チーズ

I was reading some blogs over the weekend and remembered one of the expats in Japan was saying what he missed most are the various cheese selections back home. So that's something to know about Japan! Specialty cheese maybe something hard to come by when you do your grocery there.

My favorite cheese right now is the Welsh Cheddar. It's so good alone or with bread or crackers. Kraft or most American cheeses just can not compare. I sometimes even wonder if they have the know-how on how to make cheese or else they would not taste so processed... That's why I usually eat my burger with no cheese...

Today's Japanese question...

How to say "Chicken wing" in Japanese?

手羽
(teba)

* I can add it to my Kanji list! :-)

Chamomile

This is one of the many Bigelow tea selections provided by our company that I drink. It actually smells very floral and strange but it's still not bad when it's hot. I could not figure out if I like it or hate it but I keep drinking it once every 2-3 weeks. Today is one of those "I forgot how it taste so let me try it again" day. I wanted to let others who come to visit at my house to try and tell me what they think, so I was looking online to see how much it is. It's a bit unbelievable to find out it's $17.75 for 20 bags, considering one of my favorite green tea selections is only $0.99 for 16 bags. So I guess I will just grab a few tea bags from the breakroom and let my house guests try. But it feels a bit crazy to do that... oh, well. (ま、いっかー...)

A thought:
===========
It just came to me that this tea is very similar to the movie Tony Takitani I watched over the weekend. It's a very simple short story that can be told in a few words, yet the movie was shot in a way that it will remain in your head for a long time and you wouldn't mind playing it again sometimes.

Ok, this post has no Japanese word at all, and that's not right. So here it is.

キノコ
きのこ
茸
Recently I came across this word in a recipe and did not know what it is. It turns out to be "Mushrooms". I guess it means generic mushrooms, not necessary shitake.

金曜日の夜

Saw this movie tonight. This is such a strange, interesting yet beautifully filmed movie. Check it out if you can. Watch it on big screen. I like the actress a lot after this movie. She is very likable despite her non-stop smoking character...


This was dinner tonight...

Steam the brocolli and then drain it
Chop up some greens and stir fry it with a little garlic, oil and a pinch of salt
Stir-fry beef with onion, mushroom and little chopped garlic with a little ponzu
Add hikiwari natto in the middle and top all of these over a bowl of steaming hot rice!

15 minutes later...

去年

I was talking to my co-worker this morning and she reminded me that it was one year ago this time that we were in Tokyo for business. I can't believe a year had gone by just like that! So I searched on my computer for some pictures from that trip...


The hotel room ...


The view from the room ...


The view looking down ...


Meiji Shrine...




Some pictures ...


I don't remember seeing this... but here is a picture of the famous flower.




On the way to Narita on the Airport Limousine ...

心丈夫

Today is the first time I came across this Kanji:

心丈夫 (kokorojoubu)
こころじょうぶ
reassuring

E.g.

今のあなたのお言葉でほんとに心丈夫になりました。

I wonder if it is ever pronounced as "shinjoubu", like "shinzou" (心臓)...?

音楽

I don't follow the latest in the music world any more since work consumes the most part of my time/life. But today, I was listening to Jay Chow 周杰倫's old song, 擱淺. It's really a great song and I can loop it for some 10+ times without getting tired of it. Of course it's always hard to understand what he is singing, so I have to look up the lyrics. I feel better now, knowing what he is singing about. :-P Then I moved on to listen to something else and the shuffle function gave me: Willie Nelson, You Are Always On My Mind. It's still such a moving song after so many years. You really have to listen to the one performed by Willie Nelson. The Pet Shop Boys verison is also good but the original in this case is much, much better. Maybe I am getting old (married), all the sad love songs suddenly feel much more sad... I wonder how many other good songs I am missing out these days without knowing who has good album out... Tommy February, Je t'aime Je t'aime, is also another song I can not get sick of.

Do you know what is the picture I have for this post? It's Poor Leno, from the group Royksopp. I saw Royksopp's Poor Leno and Remind Me music video over the weekend. It's quite captivating especially Remind Me. You can get links to their MV on their site and watch it.

園芸 と 漢字

Today, I played Martha Stewart while the sun was out. I planted a bunch of flowers and small shrubs and added some heavy rocks near the planting area around the pool. It turned out pretty good, somewhat like an English garden (like I know what that's supposed to mean exactly...). I am not sure what my mother in law will think but it is exactly how I like it now. I think she was planning on doing something else but I got a headstart on it during her absence. ;-P I hope it will stay the same and nothing get moved when she is here next week. (Maybe I should take a picture now before ...)

And then later on in the evening, I created a spreadsheet to count all the Kanji I know of, can write and can pronounce. The total is 600 (with no duplicates)!! :-) That's not bad because just last week when my Korean co-worker asked me how many Kanji I can truly say I know, I told him about 300-400 Kanji when in fact it's almost double that number!

