the best gifts ever

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!

I wrote in gory details in my other blog, but this year's holiday gifts from my boyfriend were quite amazing.  He generously gave me a few different gifts this year, but out of all, especially after a few uses, I'm in love with my iRobot Roomba!!!  For those of you who know me well, I love to clean.  In fact, I'm a bit obsessed (and slightly anal) about cleaning, but vacuuming the floor has never been my expertise.  My Dyson vacuum is beautiful and has a great power, but it's just a bit heavy for me to carry around everywhere (especially when I want the floor to be cleaned everyday).  So when I saw this lovely iRobot (my boyfriend and I call him Wall-E) vacuuming the floor, I immediately fell in love!  He and I will definitely have a long term relationship :)

Another thing I'm quite obsessed with is this new Le Creuset pot.  If you love to cook like me, you know how amazing this pot is, but more importantly how expensive it is!!!  With $150 gift certificate my work has offered me, my boyfriend still had to spend quite a bit of money on top of it to purchase this baby.  Nonetheless, I'm obsessed.  OBSESSED!!!  I used it for the first time last night, and even though it was a very simple dish, I can totally see that it was cooking so evenly and sooo nicely.  Now, I'm off to cooking! :)

 

I'm quite a lucky one :) 

holiday decorations

Happy Holidays!!!

I love love love Christmas interior decorations, and it kills me that by living in a small apartment there's so much restrictions as to what you can buy for decorations in terms of storage.  So naturally, our apartment definitely lacks the holiday spirit, and in fact, it's actually quite a disaster right now because my boyfriend is in middle of a process of building a newly purchased shelving in his office.  Maybe next year, this baby Christmas tree my boyfriend kindly bought for me will grow a tiny bit bigger, so it won't be lost in presents like this year... :)  (Of course, I much rather he spends money on my gifts than buying an expensive Christmas tree, thank you!)

Inspiration needed

Dinner from last night...

Another not-so-inspiring dishes, but it's been really hard to motivate myself to cook after a long, stressful day at work.  It also doesn't help that my boyfriend isn't picky and he just enjoys whatever I cook for him.  The first dish you see is my original, "chop whatever you find in the fridge and eat it with 'ankake' sauce (made out of soysauce, mirin, and dashi mixed with potato starch)."  It's quite simple and very fast to make, but pretty yummy. Fish of the day is mackerel cooked with mirin.

The great news is, I finally received my gift card from Williams-Sonoma!  My company generously provides gift certificates of $150 to all of their employees during the holiday seasons, and this year I've decided to invest in a very nice pot from Le Creuset.  I'm hoping maybe the price will go down during after-Christmas sales so I don't have to pay too much on top of this gift card.  I've never purchased a pot more expensive than $150, so this is going to be exciting!!! (and nervous)

I'm back...

As you may have noticed, I've been totally slacking updating this blog lately.  Not sure how, but time is flying everyday between work and holiday parties (both work and personal), plus holiday-necessary errands, etc.  I still have tons of pictures from Japan trip I wanted to post here, but those may need to wait (or if it ever will happen...).

Very random, but this is one of the most favorite purchases I made in Japan: Ladle with its matching holder!  Can you believe I found these at the dollar store in Japan?  I'm still super obsessed with the quality of items you can find there...

I have other ladle holders but this is by far my favorite :)  I usually cook at least 2 solid dishes with rice and soup, but since I got home late tonight, tonight's dinner was pretty easy.

This dinner was prepared in about 15 minutes!  My boyfriend is actually a better chef than myself, and he quickly prepared this fish (it's called "unagi" not sure how it's called in English) and I just made the miso soup using the ladle above.  Yep, I took the easy job!  I'm planning on buying my first Le Creuset pot this winter, so hopefully my cooking will become more inspiring.  And lastly... you can never say no to good sake in my favorite cup!

addition to my collection

In attempt to stop making spontaneous purchases, I had this pact with my friend back in August that we won't make any fashionable purchases for next 6 months.  If you don't shop frequently it may sound so easy, but if you're a shopaholic and shopping has become like a sport to you, it can be one of the most stressful times in life.  No joke.  That was pretty much the reason why my friend decided to abandon me on this pact soon after (but she had a great reason to treat herself... such as running and completing the first, full marathon!).  However, I kept up with it for a while... strong 4 months until I found this baby.  Having a typical Asian nose, it's nearly impossible to find the best pairs of sunglasses, but living in LA, it's like an essential.  Chloe sunglasses always have been great on me, and since this baby was more than 50% off, I just couldn't pass on the deal.  It's sad that I broke the promise, but I'm so happy with this purchase!

great food with even greater wines!

Somehow, french food even tastes better in Japan...

 

So, I still have about 500 pictures I've taken in Japan and really need to organize them...  It's quite crazy to think that most of these pictures are FOOD!!! Of course, my favorite.  This night was a pretty special night for both my boyfriend and I...  We had a dinner at this really cute french restaurant in Tokyo with his best friend of long time and his wife.  Since my boyfriend was a PhD student for a really long time, and his best friend already had a well established position at one of the major companies in Tokyo, he often treated my boyfriend for drinks and food every time he visited his friend in Japan.  So to show our appreciation (now that he has a full time job), we brought these back to Japan...

(except for the middle one - I bought that one for my friend's birthday/wedding gift)

Apparently, Opus One is insanely expensive in Japan and considering his best friend is quite a wine drinker, we thought it would be a perfect gift.  This restaurant had a reasonable cost for BYOB per bottle, and we had a fab time time!  But for some reason, his best friend somehow paid for the whole dinner (secretly), so we still owe him, quite a bit.  One of the most tasty nights in Tokyo, and yes, Opus One tastes AMAZING!!! :)

crazy wind storm

After the effect of Santa Ana wind...

Don't these pictures look crazy???  We've experienced one of the worst Santa Ana wind yesterday and many areas in LA got severely affected by it.  Fortunately the area we live was okay and we didn't even lose the power.  However, in Pasadena, where we used to live, had it worst and since my boyfriend still goes there for work, he took these pictures.  I truly hope everyone who was affected by this are recovering okay...

my first visit in Kobe :)

@ Kobe city...

As I'm writing a blog entry about visiting a friend in Kobe, oddly enough, I'm at the Haneda International Airport right now, ready to go home in LA.  Although I stayed mostly in Tokyo area during my Japan trip, besides Nagoya, where I'm originally from, I also visited Kobe to see a good friend of mine.  I actually met her through my other blog while living in NY, and she's still based out of NY, just temporarily back in her hometown in Japan.  It's always great to just catch up with a great friend.  I don't think there was any moment of silence, as we were so busy trying to catch up everything we missed.  Good food and good alcohol definitely helped I'm sure :)

Don't you just love the quality and depth of these pictures?  My friend sent me these pictures that she took with her DSLR, and oh my goodness, they're awesome!!!  I've always wanted to get my own DSLR, but with the cost and everything I've been just debating and debating... but after seeing these pictures, I think it officially has made itself on my wishlist of 2012.

Okay, time to fly!  See you in the states :)

running away

@ Tokyo Imperial Palace and other places...

 

 

If you ever asked me if I would run during vacation before, my answer would have been no.  But considering how much I've been eating and drinking everyday, I have no choice but to workout to burn off some fat.  People say Japanese food are healthy and it's good for you, and that's only true when you eat in moderation I guess...  I won't stop eating though!!!

Hope everyone had an awesome Black Friday!!!