I, Student

The Reality of Romeo

2008-11-14T13:55:00.036-05:00

As you know, I wrote about our cat, Romeo, on my former post. Some of my friends told me that he does not look so chubby.. well, even though actually HE IS. Therefore, I decided to show you his reality. Here he is;

Pregnant!? / Turkey!?
* Romeo is a male cat.
His fat goes limp like something melting down slowly when he goes into sleep. It is like Daifuku (大福), a Japanese traditional sweet, is made from rice cake and some stuffing (traditional one has red bean paste inside). Compare with the picture above ("Romeo in pregnancy")!! I am sure touching his tummy exactly feels like touching Daifuku! Mmmm, I want to bite! XD

Not only his chubbiness, you can also take a look at his "boooo (thumb's down) face" when my camera accidentally flashes.

↓　↓　Zooming in..　↓　↓

Booooo face..

Although the time saving system here gave us one hour of extra sleeping time on November 2nd, Romeo's stomach does not understand that the feeding time for him has been changed. He had woken us up at 5:30 before, and because his little brain does not recognize human winter time, of course, the alarm time of his satiety center automatically orders him to start meowing - oh my gosh - at 4:30 in every morning! As I wrote, once he understands that we are not going to get up just by his meowing, he starts to jump up onto us with his 17.5bl of weight!!! We have to change our posture as lying on our tummy to protect our organs from Romeo to crash! I know he does not mean to kill us (I hope); however, we still have to keep being in patience until the clock tells 7am, time to feed him.

Some people who owns a cat would say that we can just leave some dry food while we are sleeping. I know it works for SOME cats. For Romeo? NO. He'd eat off EVERYTHING in a bowl AS SOON AS he finds them. Also the doctor's (vet) order we've got from Yasuko, an agent of adaption agency, ties our little desire which we wish that we could feed him as much as he wants.

The flyer of Romeo we got from Yasuko recently says; "He needs someone with an iron will to make his diet stick. Cuddles and laughter will be your reward and a guarantee you'll never be bored." This fryer was spread last January for seeking out the nice foster family for him, and oh man, the picture of him is much chubbier than him now. I am so glad that the former family and Yasuko took great care of him. On the other hand, I wonder how hard it was..

In addition, my younger female cousin, Mika, emailed me a picture of her baby boy from Japan and said, "Romeo's weight as 8kg (= 17.5lb) is exactly the same as his, my 7 months old boy." Oooookkkkaaayy, I guess now I understand why my shoulders have been so sore in these days.. I feel like I became a mother of 7 months baby all the sudden.. hum, indeed, he meows for milk too.

Anyway, here is the picture of her baby boy, Kensuke. Soooooo cuuuute, isn't he??? I actually met him in May 2008 when I went back to Japan for HOLIDAYS. Time flies so fast.. at that time, he was just a little tiny baby though.

While his owners are in such great suffer from his health concern, he fell into a deep sleep as soon as he finished off his wet can food in 30 seconds. I bet a speed-eater ends up gaining lots of flabby too..

One of his sleeping style with his eyes are open..
(Don't worry, he is alive.)

A New Family Member

2008-10-13T00:20:00.039-04:00

6:00am. Something really heavy comes up on my belly and passes over, and comes back up again. I try to go back to sleep, but it wouldn't let me; my chin touches something textured and this "textured" thing starts to go around all over my face.

"Meow (Wake up!)"

OK, get up me, time to feed him.

Our "little" guy was arrived on October 10, which was also our 4 years marriage anniversary. He is 4 years and a half old male cat (same old as me if he were human), and has been called by this name "Romeo," since the original owner had him. Plus, he is a chubby heavy little boy. Well, "little boy"? No, no, no, he is CHUBBY boy as 8 kg = 17.5 lb weight ..very chubby as a cat; therefore, he has been on diet by having diet cat food.

A week ago, we went Markham (suburb) for this blind date to Yasuko's house, who is his temporary foster mother and volunteering for Animal Service at the town of Markham. She owns 5 cats including the 18 years old one who came from Japan with her and her husband. (The house they live now is the 9th house for this cat. Her husband's business made them move often.) I don't know how other 4 cats got her place; however, what surprised me was that 2 of them (brothers) understand Russian language, and Yasuko sometimes talks to them in Russian.

There were 7 cats including Romeo in her house. 6th one was a little, "actually little" male kitten "Red," who is looking for foster family. Many people prefer baby one than adult animal; however, it would be good for me as a newbie to own a cat, since we don't have to teach where they have to have their businesses or sleep. I've heard those disciplines are sometimes hard to teach, even if the owner had some experience. Romeo is well trained and mature so we did not have to do anything to teach him. In addition, his front claws were removed by the original owner (he got a surgery for it) which one thing we would never do though, so we didn't have to worry about him clime up everywhere and drop anything off or make scratch on some furniture, for good or bad.

But, those "easy to care" parts are not the only the reasons we adopted Romeo. He is, as you see, very chubby. He needs being on diet and exercise, but he is also super lazy and does not want to move his bum even an inch. When Yasuko threw his favorite toy ball to him which makes some crinkle noise, he tried to catch it with the posture lying on tummy at the stairs, and failed. I made more crinkle noise by crashing and touching the ball to encourage him to get it, but he did not move his bum from that step. The only one thing he did was to extend his left forefoot to one step down, moreover, he stopped trying as soon as he understood that his left forefoot can not reach the ball from the position he was. I see that he cares about this ball, really does. But he looks at me and expect me to bring it just in front of his face, so he can chew. What a lazy cat!!!

His chubbiness is also very obvious from his figure which Yasuko calls "seal." Not only when he sleeps, he stomps; walks with heavy steps (or pound) to get food (only for food). Moreover, his figure especially when he eats, reminds me "Tsuchinoko," legendary snake-like cryptid animal (Wikipedia, "Tsuchinoko").
Compare Romeo with Tsuchinoko!!

