my day off after such a long time

My day off was nothing special...
I had a massage therapy for my feet after having yummy spaghetti at restaurant with my mom.
Massage place is pretty far from my house. It takes 15 min by bicycle. Freaking cold and big wind out there... Here had a snow for the second time. I do like to see snow, but don't like cold temperature!  I hope all the street won't have no snow tomorrow.

Blogging after such a long time!!

I don't know how much time passed since coming back to Japan and I didn't even sign in my own blog for a while...
Lately, I've really felt that I keep forgetting English day by day and my small amount of confidence for English has melted away from me by not practicing... I gotta study hard not to forget English!!
As a result of thinking I reached the good way to do this. That's this blog!!  It's a great way for me to study English.


I was woke up by my dog, Guess in this morning. I felt chilly because he was snuggling  up in bed right after taking my blanket!!

For 2 hours after getting up I was still half-asleep, but I did lots of thing in 2 hours such as making up, having breakfast, feeding my dog...
At my hometown's public library I studied a few of vocabulary for 3 hours straight. It was really fresh time to use  my brain!! After that, I went to the supermarket to buy some commodities, and went to the sushi restaurant where I work in order to take out some sushi for my mom's birthday. These are everything how I spent my day off.

Long time no blog again...
I was quite busy studying hard for final exam, but it's finally over !!
I'm really relieved now. I have much free time and don't have to go to school from today. However,  my school life in the u.s. is done unfortunately. I'm going to go back to Japan after summer vacation is over. Of course, I will try to come back to the u.s. when financial situation is ready enough, but I'm not going to go back and talk about memories of my America's life on blog today. I'll stay in America until the beginning of October.

The best birthday party ever☆

I turned 21 years old on April. 17th. David hosted a party for my birthday and invited more than 45 people on that day.

 Everything in the picture is the birthday presents from friends of mine. I had never gotten such a lot of presents whole my life!! Thank you very much, all my dear friends.

Today, as a conversation class homework I'm going to write about how different to celebrate birthday.   Lots of people from different countries are in my party such as American, Korean, Japanese, Mongolian and so on.  They were separately gathering with the same country people, but some were not.

(American style)  They became high tension by alcohol and called my name over and over again to let me drink something strong alcohol for a shot. It was like this "Hey, come on birthday girl!!"
Moreover, we hugged each other so many times at the same time.

(Asian style)   They calmly celebrate a birthday like saying "happy birthday someone."

Americans express their emotion with movement of body to directly tell a feelings. On the other hand Asians keep a little distance to tell a feelings. I could exactly see how express a emotion.

Happy 1st year anniversary

A cupcakes for our 1st anniversary.

How fast a time goes by. I can't still believe that a year already passed since we started dating!!
I still feel like we've just started going out couple months ago haha. when I close my eyes, I feel that my memories I made with David are considerable amount, so I gotta take good care of all memories not to forget!! We really hope we can keep constant in love from now on, too.

Well, we had a little special dinner than usual. As you can see the 5 cupcakes from the picture, David and I bought them separately at the same day. While I'm waiting for David till he comes back home, I bought the two flower cupcakes and cooked some special dinner for this day. On the other hand he bought the chocolate cupcakes while I was preparing for dinner.
It was kinda funny. We were happy with this happening.  

How long didn't I update my blog!? Being lazy a little.
The winter vacation over and having started school from the end of March, a new school life has been a hectic than last quarter, fall quarter, and I'm getting used to the busy life little by little.

To: Taka
                Thank you for following my blog. I wanted to stop by your blog to say "thank you", but i seems like you don't have one. I hope you'll enjoy with my blog.

Well, this spring quarter, I'm taking a American culture conversation class which I learn about American culture and how to communicate with people. On Friday of each week as a assignment   I have to write a journal related to America's culture and my own culture and know a culture difference.
Today, I'll do it on my own blog! Let's get started!!


Hello, all!
Some of you may already know my name, but let me introduce myself.  I'm Anna (full name is Anamu Sasaki). I'm from Japan and will have been in Tacoma for a year and half by next month.

Today's my journal topic is "Don't Put Lots of Sugar into Coffee."