Updates:

Here is the "English Garden" picture taken under low light, long exposure with no flash condition.
Today at work, I added a few more Kanji to the list and the total now comes to 720!! XD

日常写真

私のデスクトップ:


これも:


今夜会社から帰るときに駐車場の周辺環境:


ついさっき見た映画
==================
1. North Country

とても良い映画だと思います ... It brought back memories of the essay I researched and wrote, Women's Role in Society, back in high school.

2. March of the Penguins

It's a documentary narrated by Morgan Freeman. It's wonderful, interesting and informative! Definitely exceeded my expectations. I will say it's another Must See!!

今一番見たい映画は...

全ての見たい!


The Constant Gardener 観た後の感想は、
内容は良かったと感動しました。
時間があればぜひ見てください！

厳しい仕事だな...

I work for a large company with very conservative management style, super aggressive schedules and endless assignments. We have yearly performance review where each engineer is being compared to all others and they do a ranking thing to decide on your raise and bonus. I usually rank high, or maybe I should say I used to rank high, when I was the same engineering level as most of the folks. But ever since I got promoted and given a new title where everyone can see the difference, the expections and pressure of me to become a leader, a role model and the pioneer in my field has been tremendous. I was lectured and coached and reminded every week how I am not doing anything different from what I was doing before my promotion. They want me to be more visible, more vocal and give more technical presentations. But you know, that's not my interest and I know my strength is to really deliver very strong products out the door. I have been taking a lot of company e-training and learning (and applying) something new and useful here and there but seems like that's still not enough. I need to teach and mentor, lead and deliver, share and develop... the output they want are just endless. One person being compared to me is in trouble this year and will probably be getting a sayonara package soon. A few people will be promoted this year to my level and I will be measured up against them next year. I can pretty much foresee who will be able to kick my behind right away with the eagerness to do all that's required by management. It is again a matter of choice whether you want a more balanced life or to rank high. I am at a point where I just want to do what I enjoy and not to be bothered by the extra credit stuff like in school. But I guess there is no such choice... I can easily get ranked out in a few years with my past contributions and achievements all forgotten... *Sigh*

Life in Silicon Valley is TOUGH!

野良猫

Today's Kanji:
=============
野良猫
のらねこ (Nora neko)*
Stray cat

Useful kanji for me since I love cats and there are some stray cats around my house, so being able to say it will come in handy! ;-) But be careful when you handle stray cats, always wear a pair of garden gloves before you try to touch them. They are not bad in nature just that they are very scared of human beings (due to lack of close contact) and will be on self-defense at all times. They are just being themselves. Once there is trust, the bond is just overwhelmingly strong!

*Being able to visualize the word via romaji actually helps me remember the pronounciation easier.

Found another good, userful site self-study site.
http://www.studyjapanese.org/

I found some very good Hong Kong bloggers lately and I can't help smiling and enjoying the things they wrote about and the expressions they use. It's very refreshing consider I seldom write in Chinese anymore and speaking Cantonese is something I don't do often enough. Anyway, one of them expressed his concerns about the Chinglish that can be seen everywhere in China especially with the Olympics being around the corner. I have not really been to China so I have no idea how bad it is until now. Here is a good glimpse of it. This is something you probably won't see in Hong Kong because either there is no English or English is provided by someone who knows English. But from the pictures on Chinglish, it seems like English is provided by someone who does not really know English but trying to add some English based on the dictionary translation of each Chinese word?!

Another one is a Hong Kong Chinese University graduate who likes to take strolls and polaroids pictures and write about the picutres he took around Hong Kong and Japan. These are some good quality writings about things people don't take notice of. His site was so well made that actually a publisher in Hong Kong decided to buy it and hire him to write for them. He has another personal blog which is written in colloquial Cantonese which is very funny and the expressions he uses just crack me up. He likes to go to Japan for live concerts and live performances that no one in Hong Kong would otherwise have heard about. He is very familiar with Japan and talks about the funny things that happened while he was there. And the cool thing is he updates it often! :-)

Anyways, it's another weekend with cold winds and rain... did nothing memorable. But finally watched the movie Sideways. It is quite funny. The story is ok. Probably won't watch it again, that's all I can say. :-P

Kanji I learned recently:
=====================
黄身
きみ
Egg yolk

結局

I was chatting with my friend/co-worker during a goodbye lunch about the movie Butterfly Effect which he recommended to me earlier. It turns out there are actually 2 endings to the movie. The one I saw was the released theater ending and the one my friend saw was the Director's cut (i.e. the ending the Directors really wanted to show). I like the ending I saw because it was sort of the only possible happy ending and he likes the one he saw because it ties well with the title of the movie.

思ったよりも素敵な映画でした。

選択

While everyone was watching the Oscar, we were watching the movie "Taxi" on the other channel. It was one silly but fun movie. Quite enjoyable with a likeable cast: Jimmy Fallon, Queen Latifah, Gisele Bundchen (yeah!) and Jennifer Esposito.