Tsuchinoko

Romeo / Egg Plant

Also, when he sits, his fatty part hides his hind legs. It probably makes his legs tired and numb, he usually can not keep this posture long. Few minutes after he sits, his body would be dropped on his belly. Then the heaviest part of him lands on the floor peacefully.

Anyway, once we saw Romeo, we just instantly fell in love with his those unique atmosphere. Fortunately, our decision of adoption made Yasuko very happy too. (She also thinks that Romeo and Luke are very alike, not only the attitudes, their looks and faces are similar. I strongly agree!) Finally he moved us with many "trousseau" : his bed, his mat for a nap, his litter box with sand and a scoop, his toys, his food bowl, and diet food which other cats hate and wouldn't even go near.. he loves them.

Adopting him made our anniversary and Thanksgiving holiday really happier. We hope that he finds comfort in his new home here and recognizes us as his family.

TIFF - Achilles and the Tortoise

2008-09-13T23:19:00.002-04:00

What if the person who you really love can not give up following his or her dream and makes your life really hard? Would you give up on him/her? Or you would be willing to support him/her by sacrificing your time, energy, and maybe love? Well, some people might not want to call it "sacrifice" though..

The movie "Achilles and the Tortoise" became my first experience of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) , finally after three years of life in Toronto. Directed by Takeshi Kitano, a.k.a. Beat Takeshi as a Japanese actor and a comedian, who is also a Golden Lion winner of the Venice Film Festival in 1997 with "HANA-BI." I grew up with watching him on TV as a comedian, and his way of humor including lots of bad words entertained kids so much, like some schools and PTA had banned their students and kids watching his shows. Many kids were against it and therefore it became a kind of social issue at that time in 80's.

* One of his comedy shows was broad casted in U.S. in 2003 with its English title "Most Extreme Elimination Challenge (MXC)," and "Takeshi's Castle" in U.K., Germany, and Philippine, "Humor Amarillo" in Spain. So you can probably watch some of them on YouTube. This show made almost every family in Japan laugh so much and his image better.

The title of this movie comes from the one of Zeno's paradoxes, "When the tortoise starts running one interval ahead than Achilles who is an immortal and able to run really fast, the tortoise would never be caught up by him." In the reality, he would, eventually, but in the world of the consciousness of sub-one which is infinity, he would never. This is the paradox.

* * Zeno : An ancient Greek natural philosopher of the Eleatics, born in Elea, South Italy (around BC 490 - 430).

[ About the movie ]

The story is about a man, Machisu, (named after a famous French painter "Henri Matisse") who loves drawing and painting, and wants to be a famous as an painter, and his wife, Sachiko, who understands and supports him devotedly. Even though his life as a son of a rich guy and could anything that little boy wanted was totally changed to the opposite, when he had to go through his parents' death. Since then, only he has focused was to become a famous painter, as his parents were dreaming of with him.

The movie is divided into three parts; his childhood, adolescent years, and adulthood, and each of them have some paradoxes (I'm not going to spoil those juicy parts Pepe, like I almost did to Ruben last time about "Kite Runner"!!). What interests me is, that you might be able to guess that Achilles could be Machisu, but the tortoise can be anything, depending on how you feel about these paradoxes. There are plenty of elements that you can think of as the tortoise; moreover, those the tortoises-to-be can give you each different themes what this movie tried to tell you.

OK, I will give you only one sentence that you might will miss from one scene. When you watch this movie, this sentence probably will not have its subtitle since this is not a spoken line. One of Machisu's painting has a caption says "Belief brings possibility." To me, this can be both, true and false. If you don't believe what you can, you will never achieve the point you were dreaming of; however, you might not achieve ever or you can not know when you will achieve. Possibility is only possibility forever when the percentage is less than 100. You are not sure if possibility turns out to be fulfillment, other than you strongly "believe"the possibility of fulfillment.

I heard some applauses when the movie started to show the end roll; moreover, I heard some people (both in Japanese and English) said that they did not understand at all. This kind of style can create mixed reputations or reviews, because of the answer or theme of the movie is not crystal clear, like his other movie Dolls(1987). It is not like Hollywood blockbuster movie which tells you easily what is good and what is bad so you have to think about it or just push away to think.

Anyway, only one thing I am sure is, that I can not be like Sachiko, the wife of Machisu. I probably would feel that I can not help Machisu like she did, if I were her. I would understand what he loves and wish I could help him using all of the things and emotions I have. But I would get scared of the reality. I can not even imagine how deep Sachiko loved him..

I liked this movie. This could not be my favorite of Takeshi Kitano's work unfortunately; however, the style of using children brilliantly in his movies has still remained and the music is also very, very beautiful and matches the atmosphere. I was relieved that Kitano did not use his favorite (so as mine!!) composer Joe Hisaishi who has also created Hayao Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli world with his beautiful, nostalgic aria and harmony. The new composer Kitano chose for this movie is Yuki Kajiura who works for many TV advertisements, game softwares, and some animation films, I think she succeeded to make fans of Hisaishi's music in Kitano's movie satisfied as keeping Hisaishi world by using the same style of harmony he uses (mix uses of the 6th, 7th, and 9th cords with the basic triad, and uses of the Musical mode). I'm going to buy this soundtrack CD for sure!!

Let me know when you watch this movie, so we can discuss about it!!

