yamaonna

i broke a nail……………   wahhhhhhhhhhhh…….

And im not being a girl, thank you very much.  its broken about half way down, almost split all the way across, and there was blood and all when I did it…  its going to take a few months to grow out I think.

but the big problem is that it distresses me.  I always get really distressed when Im sick or broken.  I hate it!!!

neway.

at work, I found out this afternoon that I caused a little stir among the morning staff.  when i got back from japan I gave souviners to 3 ppl at work.  2 had actually asked for something.  for everyone else I brought some japanese sweet cakes.  but the morning staff went thru kens pocket and found the pressie I left for him, and apparently have been talking badly about it behind my back

you cant win, ne?  so I’m just not going to care

well, I can now officially say that I have been stuck in a traffic jam  and Im not all that angry about it or anything….

so heres the story – the gateway, well, there were grass fires in nundah, so it was closed from like 4 this afternoon…  maybe earlier.

so like this is a big problem.  I use the gateway to get to work, heaps of ppl use it to get from the south side of brissy to the north.  and its one of the easiest ways to get to the airport.

and not only that, it was closed from the airport entrance north.  so I was screwed… 

it took me 100mins or so so do a trip that usually takes 25ish.

jolly good.

so that was my first real traffic jam.  thank god no cops were around becuase I was talking for half of it on my phone…..

and you didnt believe me….

http://www.coca-cola.com.au/xfactor/#

HOW TO EAT CHOCOLATE Techniques to maximize the pleasure of your chocolate eating experience.

 
Watch a wine connoisseur drink wine and you’ll see him follow a complicated process of studying the color, swirling the glass, breathing in the aroma, taking a sip and rolling the liquid around his palate. This process insures that he derives the greatest amount of sensation from each and every taste. In so doing, he is also able to detect nuances of aroma and flavor that would be lost if he just guzzled the wine.

While chocolate will never reach the same level of flavor complexity of wine, mainly because being a solid it has comparatively little aroma which is a major contributor to flavor, that doesn’t mean we should gulp it down with little attention to what we’re doing. Fine chocolates from premier makers have exquisitely subtile flavors reminiscent of raisins, berries, apples, mocha flavor and more, which can be appreciated better using a few simple techniques.

 
Start with a Clean Palate

Human taste buds adapt to flavors very quickly. If you eat something sweet before eating chocolate, your taste buds become insensitive to sugary flavors so they won’t respond as much to the sugar in the chocolate. The result is that the chocolate will taste more bitter. Equally so, avoid taking anything bitter like coffee before chocolate. Your taste buds will overload on the earlier bitter experience and the chocolate may taste too sweet or have an weak overall flavor. The best thing to do is to drink something neutral, like hot water, shortly before eating chocolate to clean you palate of any lingering flavors.

 
Eat Slowly

Because it’s a solid, chocolate takes longer to travel into taste buds. If it’s chewed and quickly swallowed most of the flavor will be missed. Take your time, hold chocolate in the mouth and let it melt slowly. This will allow the maximum amount of flavor to be taken up by the palate.

Another reason to allow chocolate to melt on the palate is that one of the great pleasures chocolate provides is the sensuous texture it achieves as it comes up to body temperature.

 
Pay Attention

Good chocolate can be expensive so it makes sense to pay it the respect it deserves. Take your time and focus on trying to detect every flavor nuance it has to offer. Avoid eating chocolate while distractions can pull your attention away from it.

Another reason to focus on the chocolate as you eat it is that it is high in calories so you’ll want to squeeze as much flavor as possible out of every calorie.

 
Think warm

At typical room temperatures of 70 degrees chocolate is a rigid solid. When eaten it takes considerable time to warm up and start to melt. Until that happens the flavor can’t diffuse into your taste buds. It’s also unpleasant to hold a hard cold lump in your mouth.

I pre-warm my milk chocolate by placing it on a heating pad set so that the temperature hovers around 84 degrees. That’s warm enough to be soft but not too warm so that the chocolate sticks to the wrapping foil. At this temperature, the chocolate is the consistency of fudge and forms easily to match the contours of the palate. The flavor and textural impact is immediate and powerful.

Since warming pads vary, it was necessary to experiment with each one to come up with a system that provided the desired temperature. In the picture above the pad’s lowest temperature is a few degrees too high so the chocolate rests on a metal rack to lift it off the pad. Another pad I use has excellent temperature control but the heating wires are so far apart that one area will melt the chocolate while another leaves it too hard. The solution was to place a sheet of aluminum between the chocolate and the pad. Aluminum is an excellent heat conductor and evened the temperature variations so that chocolates placed on it are all the same temperature.

Another benefit to pre-warming chocolate is that in many cases it will smooth out a gritty chocolate like Hershey’s.

One way to simulate pre-heated chocolate is to eat it while sipping on hot water. This warms the mouth so even cold chocolate melts faster and any chocolate dissolving into the water will be instantly cared to the taste buds. The downside is that the water also dilutes the flavor and reduces the textural sensation of the melting chocolate.

