Random Thoughts from a Random Taru

Wednesday, April 18, 2007 12:54 AM // Today was the opening to the i am 8-bit gallery showing on Melrose Ave in Los Angeles. Two of my coworkers had their pieces in this show. It got me thinking that I really should make something and try to get it into the next showing. I wanted to ever since I heard about it’s first gallery event back in my Gray Matter days. Time to sharpen up my watercolor skills full time instead of part time. RAWR!

The Chinese pickles are called Zha Cai or Szechuan pickles. In Japanese it’s ザーサイ. Few. Now I can go to bed happy!

Zzz….

It’s called ザーサイ or “zaasai” maybe “zarsai”? >.>; I’m hungry for some now.

I bought some really cool eye drops from Japan. It’s called マイティアCLクールHI. Or In romanized letters, “Maitia CL Cool HI”. It has a really strong menthol sensation. Must get more. URL ME!

What I’m listening to right now: 水田直志 – Moongate (Memoro De La S^Tono)

So I was talking with a friend I ran across today after work about how the Chinese food in Japan is Japanized. Or rather, in better English, it has a Japanese flair.

In America, there are two kinds of Chinese food: Americanized Chinese food and good Chinese food. Americanized Chinese food is the fast food stuff that everyone gets. Not necessarily delicious, but usually good enough to eat if you’re hungry or in the mood for anything that can pass off as Asian food. Sometimes they can be down right nasty. Good Chinese food usually comes from restaurants where there are ducks hanging metal wires in front and you see a lot of Chinese people sitting inside.

I’ve only had Chinese food in Japan once so I can’t say what other types of Chinese food there are in Japan. There was the Chinese pickles, which strangely enough I don’t see in served in any Chinese restaurants in the US. I don’t even know what they’re called in Japanese. I just see those pickles labeled as “Chinese pickles” at the deli section in Nijiya. *shrug* I just remembered my mom buying them and serving them to us when I was a little kid. They were good. I saw them again when I was working as an administrative assistant at GMI during my lunch hour break. Yum. I ordered a chicken dish and in the chicken dish was stuff that usually comes in sansai dishes. Now that I’ve never seen in Chinese dishes here. Not to mention, my meal was on an o-bon, teishoku style. So anyways, now that a week as passed between when I ate the Chinese food with the Japanese flair and now, I really can’t remember what else was in the rest of it.

Fear me!

Adding pictures to my Flickr account.

I ate a lot of food. Everything had a Japanese take on food. Like Italian food. I had white fish (small baby fish) and yuzu pizza one night. When my dad and I went to eat lunch with my aunt and cousin, we ate Italian food again. I ordered spaghetti with tomato sauce, but it was more like ketchup with some tomato bits than sauce. I also ate Indian curry, VERY VERY SPICY. I wasn’t used to such spiciness in my curry. Everything was good. Okonomiyaki, kaiten sushi… So the udon in Kyoto was so-so okay. Yuba udon in Nikko was the yum. And the milk! The milk is awesomely good. Even the Narita airport food was good. LAX airport food was nasty. Bleh.

So I’m going to Japan today. I’m kinda excited, kinda scared. I’m not too big on the flying even though I find it fun. I think it’s the steep angle the plane has to take off in. And the turns. And possibly the fact that I’m not in control. But hey, the chances of me dying is much greater on the street than it is on the airplane.

First there was Travatan Z. Then my eye hemorrhaged a red dot. Now there’s Xalatan. Reading up on the new drug’s side effects, looks like more of the same. Hopefully, there won’t be anymore hemorrhaging of my eye.

I bought a 26″ HDTV from a coworker for $700. Only 1 day old. Sweet. Now I’ll need to get an HDTV antenna. And then use it for only 1 day before I head off to Japan. Laura is taking Dave’s old 27″ TV.

Saw 300 with Kandarp and one of his friends. It was okay, too much testosterone for me. The visuals were awesome. The fake blood made the beheading more palatable somehow.

I helped Ardith move some of her stuff today (yesterday). She has a lot of stuff! There’s no way it could have been possible to move everything in one trip. Too much stuff. After we were done, she bought us food and ran off with her dad.

Afterwards, Dave and I went to go see a movie. We went to the new AMC at Del Amo Mall to see Reign Over Me, but the show times were kinda late. Dave wanted to try at the AMC in Rolling Hills so we ended up there (after I bought a small scoop of green tea gelato, yum!). I liked the movie a lot, but while I was watching it, it reminded me of someone I know.