The poster of Achilles and the Tortoise

Fan Expo '08

2008-08-23T20:34:00.072-04:00

There is a word "Otaku" in Japan.
As our teacher Don mentioned about "nerds" in the class, "Otaku" is similar word of nerd with a little more positive image. And today, I had been surrounded by LOTS of OTAKUs at the event "Fan Expo CANADA 2008."
Oh my god, this is quite an event.. unique, different world, and.. LOTS OF OTAKUs!!!
..including my husband Luke :-/

* * *

Do you know what the cosplay (= costume play) means? Some people wear things the characters in movies or TV shows (or magazines) wear. Take a look at pictures below, you might recognize some characters.

Left : Darth Vader & General Grievous from Star Wars
Right : Lara Croft from Tomb Raider & Catwoman
Superman, taking a picture of Wonder Woman and Something I don't know.. (Our friend Derek taught us later that it is "Namor" from the comic the Sub-Mariner.)
Looked like Superman and Namor are friends and Wonder Woman had a partner who looked like an usual civilian.
Anyway, all three comes from American Comics.

Left : Storm Troopers from Star Wars in wedding style..
Right : Mommy's trying to pull back a Little Yoda(!?) waking away.

Left : Awesome-o (Cartman was wearing in South Park to fool Butters)
Right : Ghost Busters
So, how many of them did you know?

For the science fiction fans, meeting the actors of SF movies/shows seems to be a huge treasure. This year, many actors were at their booths with their pictures. People were lining up to wait for their turn, and paid them to get their autographs on their photos. As you imagine, Luke and I got pictures with 2 actors and autographs of them. Both of them are famous in the SF TV show "Battlestar Galactica."

"William Adama"

"Chief, Galen Tyrol"

BUT, of course it is NOT FREE.
There were at least 10 actors sitting and responding crowds. These people spend hundreds of dollars happily for taking pictures with them.. which we can not afford. We had to choose carefully with asking our wallet, because costs are different depending on actors.

For the picture with "Chief," the donation to the Canadian Cancer Society was required, instead of paying to his management company or whatever. Isn't it nice of him?

For the pictures of other actors, we had to do some sneaky job. You know you can not walk into them and ask them if you can take pictures of them, of course the answers would be NO. So we tried to get closer as possible, and took the pictures below without flashes.

A.I. Data from Star Trek TNG
* TNG = The Next Generation

Captain Janeway from Star Trek Voyager

He's gained weight... or aged?
Sam the Hobbit from Lord of the Rings

Last time when we went to the similar event two years ago which was only for SF fans, we saw Gorge Takei from Star Trek and got his autograph. He is a Japanese American and told me in Japanese that his root is in Yamagata prefecture (very countryside), Japan. Some of you may know, he came out from his closet as a gay few years ago, and he uses this fact as joke sometimes on some shows. Humorous and funny guy.
* You want to see? Click HERE to my Japanese blog!

The event "Fan Expo" has several categories , such as horror, comic books (manga), TV games, and animations in addition to the science fiction. Many booths are there in the convention centre, and you could see those things..

Horror Section;

You can actually buy those special effect parts.
F.Y.I., "the brain hat" is $250 though..

Left : Life-size figure of dead body.. wwww
Right : Look at his eyes!! All black!!

The mask of Joker from Batman the Dark Night)
You may recognize some other masks..

Comic Section;

The mask of V for Vendetta

Left : the figure of Hellboy from HellboyⅡ
Right : You also can be a life-size figure!!
(This is Jason, our friend)

Now, are you interested in this world?
Or you want to keep staying away? ;-)
Or maybe you can't wait to expose yourself in there?
Wait for next year and keep checking their website!!

( <-- I don't even know who they are imitating.. probably some characters from manga (comic), animation, or game.)

Cafe Crepe

2008-08-19T03:26:00.021-04:00

On Queen Street West, in front of the City TV building.
Enter and get one step ahead, the mood of 50's atmosphere surrounds with big old movie posters on walls and well-polished geometric patterned floor, and appeals to the senses if you tripped to some cafe in Europe. At the same time, the fresh-baked sweet aroma cocoons everybody in floaty bliss -- this is a cafe, "Cafe Crepe."

Some reviews says that "Cafe Crepe had brought everything Parisian from France into Toronto." Mmm, the word "Parisian" itself, sounds very soothing, even though I have never been to France.

You may imagine that their specialty is crepes, but also their espresso is very good. I love espresso-based drink such as cappuccino, mochaccino, or latte, and they use illy coffee beans (Italian coffee brand, uses Arabica beans - "considered to have a richer taste and lower caffeine content than Rubusta beans," Wikipedia).

Look at this cappuccino!!
To get to its liquid part, you have to use a spoon and dig in this huge amount of form milk, which has 5cm thick and 3cm higher than the edge of the cup, tastes even sweet without adding any sugar -- if you want this, order "large size." ;-) You'd better be sure that you are extremely hungry.

This is their mochaccino. The difference between cappuccino and mochaccino is chocolate syrup, and whipping cream on top (you can order with no whipping cream - who would?). My husband loves this mocchachino because it's much sweeter than other mocchachino he has ever had. Oh, the mochaccino in this picture is "regular size," F.Y.I.

My recommendation for the crepe here are the savory crepes. Crepe probably sounds like a sweet dessert for you, but cheese and vegetables (of course meat too - sorry, Leo) make crepe beautiful meal. The crepe dough(?) itself is moist in center part and crispy at its edge. Especially in this picture, I know it may look too simple or boring, but it would blow you away to the heaven.
Try it anyway! You'll thank me.

And here you go, for SWEETS LOVER!

Dark Chocolate & Banana
(whipping cream -$0.50, vanilla ice cream -$1.00)

They also have some sandwiches and grilled sandwiches (Panini). I am not a big fan of big amount of bread and buns usually; however, I accidentally ordered grilled Panini instead of crepe with Swiss cheese, ham, and tomato because all ingredients look alike, only differences are skins, outside. But -- oh, my gosh, it was an amazing mistake. Sooooo good. The cheese was melted nice and hot enough and it was a gorgeous combination with the ham and tomato, pressed between fresh baguette sliced in half with buttered around.
It is reasonable, fills your tummy with happiness!!

