5/9/14
Today was a pretty laidback day for the most part. It was raining pretty hard, so, besides for lunch, we were unable to go outside. My mom and I went over to the grandparents' for a breakfast of 湯圓 (balls of glutinous rice flour filled with sesame paste or peanut butter) in milk with oatmeal. We had to leave soon though because grandma had to take grandpa to the dentist. They were still out around lunchtime, so my aunt took my mom and I to a ramen shop. Although the shop was small, it was decorated with cute images of cats in traditional Japanese attire.
The shop's name, which I can't read...
So cute and colorful!
We all ordered sliced pork ramen in different broths with a kind of hard-boiled egg called 溏心蛋, or ajitsuke tamago in Japanese. The eggs were marinated in soy sauce and cooked so that the yolk was still very soft but not runny.
Afterward, we got bubble tea from another nearby shop to bring home. In Taiwan, bubble tea shops provide numerous options for customizing drinks, from the sweetness of the tea to the size of the tapioca bubbles. My tea was not as sweet as Bubble Island's back at home, and had both small and large tapioca bubbles. Excellent!
"The Tea of Cool. Craving. Content..."
Back at the apartment, my aunt showed my mom how to make her famous bread, while I mapped out destinations for our Kyoto trip on Google Maps. Google Maps' "My Places" is very useful in seeing where everything is in comparison to each other, and it allows "layers" so that one can view groups of destinations separately or altogether. One thing that really annoys me however, is the inability to see or save info such as commute time and method of transportation. If the general Google maps can do that, then the personal maps should be able to too, especially since the commute is an important part of traveling! :(
Weighing the dough.
Dividing into four different loaves.
While I was doing this, I was also being attacked one of my life-long enemies: a mosquito. I already had a minor bite on the back of my leg from the morning, but now, the bottom of my foot was both burning and itching like hell! I went to the bathroom to blast the bite with heat from the hairdryer (heat apparently breaks down the protein that causes itching in mosquito saliva), then returned to work. After only a couple minutes though, I was bitten on my knee! It was time to put a stop to this nonsense. It took quite a while though before I was finally able to hunt the bugger down (it was chilling under the table) and kill it with one of those electrified, tennis-racket-shaped bug-zappers!
A hint at what's to come...
During the evening, my mom and I returned to the grandparents' to help make dinner. My grandma used the bamboo shoot from yesterday in a dish with beef and to make chilled slices with mayonnaise. Afterwards, my grandparents settled down to watch an old Japanese drama, while we went back to the aunt and uncles'.
Some of the leftover bamboo shoot slices!
A quick and simple dinner.
Argh, the jet-lag is still getting to me so I guess I'm going to sleep really early today...good night!