Ch-ch-cherry Blossom Time!

Every spring, my backyard turns into a beautiful garden. For the last couple of years I've tried to take advantage of the blossoming trees before summer comes and the blossoms fall out.

Cemetary

Jennifer's dad. We've always felt a little eerie towards it because it had Jennifer's name on the stone. It was mean of us, but Katie and I would taunt her and say, "OMG, you're going to be buried here!"









My cousin at her father's. I remember when I was young, each time we went to visit my grandma, I also remembered to visit her father just so he wouldn't get lonely. I'm not sure what I thought during those times, but I knew that every grave needed a visitor sometime.



My UCLA alumni Uncle's baby girl. I bet my life that her first words were "USC! UCLA!". No, I'm SERIOUS. The parents are doing that to their little, barely 1 yr old, boy, chanting "USC! USC! UCLA!". Gotta get 'em when they're young I guess.

Notice the Swastika sign near my mom's head. It DOES NOT represent for the Nazi. This is a holy sign for Buddhism long before its association with facism and Hitler. Hitler just adopted the Swastika to represent the Aryan race when he was in his reign -___-.

"Is this what happens if I don't go to UCLA? :*["

I guess I've never noticed it, but this incense jar has been here for a long, long time. I usually don't pray, but I did this time for my grandpa and prayed for good grades. Behind the jar you see the name "Tran My Chau" which was my other aunt who died when she was a child.










I thought this was interesting. Apparently this is how the Burmese decorate their ancestors (with colorful paper).

I don't know who John A. Palacios is, but "BAA!!" certainly catches your attention.



My mom woke up up this morning, 30 minutes before we had to go to the cemetary for our annual visit. No one ever tells me about these things and it's ALWAYS last minute! It did damper my mood for the morning because I've never been comfortable in a place like the cemetary, especially after I found out the little cottage near the gates was a crematory (after Bobby's passing)

During the car ride, my dad had the window open and I didn't want to smell the air. It made my heart heavy and tired thinking about... things. The open air had this uncomfortable scent, but ironically, when I started to smell incense, I felt a bit at ease. Like, I could breathe again. It's a weird superstition, but if I don't smell incense, it feels like I'm breathing in the souls of all the deceased, which I don't want to do!

My dad made a wrong turn and drove all the way high up into a hill where the people didn't bury their coffins, but confined it into this box-like grave on top of the surface. -___- I prefer the dead underground, thank you.

Once we met up with the rest of the family at the RIGHT gravestone -_-, the tension inside me swelled up because there was a dug up grave right next to ours! I gritted my teeth and avoided eye contact with it. While everyone was praying, I took out my camera out of nervousness and my sister started questioning me,

Cindy: You're going to TAKE pictures of the graves?
Me: Yea I'm going to capture their souls. Oh! I see one right there! -snap-
Cindy: Huh, aren't they dead?
Me: Uh, yeah. I'm pretty sure everyone's dead here.
Cindy: Aren't they all in heaven though?
Me: O_o Heaven? You're a confused Buddhist!
Cindy: I don't know! That's what the T.V. told me!

.....

Cindy: You play fatal frame, watch people dissect dead people on tv, AND read about people dissecting dead people in all those books you have, but you're afraid of the cemetary?
Me: ........... Yep.


Luckily the mood got better when we got home because we got to eat all that food. Around 3pm, Jim E came over to give me the tickets to the football game, and then we ended up watching Sailormoon for a little bit before he went home.

Around 4:30pm I went to go pick up Valerie to go to the HP Pavilion for the game, but found out that it was 12 dollars for a damn parking space! I decided to just go park at the free lot a couple... 10 blocks away from the stadium.. hehe... It was pretty far -___-. It was the perfect day... to park really far, walk to the pavilion, without an umbrella, and have rain and homeless people coming down on ya. Great... just great. Also, when we walked down the narrow stairs from the garage, it smelled like freakin' urine! Gross!!!!! ACKKK Poor Val had to listen to me squeak and scream and what not. I was being really prissy about it.