Order their outside counter and take it with you. I would be great spice for your explore on Queen Street West Village which has bunch of artistic shops like pop-culture shops, antique shops, furniture shops, and galleries!!

Cafe Crepe (Map)
238 Queen Street West
Toronto, ON M5V 1Z7
Tell : 416-260-1611
Sun-Thu 9am-10pm
Fry-Sat 9am - midnight

Affogarto - Cafe Demetre -

2008-08-08T18:14:00.002-04:00

Affogarto = "drowned"
As the name of this Italian dessert suggests, Affogart is basically the style to have ice cream (usually vanilla) with some liquid; espresso shot, liqueur, coffee, tea, etc.
The most popular liquid for this dessert is espresso shot. This is called "Affogato al Caffe" and this espresso is for pouring onto the ice cream, not for drinking directly (you can if you want). So you can enjoy hot espresso, frozen ice cream, and cold milky coffee taste all at once.

I love this dessert as much as I love the combination of creme brulee and cappuccino, but I had never seen this in Toronto. It is easy to make as you imagine, so I used to make it for myself whenever I bought nice, rich vanilla ice cream, such as Haagen-Dazs.

Two weeks ago, Luke and I watched a movie "Step Brothers" with his friends Derek and April. (It was hilarious movie!! - you will laugh until your muscle hurt) After the movie, we went to a cafe Demetre in Eglinton area for some coffee and chat.
I used to live the neighbor of this Demetre. My friends loved to come here to have various kinds of desserts, and I used to order one like the picture below, because they did not have any smaller. To eat this, I had to skip breakfast or lunch.

BUT this time, I found the Affogato I love!! Good size, rich taste, deep aroma - maybe too much to say.. :-) Anyway, this made my day gorgeous. Luke said that I was smiling the whole time I was eating my lovely Affogato.

If you love the taste of coffee, try this.
It would be able to melt you!!

Demetre (Uptown)
188 Eglinton Ave., East
Toronto, ON M4P 2X7
Tel : 416-485-4610
Open for 14:00 - 23:30
(Fri & Sat 14:00 - 1:30)

Capital Punishment

2008-08-07T21:21:00.003-04:00

Twice a week, there are opportunities to talk about sensitive issues. One of the topics of this week was "Capital Punishment."

I'm going to mention the history of Canadian capital punishment.
Canada decided the day of abolition of death penalty for murder as July 14, 1976, by the result 130:124 of free vote; however, Lester Pearson (Liberal) canceled all death penalties as a matter of policy, when he won as a prime minister in 1963. (The last execution in Canada was occurred on December 11, 1962.)
Since then, first-degree murderer is given a mandatory life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.

This is the map of "Capital Punishment Laws of the World" (Wikipedia, January 29, 2008)

As you see, many countries in the world are still having capital punishment legally, such as China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and many states in U.S., etc.

Many of the students who had joined this debate, were focusing "justice" so that capital punishment should be legal in Canada too. While listening their opinions, a big doubt was emerging into my head.
If murder - terminating somebody's life, - is unforgivable act and the biggest sin as human being, why can the government kill somebody? That does not make sense. In other words, as well as murderer is an object as capture and punishment whatever the reason the murderer had for terminating somebody's life, the government should not be allowed to kill the person whatever the reason is.

On the other hand, I understand how the people related to the victim or society feels massive loss, sadness, and hatred, but does the "eye for eye" justice really work for those people? Will they be happy or satisfied even though the victim will never come back by eliminating the murderer? Revenge can even create the same feelings on other people like family of "the criminal," and they sometimes strongly believe that the system made mistake.

Also, some people say that capital punishment reduces the crime rate. Well, yeah, it can plant the seed of fear on some people as "Don't wanna die? Then don't kill" (except some serial killers or psychopaths - they kill people without caring their own lives). But, society can not learn the true meaning of the preciousness of human life and why no one has the right to kill somebody. It sounds the same to me as that "I can not steal that bicycle because my parents will be really upset." What will come next? "You know what? I think I can steal it if I would not be caught!"

One more reason I think we should not have capital punishment is, the death penalty by mistake, as I mentioned above. It actually happens in the world and many cases were found as innocence, after those "criminals" were executed (see "Wrongful execution").

According to the writer of the ORBIS, "Since 1973, when the supreme court affirmed the constitutionality of the death penalty, the United States has executed just over 1,000 people, while more than 120 have been released from death row."
What is the justice for them? Should their family do revenge somehow? When is this cycle of anger and sadness going to end?

What surprised me was the fact that people were executed even though their "crime" is not murder or attempted murder.
In Iran, a 16 year old girl was raped by a 51 year old married man. She was arrested by the criminal sentence that she did not tell anybody about the rape. Her neighbor testified that she was immoral since she was already (corporally) punished for being alone with a boy when she was 13 years old. She could not prove the fact of the rape; furthermore, she took off her veil and threw it away in court. From her looks, the court decided that her age was 22 years old (!!) and she was given death penalty and her execution was performed the next day after the court's decision without any notice to her family. The man who raped her had only 95 times of corporal punishment. This case was reported by BBC (the British Broadcasting Corporation) in 2006 to the world for the first time.

As long as capital punishment exists, wrongful execution exists too, since only the murderer and the victim know the real truth. As you may know, the true criminal can be non-criminal, if their lawyer cleverly does very good job for them. Sometimes innocent people can be criminals, depending on the prosecutors.

But I still can not answer fully to the justice for victims. Because the level of how we feel can be different and sometime the time makes different. After going throw their hard time to face their loss, some of them start to wish the same thing will not happen to other people.
I would be glad to know what you think.

