the future, the past and fun café's

Awww… peacock at Cafe Prado

Then to deaux-soleils where I wrote Research Highlights and Project Proposals and Myself essays for jobs, till the wee hours in the night or morning. This beer in a mason jar juxtaposed with a lesbian folk singer and my laptop and papers is me trying to capture the moment. This, and last night when I sat in West End coffee shops writing more stuff reminded me very much of my thesis days. It was a good feeling. Nothing might come out of these endeavours, but it feels so good to give it my all, the only way I know to do things.

OCD people

This old man, with fat fingers presumably, was texting on his phone with the key beep on. I can see how that can be helpful to tell you that you actually hit the key hard enough that the character typed. But yeah, most of us keep this turned off because it is annoying. So he was going beep beep beep beep all throughout for maybe 10 mins. It wasn't annoying to me, but it did get my attention and I quickly psyched myself to tune it out reminding myself that one day I too will be old and have fat fingers - not really… but I always think I have enough crap in my own life to bother me, so I try to minimize external minimal irritants. This was not the philosophy of one of the younger guys sitting in the back with his laptop, who after 10min.s broke down and said asked if he can please turn the sound off. The old man with fat fingers basically asked him to just shut up. Another passenger chimed in, that he too was bothered. And the old man with fat fingers accused both of them and continued to finish his texting - a big fight did not break out, but there was a lot of tension in the bus until the old man with fat fingers got off a couple stops later.

I thought about how as adults, we can not take things easy, how we insist that every little thing bothers us and how we insist to not get along and just fight for no good reason. There are so many things to speak up in this world, but these two boys choose to speak up against some mildly annoying sound. Instead of offering a solution in the form of a simple, 'I will soon finish', the old man decides to snap. All three of them idiots, and I too am guilty of this behavior at times. We are after all very much animals still.

Girls

I don't get along too well with girls, as you may already know. I guess I had an overdose of girls for the first 18 years of my life, or maybe with a such a statistically large sample, I learned that girls are just these super-soft lovey dovey people, but ultra mean humans… well I imagine not any meaner than guys… but I think with guys, I don't have too many boundaries, well not with most… I love the ability to call their crap when it is time, which I can't bring myself to do to girls - again probably all the cry-baby girls from back during my school days. So all this to say, there aren't too many girls that I have truly felt comfortable with and even fewer whose humor I've identified with. Actually I don't say this too proudly - it does eat in to my abilities at work places.

So, Jiae, is one of them girls who I really like. We first had an outside of regular work interaction, while we were discussing housing situation during long times in Japan and she suggested I sublet my apartment to her. She looked quite decent and I agreed - I wasn't going to sublet the place anyway but thought why not. I must admit I was not completely comfortable not knowing if she would be clean or be careful with things. My doubts were soon out to rest when I got to spend a week with her in Japan - she was super clean without being paranoid about it, but what really impressed me was her ability to figure new machines and stuff by guessing - a true physicist. We never agreed how much she should pay for the apartment and when it was time to pay, I gave her the chance to decide - I thought it would be a good way to gauge her - and she did not disappoint.

We had so much fun in Japan that we wowed to continue to hangout when we got back to Van. This is her first attempt - she cooked Korean food for me. The food was simple but tasty - as I have come to know Korean food, spicy and more flavorful than Japanese food. Soon, this black bean powder, that she mixed with milk and honey, will become a staple in my daily food. I will use it with fruit for a snacky drink and then for breakfast with yoghurt.

I must also say there was some pretty intensive romance that was booming between Jiae and one of my very good friends from my PhD experiment, while she was in Tokai. Well I don't know how much of it Jiae identified with, but my friend was definitely in to her. I was very much hoping that it would materialize in to something, with the secret hope that this would somehow lead to both of them being in my life forever. But it is slowly dwindling now… and except for hints now and then, I haven't had the courage to address this issue directly with either of them… oh well…

too old to work out?

Never too late to start working out… From Second beach area during my evening run… I also saw these Sons of Granville, who I will notice many times hence forth, busking all over downtown… This is from the beach near my home - they have a style that reminded me very much of Apocalyptica

craft beer week

Vancouver craft beer week

… at St Augustines in the truly hippy (as opposed to Kits hippy) commercial Drive

Siphon Coffee

In one Mito's tiny and old coffee shops with my Japanese friend - I love going with someone who speaks the language, so I get to have them ask the shop-keepers questions - in this case, I had to ask the old woman, how long had she had this coffee shop? 40years; why a coffee shop and not a tea shop, to go with Japan's way? she worked in a big coffee company before... I am always impressed at these non-bra-burning feminists of yesteryear. What must it have taken for a woman, 40 years ago, in a hugely Oshin-like-traditional culture to open a coffee-shop? The answer could lie any where between a nice supportive man to an ass-hole of a man that the woman would take no more... But, even with my gijin (Japanese for foreigner) status, I couldn't bring myself to ask such personal questions...

Anyway, I was really awed by this coffee apparatus, a Siphon brewer - I so wanted to buy one. But in a few days, I would hang out with this super cliché Italian guy who will tell me that nothing beats a traditional moka pot for home brewing...

kanimiso

So I was at this super touristy fishing village near Tokai, called Oarai. I thought it was a cute little fishing village, but as I drove in, the number of ferrari's and jaguars coming out of town on this Sunday, sort of disappointed me actually. Anyway, I went to scout out this torii that I want to go to one early morning and make sunrise pictures of. I found the torii and then also went to the tourist information center that I stumbled upon which happened to have an English map. The map said fish market so off I went hoping to find a good sushi belt, kinda like the one we have near Tokai. I found both the market and the sushi belt restaurant, which was sort of at the pricey end. Otoro (fatty tuna belly, in the background of the scallop picture) and uni(sea-urchin) were both served at 840Yen ($10) per two piece, which I thought was expensive - but then I remembered this was actually the first time I am paying for otoro or uni that I am eating - yeah I know, it is nice to be a girl, most of the time. I also had this huge scallop, that was actually only 320Yen, surprisingly. But anyway, as I usually do, I was chatting with the sushi chef, despite not speaking a common language. He had fed me way too much - but as he hovered over my menu despite me saying I am way too full, he wrapped up another roll - I had to try it, and it's on him, he said. It was this kanimiso, that I had no idea what it was, so thinking it was yet another roll, I didn't take a picture of it. It was sitting on my plate for a while because I was so very full, and he smiled and said something to the effect of 'oh I think you are disgusted?' - this is all guess-work, but I think you would have guessed the same too - remember that Annie Griffiths Belt quote on how language is not that important in communication... Anyway, my pleasing personality gave in and I plopped it in my mouth - it was very sea-like or fishy - both tastes, I like, but also the tastes that makes people dislike fish. Both chefs watched me as my face didn't twist in disgust, and I said 'hmmm... oyeshu (good)' - at which they both jumped and said 'really?' in perfect English. I said really - my Japanese wasn't good enough to tell them that I am infact an island girl. 'What is it?', I asked. 'Crab' he said and pointed to his head. So it is crab-head and crab meat I figured; the head is also where crustaceans store their poop - but to island people this is no big deal. So thinking this must me something super disgusting, I took a picture of the menu so I can ask my Japanese friends. It was indeed crab head/guts and crab meat... big deal!!!