Recently, I have been asked to take more training in the leadership area. I was told I get stressed easily, which is true. But the true problem is we have someone very smart but extremely unwilling to work. How do you motivate someone who has made up his mind to do minimal to get by and more time for himself to do other stuff? I actually came up with an idea that I am still mulling over. Instead of just taking any leadership training, I plan to make a trip ... but let's see if I have the guts to do what I am thinking of.

I have not been wearing any light color pants for maybe about 3 weeks, so today I decided to wear my new beige color pants. And what are the chances that it will be ruined? Close to 99.99%. Yes, today I had to have Malaysian food for lunch slurping Asam Laksa and spilling cappuccino on it later on. How wonderful. Hopefully I would be able to get the stains out ... fingers crossed. Originally I was going to eat curry for lunch that my husband cooked but my friend called so I went out to lunch with him instead. He will be going to Japan for 2 weeks during the Golden Week. (I am very jealous!!) So we were going over his travel plans which includes Osaka, Nara, Nagano, Kyoto, Kobe, Tokyo. I was useful in that I recommended him to spend more days in Tokyo instead of just 3 days out of 2 weeks! (Again, very jealous!!) He is my only sushi buddy in US. No one else around me (outside my family) eat sushi like we do! :-( And I really only want to travel to Japan with people who will enjoy sushi as much as me and my sibblings. I could easily just get a ticket and go along but I kind of don't like to travel in such a big group (of 5-6 people) with toddlers also. Anyway, let me just finish what I need to over here and then plan a vacation!

I am looking at these cars, which one do you like the best? I am liking the 2006 X3 the most after riding on one today (despite the known electronic related issues with the power door lock and windows and the weak A/C)! The 2006 model looks so much better than the 2005 model. It looks just like an X5 and less like a shoe now. I think people might be hitting themselves for getting one last year. I know I would.

選択
Sentaku
Choices

凄い!

これはBjorkのAll Is Full of Love のミュージックビデオ。とてもすごい と思った。 Must see!

Recently, I got my new laptop and it has so many things missing that I need it to be customized - quick! I am lucky that my husband is an expert in Windows, UNIX, Linux, Knoppix, Ubuntu...etc and my brother excel in anything multimedia and we are all network gurus, so we have all the technical support one would ever need and that's just the most convenient! :-) Anyway, today when I got up, my husband was again playing through his 28 GB 80's music video on the TV. He kind of missed the whole 80's music growing up so he is trying to play catch up to see what he missed. And it is then I realized what a music junkie I was! I know almost 90% of the 80's songs and can name the song by just watching the first 5-10 seconds of the music video. I suddenly remember how my mom used to get very worried when I was completely hooked on to having to listen to the music at all times. Anyway, 80's baggy fashion and puffy hairstyles are just the worst so I don't miss it at all!

I like all the strange woman artists like Bjork, Annie Lennox and Cyndi Lauper, etc. To me, they are really talented and only they can do what they did and it's great entertainment. I also love David Bowie, U2, Depeche Mode (still around!), Gazebo, Pet Shop Boys, Elton John... anyways. Growing up in Hong Kong, we got both the top Europe and US pop hits, so definitely very well-rounded influence. There were actually a lot of really good one-hit wonder music groups from Europe in the 80's. Also, many Japanese groups and idols as well but I can't remember any of them anymore.

クラブフット

Do you know what clubfoot is? I have never heard of it until today. I was reading something on Mia Hamm and found out she has that as a baby so I decided to look it up. Now I see how it gets the name. Good thing it's correctable! Isn't it great what you can learn about anything at the tip of your fingers (without ever having to wonder about anything in the middle of the night)? :-)

Model homes in Japan are something I just can not read enough about. I love the simple, functional and modern decor they always have for these model homes making even a small space looks so spacious and comfortable.

Here is Shinto Osaka I recently read. It's really nice!

怖かったです!

I am referring to the movie I saw tonight.

The Butterfly Effect (2004)

I usually don't enjoy sci-fi or scary movie but this one is different. It was very scary yet captivating from beginning to end. 絶対におすすめ! For some reason, the critics hated it but it is only now I know how wrong the critics can be. Maybe the critics did not like the fact that Ashton Kutcher has a part in producing this film. But anyways, it's definitely a good movie. Watch it on big screen with surround sound and all lights off.

On a separate note, I was reading about Ukai, or cormorant fishing on the internet yesterday. これ、かなりおもしろいです。

Recently, I found a very good site on where to eat if you are traveling to Japan.
興味のある方はどうぞ:
Gourmet Navigator

Leadership

Yesterday at work, I was coached to become a better leader not only within the team but outside the team, across departments and business units and beyond the local campus. It might sound like a joke, but I was told to start looking into giving technical presentations to company-wide audiences. That's a big task...

Anyway, I plan to take just baby steps for now since I am completely bogged down by real, technical work. But today, I read something funny (well, at least to me). Do you know how Lee Iacocca was able to turn around Chrysler when he first took the job? He had a speech to the employees and basically told them, "The Japanese are eating our lunch." Is that really what a good leadership should say? Well, I guess it worked especially during the wartime when any patriotic saying will unite the crowds.