For further information and statistics, see Amnesty International website.

Nostalgia

2008-08-03T07:15:00.004-04:00

After we said goodbye to Ruben, who was our classmate and had to go back to his country Mexico at the end of July (it was a very sad moment), Ayana, Maria, Rafael and I went down south to explore the hot, hot summer.

At the beginning we were going to visit Toronto Island on that day, but we realized that we did not have time to go there and come back in time for the baseball game.
So we decided to walk around the waterfront area and spend some time there; it ended up as a great chatting time about general stuff and a discussion about some English grammar (we are so good students!).

Did you know that there is a beach at Harbourfront?
I've lived in Toronto for about 3 years now, but I didn't know about this beach.. Whenever people say about "beach of Toronto" I thought they meant one of two; the beaches, or the beach in Toronto Island. But this beach had sand, and people were sitting, reading, and playing with their kids or lying down to get tan when we visited. Some were under yellow parasols and avoiding the sun, and some were just exposing themselves wherever they liked.
Walking around and looking at them made me feel a little weird. It was an ideally beautiful beach in the middle of such a metropolitan city; however, I could not wipe this feeling out from my head, even though I grew up in the town in front of the Pacific Ocean and beach should have been familiar view for me.

Of course. This beach is artificial. The sand on this beach is surrounded by concrete frames and not touched to the lake. You usually see people or children playing at the edge of the water if this is a real beach. No wonder everything looked too organized here, this is a part of the port park in Harbourfront.
Even though this is artificial, I could smell "waterfront." People in Japan express this smell as "salty scent," (Ayana sensed it too!) and it gave me a flashback of the beach in my hometown.

* * *It is called Shonan-Kaigan ("Kaigan" means coast), and has a shallow beach so people can easily swim, play and sit on the sand. The color of sand is not as beautiful as this artificial beach in Toronto, because it contains pieces of volcanic rock from Mt. Fuji (picture above) and magnetic iron ore (In some areas of this beach, you can actually see the magnetic attraction!), which make the color of the sand darker.

In the bottom picture, the sand seems to be sent from some other country, although it is still the same beach as other pictures. There is beach sports competitions every summer in this particular area, such as volleyball and lifesaving, and the original sand (the top picture) could hurt people's bare feet. Also the sand monument (art) competition is held by students and local artists every year.

Well, I should stop around here.. Otherwise, I would get home sick. Home sick? Maybe it is more like nostalgia. I am very glad that I found this beach in Toronto even though artificial, and I will visit again sometimes when I become very sentimental.

BBQ in Ajax

2008-07-23T16:19:00.002-04:00

sunflowers @ Ralph & Beth's

I don't know why my blog always becomes like a food diary. I think writing about food does not harm much people and also can make some people happy by bringing them to their imaginary restaurant.

The place this time I'll take you to is a BBQ, a representative of summer!!
While many of my classmates were in Niagara Falls (probably in the rain), Me and my husband Luke were having juicy, well-spiced stake and chicken breast with marinated salad, baked potatoes and beans, in a beautiful house with an air conditioner. Mmmm. (great meal + great temperature = heaven)

The hosts who invited us are Ralph, Luke's ex-coworker and has been a good friend, and Beth, his wife. They got married in 2005 and moved to Ajax in 2006. They used to live in Toronto until then and we had seen once a while, so Luke was very sad when he heard that they were moving.
There were also a couple invited to this BBQ, Rob and his wife Michelle. Rob is also Luke's ex-coworker and has been a good friend. They also used to live close to us, so it also seemed to hit Luke strong when they moved out. However, we all have been keeping in touch and have great meetings once a while.

On the way to Ajax
Ajax is a little far from Toronto so Rob and Michelle always offer us a ride, very nice of them. We went their house in North part of Toronto by TTC subway. Soon as we got on highway 401 east, rain started to hit us strongly. I guess I was very hungry at that time (Rafael always tells me that I always am), so I started to be afraid if we will be told there will be no BBQ, because I thought BBQ must be held outside like people's backyard, beach or park mainly, from my experience in my country. But I could not see those feeling in any of their face. I was going to learn that BBQ does not mean outside always.

The style of entertaining guests is different as Japanese way, I meant, it is great! Basically, amount of food is amazing. At the beginning you get a drink and healthy vegetables with dips and have nice and fun chatting to catch up with everyone.. I like this part. Although I always realize suddenly that I ate too much of them, next moment my hand is reaching more for corn chips and fresh veges. I know I should reduce the amount of appetizers to have beautiful main dinner after, but they are too good to resist.
Beth made three kinds of dips and my favorite was hummus (which I can not pronounce well), made of chickpeas, sesame paste, garlic and lemon juice, mainly. (In this picture, the right one on the bottom.)
I should make those sometimes.. this is the sentence I always comment and never going to perform. Having something nice which somebody made for me is always happier than making by myself.

While we were chatting with drinks, Ralph was grilling BBQ foods for us on the deck of his backyard. Having my own barbecue would be nicer if we had place to set up in summer or to put away when we don't use; however, we probably will never own one: I would be too lazy to clean up after we use. My husband? Well, he says he is also too lazy ;-)
Anyway, I took a photo of my dish. After this dish, I had another one with chicken, of course.

And you know what? You can also hear from me about the gorgeous dessert that I had AFTER all these nice meals - Chocolate Berry Cake!!!

Amaizing!! The presentation of this cake was so beautiful, I admired Beth a lot! Berries are sweet and fresh, so good with chocolate pudding and cinnamon tart underneath of them. Ralph cut them for us and gave me a big piece so it filled me up with the coffee he made. Why sweets and strong black coffee are so nice to be together - such a fantastic combination. Sweet-n'-coffee-holic me!