So it started raining and we started to run around this corner and this homeless guy was like, "Hey! Let me ask you a question!". Urghhh... I didn't want to be rude, so I turned around and said, "What question?" The man took out his ID card and said, "I just got out of jail, and I live in Sacramento. I need money to go on the greyhound bus.. it costs 19 dollars..." I was too busy being nervous to look at his ID, gave him 5 dollars and said, "I hope you get home!"

I was really uneasy about walking around downtown when it was nearing dark and raining, so I told Val I didn't want to walk to the HP Pavilion anymore and called off the football game -__-. Waste of 4 perfectly good tickets. Instead I suggested we go eat at Tandoori Oven. =D We both shared a plate and got FUUULLLL... Chicken Tikka Masala YUM!! And a nice cup of hot Chai.

Since we weren't going to the game, luckily there was a theater downtown. I wanted to watch Tsotsi, but Val watched to watch a freakin' horror movie (Stay Alive). I gave in and we bought tickets for the 7:30 showing. When it was time to enter the movie room, both Val and I were apprehensive because there weren't a lot of people around and the door to the movie was in a dark corner. I chickened out and said, "I don't want to open the dooooooor! C-c-c-can we just trade our tickets, please!" Val dragged me into the movie room and fortunately there were about 7 other people inside. It still sucked cuz the rest of the row we were in were all empty.


I don't want to spoil the movie for the rest of you, but... I WANTED TO SCREAM MY ASS OFF. I CAN'T BELIEVE I LET VAL TALK ME INTO WATCHING IT! Oh the anxiety attacks it gave me! In the beginning I saw a face on the left side of the screen! A FACEEE ARHGHGHGH!!! I think I also crushed Val's fingers since I gripped so hard.

Surprisingly, it was a decent movie. I found myself yelling under my breath, "Don'topenthedooryoubitches!" and also, it had references to Fatal Frame hahaha. But UrGH.... no more no more. Why do I bother with horror films? -___-

The Healthy Burger

I decided to be lazy today and not do anything, but after 5 hours of staying at home, I got pretty restless. And when I do, I venture into my sister's room and lounge around on her bed, moping and basically being pathetic. Eventually we decided we had the munchies for burgers and drove to the grocery store to buy burger ingredients.

She wanted hamburger but I convinced her to agree with me on turkey burgers since they were 99% fat free. The other day I was at Barnes and Nobles looking through this one book that documented pictures of families from each country photographed with a week's worth of food they'd buy. Sad to say that the American families' food supply was completely supplied in CARDBOARD. Junkfood, cereal, tv dinners... it was horrifying compared to the European/Asian/etc families whose food consisted more of fresh meats, fruits and veggies.

Anywho, here are some horrific pictures of the burgers I made. The lighting wasn't very good, so I tried to use flash (which I hate doing) and one without (to which I butchered horribly in photoshop). The burgers were actually quite flavorful and might I say, MORE delicious than a hamburger and LESS greasy.




Ingredients:
Ground turkey
shallots
garlic
steak seasoning
salt/pepper
onion
lettace
tomato
bun
cheese
olive oil

1. Transfer the ground turkey into a large bowl
2. Chop the garlic and shallots and put into the large bowl with the turkey
3. Add salt/pepper, steak seasoning, and a table spoon of olive oil in the bowl and combine with the meat.
4. Slice up your tomato and onion, and wash your lettace to assemble in your burger later
5. Make a decent sized patty (a little bit larger than your bun because it'll shrink. Also, DO NOT PACK TIGHTLY or else the meat will be a dense hocky puck)
6. Toast your buns with a slice of cheese on the lower bun

When the meat is done, just assemble the ingredients and viola! A healthy burger without the guilt.

Calamari Massacre

These pictures were sent to me from my uncle who lives in San Diego. He's a camera enthusiast which is really a relief. My dad is into the electronics but is entranced by extravagancy. My uncle is actually KNOWLEDGABLE about cameras instead of the price tag lol. When he does come over, he'll teach me how to use my Canon, which is pretty pointless because everything just go in one ear and out the other. I don't think I'll ever learn. What I do is take a shot in every setting and see which one comes out the best haha.

Anyway, these squid pictures are actually quite old. It was on the news probably 4 years ago because all of the sudden, masses and masses of dead squid washing up along the San Diego shore and no one knew why. Just think of how much fried calamari you could make with all those squid!! OMG... just thinking about it makes me go @____@. But of course, not knowing the reason why they're all dead kinda dissipates my appetite. -__-

What a waste.

