Cake!!!

I never thought that I would ever be grateful to Kathy Lee Gifford...but they weren't making such a big deal about her birthday on TV today, I would have forgotten my mom's birthday! Luckily, there was a cake recipe that I've been meaning to try out, and it was pretty easy...Japanese Cheese Cake. It's a lot lighter, fluffier than regular cheese cake, using only one brick of cream cheese, instead of 3. I think next time I might add some vanilla and tone down the lemon though. I was a bit surprised when the recipe called for corn starch instead of flour. It was pretty good, and I didn't feel bad serving it to mom because there was only about 1/2 cup of sugar for the whole cake. The best part was how the cake managed to stay fluffy. It was my first time having to "fold" while baking. I was so worried that I wouldn't be gently enough and my cake would end up flat and hard, but it stayed very cloud like! However, I did lack things to decorate with, so I just dusted some almond powder on with the help of a doily.

Look up

Wow, the skies around here have been pretty exciting. Over the weekend there was a huge lightning storm. I've never seen so much lightning before. The entire sky was endlessly being lit up. And it wasn't just the straight up and down lightnting bolts. (Although, I did get an amazing picture of one bolt...it's on my flickr page, link on right) There were bolts that you couldn't see, but that would light up the sky from within the clouds. One picture I took looked like I took at at noon, it was so bright. But my favourite had to be the bolts that would spread out horizontally and cover the entire sky.
But, there was a freak lightning strike today, which unfortunately struck 3 people at a soccer field. They're in hospital now...
More excitement, tonight was the peak of the Perseid Meteor shower. I only remembered after the peak viewing time, but still managed to see a catch part of the shower. Hopefully next year, I can figure out a way to catch some on film.

So I wasn't imagining things...

I just read an article that made me remember something that happened when I was on a Team Ramen trip to Hong Kong. The series of articles was about the documentary "Flowers & Troops" (花と兵隊) by Yoju Matsubayashi (松林要樹) where he interviews 6 former Japanese soldiers from WWII. In the article, it mentions the attitudes he encountered when travelling in Asia as a Japanese, some of which stemmed from WWII.
We were checking into our hotel in Hong Kong, and I noticed that the hotel owner (who was from China) suddenly decided to change one of our rooms, and was very insistant that our Japanese friend got that room. It soon became evident, at least to me, why the sudden change had occured. While 2 of our rooms were newly renovated, with air conditioning, body spray showers, LCD TVs and magnetic security doors, the last room was far from it. Our friend's room looked like it was could have been in a slum. The matress was on top of a plywood platform, the TV was an old set with dial knobs, a ceiling fan instead of air-con, a bathroom door that hung on by one hinge, a sink (about the same size as those on airplanes) doubled as his shower...with his none exisitant water pressure, and a door knob that you had to jiggle as you turned the key. I think I mentioned to the others that this room change wasn't a mistake...I have to admit, it did make me a bit angry at the time. My friend had nothing to do with what happened. His parents weren't even alive during the war, so how can they treat him like that. But, at that same time, I could understand why it was happening. Old wounds heal slowly, especially when it feels like salt is always being rubbed into them (Yasukuni Shrine visits, the war museum that says it was "liberating its neighbours, denial of certain events/actions...) And it's always these things that make the international news, never the unifying events...
Anyways, I wonder if this film will be shown in Canada. It would be interesting to see some other perspectives on the war, different from the usual right-wing view. I remember looking at some of the history books at the junior high schools and thought how amazingly brief the parts on WWII were, considering how involved Japan was in this world event. Oh, and the WWII comic book was "interesting" as well...more blood and gore than educational. But it is interesting to see that perhaps the next generation (director is relatively young) is going out and learning on its own...instead of shrugging off what they've experienced, and to try to understand why. Perhaps politicians can learn from this...

Pudding!!

Or at least something that looks like it! I was at the supermarket when I found one of my old favourites...プリン！But, it was almost $5 for three cups ( I used to buy the 3 pack for $1 each week). I couldn't bring my self to spend that much money, so I hopped on the internet and looked for a recipe I could try myself. I found one that looked pretty simple. The sauce was just boiled water and sugar till brown. The pudding itself was milk, sugar and eggs. Put into molds and steam. Things didn't go as planned. First the sauce. The recipe said simmer, so I put it on low heat. But, all this did was boil off all the water and it left me with hard, white sugar stuck to the pan. So, I added more water and turned the heat up, which got it to go brown. One crisis averted! Next was the actual pudding. Making it was okay, except it took a lot longer than the 20 minutes the recipe said. I found that the taste was a bit sweeter than what I remembered. And it was really "eggy"...It tasted more like Chinese egg tart filling than Japanese pudding. It was smooth and creamy though. I was also a bit worried about the sauce at first. When I tried the first cup, it was still warm. The pudding part was nice, but the sauce would crystallize when I pulled my spoon out. It was pretty cool actually, as I had been wanting to do these "sugar strings" ever since I saw it on Iron Chef. But, hard strands of sugar are not a very good pudding sauce. Luckily, once it cooled down, the sauce changed, and aside from being too sweet, wasn't half bad.

申し訳ありません (moshiwake arimasen) m(_ _)m

I feel SO BAD right now! When I was teaching, I used a special email account for my students. But, barely anyone sent me anything, so I eventually stopped using it. Plus, most of the students that keep in touch use my personal account. Randomly today, I decided to check my old account, and was so surprised to find like 10 emails waiting for me! One was strange, because that student normally sends to my personal account. I replied to some of the others, and hope that they will get them. Kids in Japan change their mail addresses so often...But I feel awful. I hope they won't think that I'm ignoring them!!!

owie...(いて！）

2 owies today. First, the brakes on my car stopped working! When I was driving to work, I couldn't stop at the first stop sign (I had to slam on my emergency brake to stop) and had to go back home. Luckily, Dad doesn't work too far away. I'm a bit worried about how much money this is going to cost.
2nd, I burned my hand on the glass of the toaster oven. It looks like it might blister up. We put on this Chinese burn ointment, and it seems to be helping. At least it doesn't hurt anymore. Even when I was using the ice pack and running water, the pain would return quickly, but this actually keeps the pain away. I wonder if there will be a blister tomorrow. But, we're all bandaged up to keep the stuff on at night.
I have news about Rogers Cup, but it's hard to type without my left hand...so maybe later.

おめでとう！！

The Taiyu girls' table tennis team is officially the 2nd best team in all of Akita!!! I'm so excited and proud! My little ちびs did great! This means that they will be advancing to the 東北大会 (Tohoku tournament), I'm guessing in early August. I think this is the first time I've seen the whole team advance so far. It might have happened 3 years ago when Megumi (now at Omagari) was on the team, but I didn't really understand what was happening then. Congratulations and good luck girls!!
Side bar, 明桜 will be Akita's representatives at Koshien this year. I pretty surprised when I saw the result. When I first saw the top 4 teams, I thought that 本荘would win again. From what I could make out, it looks like 明桜had a 2nd year ace pitcher. Hopefully, I'll be able to catch some Koshien games on the internet.