Not only gorgeous dinner, they are very good friends of us even though we all are spread to different ages (Luke is the youngest one) and different areas to live. The conversation with them teaches me lot of things, even if the topics are sometimes "men" things. They gave me a big, warm welcome three years ago when I moved to Canada and had no friends here. I felt bad that I was very nervous at that time by not be able to understand most of things they were talking about, and I pulled the bottom of Luke's shirt to ask him to explain to me. Now I am very happy that I can feel more comfortable to listen and talk to them in English, and see myself having fun for it. Someday I will invite them to our place and make dinner for them, just like they always do to us, at that time I will be more confident to entertain them.

Summerlicious - Jaaadu

2008-07-21T20:36:00.004-04:00

Second time for the Summerlicious 2008! Like I said, I LOVE FOOD.

This time was an East Indian Restaurant, "Jaaadu Restaurant." Sounds a little strange, but I forgot to ask if it has any meanings - oh well, I will next time. Actually their location was in our neighborhood, just a little south east of us. However, the restaurant itself looks very expensive to me - tables are covered by white well-ironed clothes and napkins, glasses and cutleries are all set up nicely; therefore, I had never tried this restaurant before.

When we got the restaurant, nobody else was there. I was a bit afraid if their meals would not be good or they were not so popular. However, servers were very nice and polite and the restaurant was designed with a black motif and was sophisticated, which made its atmosphere very welcoming and calm.

The alcohol suggestion of the server was the special Indian cocktail, which I don't remember its name, contained at least rum, vodka, pomegranate, orange juice.. tasted little bit like martini which I don't drink much (I like gin though). My friend suggested to me to have more with her, but I guess one short strong cocktail was enough for me as a student who had lots of homework..

As you learned from my former posting, restaurants have special menu for Summerlicious. In Jaaadu, you can choose one of three each - starter, main, and dessert. This is the most exciting part at the any restaurant to imagine what each meals look and their tastes are.

Starter : Curried Squash Soup

Mmmm, very nice creamy soup, not so hot but had enough temperature that people do not have to wait to bring spoon to your mouth as often as they want. You still can feel smooth squashy taste with some kind of ethnic spices, and it is not persistent at all. Some people seem to dislike squash, but I love it.

Main : Curried Lamb Shank

"New Zealand Lamb Shank amazingly slowly braised and cooked with tomato, fresh herbs, cumin, coriander, ginger and poppy seed, accompanied with Long Grain Saffron Scented Basmati Pilaf Rice" (Jaaadu)

Soft!! Tender!! You don't even have to use knife, it would come off so smoothly when your fork touches its body.

Dessert : Gulap Jamun

"Dried milk and Flour cooked and dipped in Honey Syrup with Bay Leaf, Cardamom & Cinnamon. Strained milk froth & sprinkled with crushed Pistachio." (Jaaadu)

The deep fried balls soaked in Honey were very, very sweet themselves, and I could not have eaten without form milk on top. It'd be much better if more strawberries were there.

In addition, there was another choice: Rice Pudding (Rosewater scented carnation milk based Rice Pudding. Traditionally called "Kheer" - Jaaadu) which one of my friends chose. I've had rice puddings at Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, and Tibetan restaurants and did not like them at all. Warm sweet sweet sticky rice with something creamy like custard was not my taste, but this one changed my ground about rice pudding totally (recipes can be different depend on culture)
- it was very very good. I would love to come back anytime for this rice pudding if this restaurant was more wallet-friendly..

Their summerlicious dinner course was $25 (lunch was $15, before tax, tip and any additional order like drinks). According to their original menu, it can be around $50 or more per person for ordinary dinner like ordering appetizer, main, and drinks.
I love delicious, fancy Indian dinner of course, but the special lunch of the day "Butter Chicken" at the Indian restaurant in York Lane (@ York University) also makes me enough happy and satisfied, just by paying $6.50.

Jaadu Restaurant (Map)

1415 Yonge Street, Toronto,
ON M4T 1Y7
Tel : 416-944-8885
Email : info@jaaadu.com
closed Sundays

Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition

2008-07-17T20:39:00.006-04:00

Anything can be art.

When people create, invent, or even grow something, they can call it "Art" as long as it is proprietary, not a whole copy of something that already exists. The more original art is, the more value people seem to give it.
Therefore, I like to see arts. I like to see how artists reach to express their world and why they call their works "art". And of course, simply most of them make me feel rich in spirit. You can also float in your imagination world without somebody lecturing you on how you should analyze them.

Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition 2008 (TOAE) (47th) was held July 11, 12 & 13, 2008 at Nathan Phillips Square. Usually admission fees for art shows are not reasonable for the people who want to just expose themselves to arts and feel that air, like "One of A kind Show" or "Toronto Art Expo", sometimes it sounds like they want only particular kind of people. (Mmm, too much to say?) Anyway this one is FREE!! Anybody can go in, walk around as you like, and take your time as much as you want. Let's feel Art!!

There were so many booths in this exhibition. Some works and exhibitors were familiar to me from local galleries like Distillery District or Queen Street West Area. Some were new.. like THIS!!

"Product of Eden" Mary Catherine Newcomb (Sculptor, Ontario)
Award - Sculpture Honourable Mention

Do you know how to make this??
We asked the artist because we thought she carves the plants (it would be neat if she does). The answer was no. When the plant blossoms out, she covers it with this weirdly shaped mold which I assume that she made. So it becomes the shape of the mold! She harvests them and put them into a jar like making pickles so it lasts longer. How much? At least "$800". Wow...
It reminds me that we have "square watermelon" in Japan. More than just square, recently, they call them "Art Watermelon". I am not sure who started. They are $80-$1050 (according to the page of this link) and somebody in this world buying them!! The final purpose must be eating, but still, this is beyond of imagination.

OK.. Let's look at next one.