Perfect Sunday

Gourmet BLT Made Easy

Mmm... BLT. It was just one of those lazy days where I didn't feel bored at all. Actually, I did about 9pm and wanted to go to Barnes and Nobles, but I realized that they close at 10, so there'd be no point in going. The Borders in Santana Row closes at midnight. I'd go if it weren't so far!Ingredients
Costco garlic bread (diagonally sliced)
Fresh mozzerella (paper towel dried)
Lettice
Tomato
2 pieces of bacon

I used my George Foreman grill and you wouldn't BELIEVE how much fat came out of two pieces of bacon! I even trimmed some of the fat off before grilling them! After grilling the bacon, paper towel dry them to get more excess fat off. Take two pieces of the sliced bread, put the cheese on, and the bacon. Grill the sandwich in the Foreman Grill until cheese is melted and when you see grill marks. Take out the sandwich and put in the remaining ingredients inside (tomato, lettice) and enjoy :D

Delicate Hands

I'll just be honest and say that my hands are NOT delicate in the slightest bit. They're fat with some callousness here and there. Even my pinky has rolls, but I've manage to mimick the art of a sake nigiri sushi. Isn't it a beaut?

Not only did I attempt the nigiri style, but the modern roll style too. I would've had pictures but I gobbled them down before I could snap a shot. Basically the rice was on the outside, with the seaweed, avocado, green onion and salmon inside, topped and broiled with slices of salmon and the secret orange sauce the Japanese restaurants like to put on their oysters and special sushi. Well, it's not so secret. It's just basically sriracha hot sauce and mayo.

So here's my workplace or more like my experiment lab. I didn't have any fresh salmon on me, just frozen ones, so I was careful not to defrost it artificially in the microwave. Instead, I let it sit on the kitchen counter by the stove to warm it up. That way, it'll taste almost like fresh sake sashimi instead of the gross ones left out all day by incompetent Japanese restaurants.

Ingredients
rice
vinegar
sugar
salmon
avocado
green onion
nori (seaweed)
mayo
sriracha hot sauce
soy sauce
wasabi

Soy Sauce
mix a dab of wasabi into soy sauce (haha easy)

Mayo Sauce
Mix sriracha with mayo (good sushi is so simple)
Recipe
Begin by cooking the rice. When it is done, DO NOT PUT IT IN THE FRIDGE. Lightly sprinkle in some of the sugar vinegar solution and mix in with the rice. It was cold today so I just left it outside to cool for half an hour.

Once the salmon is defrosted, cut into desired size strips and make sure the stripes of the salmon crosses horizontally along your pieces of sashimi. Prepare slicing the onions and avocado.

When the rice is cooled, scoop some onto some plastic wrap on top of a bamboo mat. The mat helps you roll the sushi and if you don't have one... well, good luck. Flatten your scoop of rice into a rectangular shape (Advice: to prevent rice sticking on your hands, dampen your hands with water). On top of your rice, put your seaweed (you can use scissors to adjust the size of the seaweed sheets). After that, just assemble your avocado, onion and salmon (make sure they are cut into strips). Once rolled, put thin slices of salmon on top and top it off with the spicy mayo and bake at 350 degrees for 2 and half minutes.

Lunardi's courtyard. At the right time, it can be really really pretty. Today wasn't that great, but decent.

A Hot Cup of...

Today Victoria and I wandered downtown San Jose after a study session in the Martin Luther King Library. We came upon an Indian restaurant (I'm guessing a modernized and Americanized place) and had a nice, decent priced dinner with generous portions. The picture here is the Chicken Tikka which included five pieces of marinated chicken, cucumbers, red onion, rice and two pieces of naan. Extremely filling. I could barely finish it (but I did haha)




We both also ordered chai which was bottemless at .99 cents. With about 2 packs of splenda, it was oh so good and smooth! It was served HOT which complimented the unusually cold weather.









After I got home, I opted for a cold cup of soy milk. Here's my cow.

Rainy Day

I love the rain, but not ankle-deep puddles.