I like to spend my time drinking coffee in a coffee shop. Especially, Starbucks.
By the way, have you ever done people-watching in somewhere's coffee shop or fast food restaurant like the MacDonald? 
whenever I became bored or sleepy, i just want to do it for some reason.
Bunch of people make their own favorite coffee by themselves after purchase of coffee like putting a extra sugar into coffee. The sweetened coffee is sweet enough already, so I'm wondering why so many people want to make a sweeter coffee even a children...
How many of you think the same way as me?

Long time no update...  I was quite busy with preparations such as packing my stuffs, buying a souvenirs, and so on.  Then I'm now on vacation in Korea with my bf !!

Today, let me post a pictures of airplane's dishes.

 

This is my choice "Beef with Thai Coconuts sauce."

 

It's my bf David's choice"Chicken with ×××sauce." 

I don't remember the name of sauce...

Both of main dishes were wired taste in fact, but shrimp salad was tasty.

Here is my breakfast.

 

David and I  both ordered the same dishes this time by chance.

It's a Shrimp Fried Rice with young corn.

Actually, It was the best taste ever as a American dish!!

Until here, these dishes are from the u.s. to Japan.

Next one!!  It's a lunch,  Maki Sushi.

 

I took this picture badly, sorry.

This airplane dish is from Japan to Korea. It was a really really really tasty!!

If you, viewers, have a chance to take a airplane from Japan to Asia, you gotta eat this seriously!!

Well, updating of my blog will perhaps be a little later. I'll post lots of pics I saw and went though things.

Valentine day is coming closer!!

 

What a adorable, it is!!

It's a ready-to-bake cookie of Valentine made by Pillsbury. You have only to bake it with oven for a few minutes. How sweet, it is!!!  It's just adorable. There is nothing such a cute cookie for Valentine day in Japan!

 

Those are all chocolate and candy.   Cute!

 

Can you guess what these are?  It's a marshmallow. 

Can you believe it!? It's awesomely CUTE, isn't it !?

 

It's a Valentine's card for children.

As you could see all pictures, everything is just cute and makes my mind warm and happy.

As a matter of fact, I felt an impulse to buy all of them you saw, but I think that I'm not going to eat them after all - everything will be left eventually and then I'll find them after a year or more. Haha...

Let's cook "Banana Pancake."

This picture is a Banana Pancake cooked by me!! I didn't use ready-made pancake flour, so it's totally healthy pancake. Also, I added just a little bit of olive oil-it's not high calorie at all. Why don't you try to cook my recipe? Let's get to start!!

《　Ingredients　》 for person

◇1cup all-purpose flour(I recommend you to use organic flour)

◇3 teaspoon baking powder                                                       

◇1 egg

◇1 teaspoon olive oil or grape-seed oil

◇a pinch of salt

◇300ml milk

◇1 teaspoon vanilla extract

◇3 teaspoon plain yogurt

◆1 ripe banana or unripe banana

Mix all ingredients well except ◆banana. Then prepare ripe or unripe banana(It's your choice that you like sweet one or not.) and cut it into a little thin.

Preheat flying pan and bake pancake to any size you want. Put two or three cut banana on it while you are baking half side of pancake. From here, bake pancake as you usually do.

After you are all done, put a little of maple syrup on pancake and put butter on it as well.

That's all !! It's pretty easy, huh!? I know that looks too much preparation but you have only to mix all ingredients!!

There are many ways to enjoy eating this pancake. Eat it  without maple syrup-banana becomes sweeter after heating.   OR If someone who don't like sweet one, you can put apple on pancake instead of banana. You are able to create your own pancake.

I hope you can enjoy with this!!

Good fortune!!

 From 1:00 to 4:00, I spent my time in a Starbucks while my bf was working. As you can see a picture, this Starbucks is my favorite because all clerks are very thoughtful. In reality, some clerks who work for fast-food restaurant or coffee shop treat international people bad. Whenever I stop by here, I can see they love to talk with customers happily. Well, today's my drink choice was Strawberry lemonade smoothie and I paid $3,50 for it. (I thought that It seems like more expensive than usual.)  It happened suddenly after buying a juice. One of clerks came to my table in a hurry, and she gave me a ticket which you can see in a photo. In fact, she charged me wrong price. That's why she gave it to me. This tickets is for customer who is charged by clerk wrong price and is able to order any kinds of coffee and size for a time. I feel like I got this free coffee tickets by good fortune. I'm really looking forward to buying a coffee with this ticket next time.  I can't choose one coffee!!!!!!!