Wooden Box/Large Dressers
Paul Szewc (Decorative/Applied Art - Wood, Ontario)
Aren't they sooooo cute!?
First time I encountered his works was at A One of A Kind Show, 2 years ago. As he calls himself "a crazy cabinet maker", his dressers have "unusual" shape and looks like dancing itself - I am sure you will like them if you are big fan of Tim Burton Movies. This artist, Paul Szewc, has a studio "Masterpiece Cabinet" and says he loves building "wonky" furniture. The word "Wonky" - sounds like Wonka-ish - "Willy Wonka" from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", especially the movie of Tim Burton's version (2005). If it is affordable, I would buy it - their price range is $165 to $350 even for a "Mini" one.

Moving onto the next exhibitor.

Chip n Dip group/Issue Boxes(set of 5)
Sally Mccubbin(Decorative/Applied Arts - glass, Ontario)

Very simple, sophisticated, and also cool, pop, and soooo cute!
I would buy them if it is affordable.. but in reality I can't spend $400 to put my dip & chips into this cute bowl.
Also, it is practical, not perfectly though, because you can not split the big bowl and small one apart when you want to wash them.
I used to think that the craft of glass means vases, dishes, or useless objects like a glass swan or Christmas tree ornaments. Well, she makes those too, but most of her work seems to have messages. For example, the concept of "Issue Boxes" is, "the dysfunctions of our social container - Iconic imagery implies issues like gender roles, war, and monoculturism".

I wish I could introduce more and more if I had time. The exhibition itself was finished but you can visit the website of TOAE if you are interested, and check the works of award (more than $35,000!) winners or any other exhibitors.

Mr. Suicide - Isn't that too much?

2008-07-14T21:00:00.004-04:00

Do you like taking a bath? We love it.
Recently we moved to the new apartment and it didn't have a plug for our bath tub. We decided to buy one which I had specific idea for. I searched on the internet where I can buy this product without walking around and wasting my time, and I found the shop "Ashley" in Downtown Toronto.

Have you been to this shop? This is an expensive gift shop which sells high quality plates and utensils mainly; such as china, ceramic, pottery, crystal, and so on. People seem to like register for their wedding gift or buy expensive gift for somebody else, there are always many customers walking around and getting advice from the shopkeepers.

Ashley also have big shelves of designer's collection of everyday sundries, which I love to browse like a gallery. One of my favorites is Alessi, an Italian company, established in 1921. They produce designer's goods which are modern, artistic, sophisticated, and neat. Some of you may have seen their products;

Wine Opener / Sommelier Knife

Kettle / Basket / Juicer
The bath plug I wanted was designed by Massimo Giacon for Alessi in 2000. It has a name, "Mr. Suicide".

He floats to the surface like reaching for air when you take a bath. When I saw him first time, I just fell in love with.

Yes, I went to Ashely and asked the shopkeeper lady. She told me that she is going to bring the product from the storage room after I purchased it, so I paid and waited. 5 minutes later, she told me to wait little more. "He" was probably the cheapest products Ashely has, I thought it was taking a time to look for. Then 5 minutes later, she came back with a bag and full of smile.

"I am so sorry that it took so long to wrap."

What? I didn't ask for wrapping. What is this golden box with this golden ribbon?
Hum, maybe it is somebody else's, because it looks more than three times bigger than Mr. Suicide..

"Oh no, this is yours, a bath plug. Thank you dear, have a great evening."

Ooookkkkaaayyy.
She gave me the bag has a big golden box with a big golden ribbon, and a receipt looks like a small birthday card. This hard, again "gold", card was folded in half, had date, my name, address, phone number, - Wait a minute, how did she know my personal information? Oh yes, she asked me when I paid! It was so natural and fast and I didn't even notice that I was asked. Wow, she could do a good job if she was a scammer..(or I am a damn) It also had information of price, product name, company's name and how I paid. Now I have to shred this golden receipt after I check if the product has no problem.

On a way home, there was the elderly lady waiting for light next to me. She saw my clear bag showing a golden box with a golden ribbon so obvious, and asked me what I bought.

"Ahh, some daily goods."

I could not say that it was a tiny bath plug for myself. She said, "I love Ashley. Your friend will be very happy with that gift, whatever it is."

After I got home, I started unwrap it; took it out from the clear plastic bag, took of the top ribbon (it was stapled on the other part of ribbon), untied the ribbon, open the box, unwrap the paper with logo of Ashley, and unwrap the paper stuffed in the box...

There you are, Mr. Suicide!!!
He was in the box which Alessi originally packed him in as his own package. His face was exactly telling me how he suffered from such amount of packing supply made him difficult to breath. And the actual length of him was the one fifth of the box Ashley used.
Now every time I take a bath, he looks very comfortable to float on my bath tub, doing his job well. However, he also reminds me how much human being wastes resources for unnecessary stuff. Unnecessary - he might not be necessary to exist, he is valuable to me. So much wrapping could be valuable to somebody else. Humans might be already "Mr. Suicide" himself.

Summerlicious - Bloom

2008-07-08T06:49:00.027-04:00

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay, Summerlicious!!!
I can not miss this. I LOVE food.

Summerlicious has been started July 4, 2008. According to the City of Toronto's website, over 130 restaurants are participating and providing their special course menu for this event, you can have them by reasonable price such as $15-$20 for lunch and $25-$35 for dinner.

The restaurant we chose this time, Bloom, is located between Jane station and Runnymede station on Bloor Street West. Although I made our reservation few hours ago, luckily we could get a table for four people for Saturday lunch. I walked into at the head as exactly as I was proud of myself since I failed making reservations last year for Winterlicious, and I told the server about my reservation. He asked me what my phone number was, with full smiley face. I explained him that nobody asked over the phone. Then suddenly, his face got frozen.