 
Buy Good Chocolate

While the techniques mentioned above will help you derive more pleasure from any chocolate, applying them to the very best chocolate you can locate will significantly improve the overall enjoyment it provides.

By “good” I don’t mean high-end artisanal chocolates or those produced by highly rated brands. Rather I mean the chocolate that tastes the best to you. Test as many as you can find and decide for yourself which you prefer.

Happy Eating!

http://www.waynesthisandthat.com/eatchocolate

karma, the vengeful elephant….  what will they think of next.

I didnt believe it when xina told me, but there is panda porn.  yes thats right…  in china, to get pandas in the mood…  they show them videos of pandas getting it on….  way to go guys!  fight the declining birthrate of giant pandas!

since its chinese new year, I plan on going into the valley tomorrow to check out the celebrations.  heres the layout for the day –

of course I wont be there the whole day, just from 1 or 2 or something.  looking forward to it!

well, well, well.

I just got back for japan, and bam, i find out I’ll be returning again  yes, thats right, I got the scholarship.  Im very very happy, and I kinda cant believe it.

so, its 4 months from april, in sendai, city of trees as it calls itself

sure I’ve been there before, but Its soooo beatuiful!  I cant believe I’ll be living there!

now how do I break it to work?

well, that last week in tokyo went like a flash.

got most of the things I wanted to do done, so Im pretty happy with that.  of couse, the things I didnt get done (like eat pie at anna millers) I’ll just do next time

highlights were 1) hanging out with xina 2) going to nakano (mandrake shop) 3) getting a straight perm 4) the most beautiful weather on friday

the trip back to aus was not so good.  didnt sleep at all.  I suppose I am not used to sleeping next to strange men…..

aus itself is damn hot and humid.  but my hair looks great

havent done much except sleep and surf.  its good to be home, but that stops tomorrow.

Im applying for a scholarship with uni to go study in japan for 4 months.  I’ll find out by tomorrow arvo or wednesday.  looking forward, I hope I get it.

getting a bit worried about how obsessed I am over manga.  its kinda scairy.  I dont want to be otaku…. 

Im on a bit of a high…  I am currently sitting here in a manga kissa (comic cafe)  while waiting for christina to come back to shinjuku after work.  as for why thats cool, well, put it this way – internet, tv, dvds, magazines, manga, a comfy chair and all you can drink.  does life get any better  actually, Ive been meaning to come to a manga kissa for a couple of years now, so Its pretty cool.  here in my little booth.  mind you, where Im living is only about 15 minutes away…  but this is slightly more comfortable….

well, I`m kicking myself now, but Rika H took me out drinking on saturday nite, and I got really drunk.  It was a controlled enviroment, but Im not happy with myself, with my behaviour.  not that I did anything bad, but I dont like who I am when I drink.  I dont want to get drunk again.

And it didnt help that I got sick the next day   I would like to stress though, it wasnt a hangover, it was something else that I`m quite familiar with what happened to me.  either way, not happy jan.

went to church sunday arvo, which was a really good thing spirtually for me.  I dont go often enough, and I had some really bad stuff in me that I hadnt realized had got in to me, so it was good to be renewed in god.

Still, have been feeling pretty lonely these past few days.  I put it down to not seeing christina for a few days – you know, having someone kinda regularly in your life, gives it a bit of stability.

only 3 more full days left in tokyo.  must put it to good use.  go shopping

hey, this is really really cool – 43 things!

http://www.43things.com/people/view/michelefullarton  that one is mine, why dont you join and have something to aim for in your life?  If you dont have a goal, then what are you doing with yourself?  Im a big believer in doing more than just living for the sake of living…..

NEway, in japan, must talk about that…

Last weekend when to church www.jesuslifehouse.com  which was lots of fun..

I’ve had two japanese lessons now.  The teacher xina recommended to me is great!  she’s friendly and pushes me alot.  She makes me talk in japanese the whole time and makes me feel more confident about it  yoshi!

I met up with Mariko and we hung out in shibuya.  Love that place, good shopping, good resu, heaps of ppl, its like the embodiment of tokyo for me.  After Mariko and I split I met with xina and we had dinner at Fridays http://www.tgifridays.co.jp  Its one of my fave resu in tokyo – becuase of ultimate mudslides….  will post a photo later, but they are huge! 

And, strangest of all things, a girl came up to me while we were eating dinner and asked me if I went to Craigslea high school….  Apparently she was 2 years under me, and now shes working as a dancer in tokyo disneyland!  pretty cool.

ugh, the guy next to me is having a really good scratch…  like everywhere and he hasn’t stopped since he sat down…. ewwwwww…..  anyway…..

um, yeah, cant remember what I did wednesday….  yesterday I went and visited yui and her family, which was great!  We went and saw neverland – which is a really really good movie – go see it! and then went out to dinner and then to an onsen….  iine???

Tomorrow I’m moving in with ami’s sister Rika for the last week of my stay, so I dont know how often I’ll have access to a computer.