This was my bf and my lunch today. It's a Makizushi is Japan's traditional sushi. Provably, some of you know  California roll. If you  know what it is, this is one kind of it. Actually, it's a my original Makizushi, so you can't see the same sushi as this picture  in Japan. However, It's true that looking is very much alike to real Makizushi!! It looks so so, but taste was perfect!!

Girl's talking~***

At last, my bf, David, hosted the party for one of our friend's couple!! I did not go to a party for a while, so I was extremely excited. I and David prepared some appetizers such as Bul-gogi which is one of Korean's most popular sweet beef dish, flavor beers, Korean's traditional alcohol, and American snack. At first, there were four people including David and me in the party, but five more people, all of whom are American, came over our house later on. It was getting a noisy gathering eventually and I was really sorry for making noise to next-door.....  It was a so much fun actually!!

BECAUSE I overjoyed that I was able to have girl's talking with my girlfriends, but I can not tell you what we were talking about!!  Girl's talking kkk

Well...  I have nothing to write today-sorry for viewers. I'm about to go to bed☆

The bottom of lefft side picture called Jap-chae is what I tried to cook today.

Perhaps some of you don't know what it is, so let me first introdice about Jap-chae.

Jap-chae   is a stire-fried dish that conbines noodle made from a starch of a sweet potato, various vegetable, and thinly slices beef. There is usually carrots, green onions, spinach, shiitake mushrooms, and green peppers inside. It's a little bit chewy texture.

Well... let's get to start!!

I gotta tell you why I took on a challenge to Korean food. To tell the trueth, my boyfriend Daivid is Korean. That's why I try to cook Krean food lately. Jap-che, which I cooked, is kind of popular Korean food in Japan and the best cooking website among housewife called COOKPAD, which has a variety of recipe from general public's posting, is very helpful more than you'll ever know-I've been great fun of Cookpad since one of my friends told me. I found Jap-chae recipe from there

,but there are a large number of Jap-chae recipe. I was so confused which recipe is closer to real Krean food because most recipes are posted by Japanse. It's a little bit hard to find a recipes posted by Korean, but I found a interesting one posted by one housewife whose husband is Korean. To make my bf happy, I decided to use her recipe!!

It was actually first time for me to cook Jap-chae for my bf, and I was pretty nervous about how he gives me a commet...　(I was cooking before two hours he comes back) 

I had to prepare so many ingredients like above explanation. Therefore, it freaked me out seriously because it took a one hour and half or almost two hours. Look at the result of my cooking below.

It looks excellent!! BUT... according to David "You did well for the first time, but boiled noodle too much. I give you 60% point." How strict grader, he is. Anyways, I'll give 100% point for myself!!

＊*★Coming-age-of-ceremony★*＊

*HAPPY COMING-AGE-OF-CEREMONY*

Oops......  I totally forgot to introduce myself !!  Well, let me introduce about ME lightly!! As I wrote down on profile, I'm Jung Anna which is my nickname from my bf. I'm from Japan, Hokkaido, which is located in the north of Japan, has often snowy weather in winter, and is seriously cold area. My age is ..... can you guess my age!? You will know it pretty soon!!                    

Today is a really important day for people who are twenty years old of both sexes because there is a big event of Japan, which is called Coming-age-of-ceremony, each local regions. All twenty years old people are admited legally by the nation as an adult. therefor, after ceremony, they are all treated as an adult in a bar or some places in which you need a ID.  For this ceremony, most girls beautifully dress up with Kimono, which is a Japan's traditional cloth, and the other put on a suit. Guys also, some dress up with Kimono and another put on a suit as well.

Did you understand by my explanation what Coming-age-of-ceremony is !? Was it too cutdown explanation by any chance...? I hope you guys will understand even a little bit.

You might think a little bit why I'm writing about this.  I'm supposed to take part in this ceremony today, so...  I'm twenty years old. BUT, unfortunatelly, Coming-age-of-ceremony is already over. I was really looking forward to taking part in it from when I was a little, but I'm now in America.  What a pity I am.... kkk  I'm joking !     Althogh I'm not able to join this ceremony with my friends, I had already taken a piture of it dressing up my mom's precioius Kimono when I went back to Japan.

If anyone who takes interested in what coming age of ceremony is, you gotta chack it out though a internet and look for picture of it.  They are all beautiful.