"What? No number? What a beautiful!!"

I pretended that I did not hear it, but his voice was high enough to hear. I could not understand whether he got upset or it was not a big deal. Maybe he was having a bad day? I don't know. To me, if the customer who has right name with right number of people arrived at the restaurant right on time, missing the phone number should not be a problem. It also didn't sound like joking at all.

Anywayyyyyyy. Let's talk about FOOD. That must make me feel much better.

For Summerlicious, basically you choose each one you like from appetizer, entree, and dessert. By the way, has any of you had an experience that looking at the menu confused you? I had, when I came to Canada first time in my life. Why? Because menu here doesn't have any pictures; names of meal are gergons to me, it takes a while to imagine what you are reading about items. I came from a big service country (which has good and bad though), Japan, which has pictures of items at most of restaurants so there was no need to imagine and no need to ask.

Oops, let's go back to food AGAIN. In most cases, I get lost easily when I am really excited to talk about my favorlite things.

Items I had;

"Mixed seafood ceviche, melon salad"

- The seafood on this plate were shrimp, squid, and scallop. Presentation on this dish amazed me and made me wondered where I should start. I felt that didn't want to make any mess on this colourful, beautiful plate. Of course I finished in 5-7 min. though - too hungry to FEEL food.

# Ceviche : (South America, Peru) Flesh seafood, mixed with onion and chili pepper, marinated by lemon zest.

"Marinated salmon filet, mango salsa, seafood risotto"

- Seafood again. I love them, as much as rice. This usually is the moment I recognize that I am Japanese. I don't like spicy food like chili something, but this meal had good spices which lead risotto as boring taste usually, to wonderful delicious meal.

"White chocolate, Vanilla, Creme Brulee"

- I LOVE CREME BRULEE!!!! When I hear or see this word, I just can not resist. Have you seen the movie "Ameri"? Like her, I always get so excited about breaking this caramel top gently and calmly with my little spoon. This is the one which has never betrayed me. So I went for it. Tasted beautiful, as always.

These below are plates others chose;

Now.

Are you done with your imagination for this topic? Then I have some addition for you.

Their washroom might be able to be one of topics you can make, during the conversation. The washrooms have mirrors at three dimensions on the four walls. If you are female, you would not care so much, because the wall you are looking at does not have any mirror. But if you are male - you have to face to your face when you are having a small business.

A husband of my friend found it first and immiedately made rest of us feel excited to see. Of course, my husband was the only one another person who reacted and agreed so much with his discovery.

After all, it was a very wonderful lunch at the nice, sober and sophisticated restaurant, even though the server left us a little question and mirrors were wierd.

The event continues until July 20.

Try summerlicious as many as possible, if you are FOOD lover!!

* find participated restaurants and their menu for Summerlicious 2008

Bloom Restaurant

2315 Bloor Street West,
Toronto, ON (MAP)
Tel : 416-767-1315

I, Student

2008-07-05T08:35:00.012-04:00

Trying to come up with the best naming of this blog, is not easy. Actually my result was not that cool as I expected. But it's me. I am a student who had never imagined to become a student again, in my life.
After I graduated the University in Japan obtaining Bachelor of Arts ABOUT 10 years ago (Oh my gosh, a decade!!), I had built up my life there via several job titles and careers. Getting married supposed to be just a part of my life event, moreover, my life build there was about to go on as it had been, with my husband-to-be.
We used to talk about visiting his country Canada or living there in future, however I never imagined that our Canadian life would start in right away. It came so sudden.

"Can I quit my job?"

It was the day we paid for the upcoming wedding reception.
I couldn't really say no. I knew his company was doing something wrong legally and the managers were something wrong professionally. So I said "If you want".
Amazingly, He got job soon as his job hunting started in Canada. As the result, I left my country to live with my husband, and that's how I got here.

As some of you may know, people who have visitor status in Canada are unable to work while waiting for your immigration status. I was one of them, so I decided to start doing volunteer for "Canadian experience" which seems to be a common thing that employers would ask you at interviews. Then I met Social Work there and I became really into it.

Although the office did not have enough both social workers who are obtaining degrees and trained and budget to hire them more, cases which volunteers are not allowed to touch and number of clients were waiting for their tern to talk to the workers. To handle cases you need knowledge - of cause, and special training to understand them and lead them. For example, you may have some friends who are very talkative or expressive and you don't really have to guess what they are really thinking in their mind, and some who you have to doubt that they are hiding their mind behind their words or expressions so they don't throw the ball straight back makes you confuse or hard to catch. You have to know how to catch their balls even if it was extremely curved or awfully bounded. Sometimes you may have to start looking for where the ball has gone, some clients may even not be able to throw the ball with some reasons.

Anyway, I understood the path that I have to take to be a social worker. To apply the university course my resume needs more than one volunteer experience and reference letter from them, so I did another volunteer at the senior home. I will be ready to apply after I pass the ESL class safely.

My parents were not happy with my decision because of my age. They think I should have baby before it hits my limit physically. In Japan, this "next to marriage is the baby"(baby comes first in some cases) thing is very general among their generation and some still remain nowadays. Of course it is totally depends on individual values and I am NOT a feminist. There are some people actually being parents and also students, but I know I can not handle both at once. This is a lack of my ability, but that is life. You may be able to give up being a student or having a job but you will NEVER be able to quit being a parent whatever the way you attach to them, once you became.
Moreover, you never know what is going to happen to your life, just as 10 years ago I could never imagined to have my life in a different country and become a student there. My husband and I talk about our life often. He supports me and my decision happily, I may be the luckiest person in the world.

I want to be an independent. I want to be able to make choice of my life, on my own.

I, Student.
I am an ESL student now and I want to be a student in the university. You are going to know what kind of path actually I am going to walk.