took the expensive rickshaw around Arashiyama (the cheapest one costs like.. 3,000 yen for 2).
and to my delight, i fell in front of the railroad crossing (not ON the crossing, thank goodness. i don't need no dramatic heart-stopping action scenes). got a few parts of my clothing torn. that was so skilled of me... a very nice "makeover" before graduation.
*****
came back before 6pm, and the few of us who applied for tokyo tech dashed to the office to look for any notifications from the university... but NO. what "we will release the results on the 10th of march".. it's already 12th and what do we see? a long name list with all the students who have been accepted into their respective universities, except for us tokyo tech applicants. thank you very much.
it would be so exciting if we don't receive any news from the university at the end of march.
*****
1) hikikomori - .... a reclusive/unsociable person who stays indoor all the time?
2) okashi - confectionery
3) kaki - oyster (not persimmon.. i know it's kaki too)
4) nihon-jijou - japan matters. the japanese name of our japanese culture lesson.
5) kouyou - autumn leaves..
mood - bored
mid march. woke up in this cool morning, only to find that it's snowing. well you can't actually consider it to be proper snow.. more like frost or something. but it's definitely not rain, coz i'm sure that raindrops don't drift away in mid-air when blown by the wind.
it's our last lesson in gaidai (or rather, outside gaidai?). a study tour in kyoto. couldn't sleep well the previous night, and woke up in a rush around 8am (students were supposed to gather at the car park at 8.30 and the bus was scheduled to leave at 9). i thought i was one of the latecomers but apparently not. there were a few who didn't even turn up at the car park because they overslept (or simply didn't wanna come). including my Korean friend, who's officially turning into a hikikomori who watches dramas and movies day in and day out.
*****
first we came to this okashi shop/restaurant. and we learnt how to make the yatsuhashi - a kind of triangular japanese mochi-like confectionery (famous kyoto sweets).
the yatsuhashi comes in different flavours - for its "skin", we used cocoa, cinnamon, maccha and strawberry; as for the inner bit, we added chocolate, bean paste, maccha and strawberry respectively. the original shape's triangle, but we were allowed to create our own unique-shaped yatsuhashi based on our imaginations. Ms. Kiss-Me was praised by 3 different people who passed by and saw her masterpiece. *grinnnn*
later, we had our buffet in the very same place. the food served consisted of a mixture of western and japanese styled dishes.. and some of them were really weird... the japanese-style gratin was fine for me. so were the fried fish (but it said "kaki" for the japanese description), mini curry rice, deep-fried bean curd, salad, fried eggplants, as well as the simmered vegetable stew thing.. the tofu was almost alright, but i thought it tasted a bit like solidified soybean milk. the deep-fried potatoes would've tasted better if only it was deep-fried POTATOES and not deep-fried potatoes-plus-some-other-unknown-substances. and the sushi with dry-yellow-noodle-like-thing toppings was totally..... new to me. i'm sorry i've not been studying the culture of kyoto properly.
anyway this is just personal preferences. personally, i would've liked a buffet of kyoto dishes instead of fusion dishes. i mean, this is a kyoto study tour. the main purpose is to experience the food and culture of kyoto, so i guess there's no need to consider about regional preferences. it's not prom night, you know. what's more, it's NIHON-JIJOU. not global-jijou or what....
but yeah.. then we came to Arashiyama, a tourist attraction in kyoto which is popular for sakura and kouyou. unfortunately we couldn't see any sakura nor kouyou (obviously) coz we're in a very confusing season, where you see ume flowers blooming over here, and frost coming down from the sky on the other side.. a few of us had a walk in the bamboo grove. back then, we were discussing nonchalantly about how the place looked like settings that we've seen in movies (when later at night, i was told that it's really used for filming of many famous movies, including... crouching tiger hidden dragon?).. a couple of us took the expensive rickshaw around Arashiyama (the cheapest one costs like.. 3,000 yen for 2).
and to my delight, i fell in front of the railroad crossing (not ON the crossing, thank goodness. i don't need no dramatic heart-stopping action scenes). got a few parts of my clothing torn. that was so skilled of me... a very nice "makeover" before graduation.
*****
came back before 6pm, and the few of us who applied for tokyo tech dashed to the office to look for any notifications from the university... but NO. what "we will release the results on the 10th of march".. it's already 12th and what do we see? a long name list with all the students who have been accepted into their respective universities, except for us tokyo tech applicants. thank you very much.
it would be so exciting if we don't receive any news from the university at the end of march.
*****
1) hikikomori - .... a reclusive/unsociable person who stays indoor all the time?
2) okashi - confectionery
3) kaki - oyster (not persimmon.. i know it's kaki too)
4) nihon-jijou - japan matters. the japanese name of our japanese culture lesson.
5) kouyou - autumn leaves..
posted by aikoais at 3/12/2007 02:20:00 PM
1 Comments:
Well, me also not tat like the baikingu.
But the making of yatsuhashi was really fun.
Mayb i counld sumthing special out,
but i just prefer the original shape of yatsuhashi.
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