Fanime 2013!

The "Totoronut" from Psycho Donuts-- a chocolate donut with chocolate frosting and white powdered sugar in the image of Totoro, a favorite character of Hayao Miyazaki's Japanese film, "My Neighbor Totoro"-- and filled with raspberry jelly.

Just a little update to let my reader(s) know I am alive and doing well... just been really busy with work/ school, and getting ready for Fanime, which is this weekend! I actually decided to cosplay this time (dress up as a character).

 My character is Minty Zaki from the Pixar movie Wreck it Ralph.

Thursday night after work I met up with my friends, had dinner at our favorite place-- Pizz'a Chicago-- then went to a little bit of a panel on Pokemon, then went and hung out in the game hall for a little bit and played a couple rounds of this fun Pictionary-meets-Telephone type board game, where you draw a picture, and the person next to you has to try and write in their answer of what they think it is, and then that person draws that guess, and you see how or if it changes along the way-- this can continue with as many as eight people. Very funny game.

Then Saturday I got up super early to turn in my pre-registration materials and pick up my badge. Finally got my badge after about an hour and a half of waiting in lines... not that bad, actually... went to Starbucks, met some random people who were also cosplaying as the same group of characters as my character, walked around with them for a little while, posed for a bunch of pictures, then met up with my other friends, we hung out at the hotel for a bit, went to lunch at a great little sushi place near San Jose State campus, Tengu Sushi; walked around some more, went and played more of that game from earlier, various hanging out at the hotel and walking around the Convention Center, went to the park and took some pictures of our group, then I met up with a different friend at Quickly and we got some milk teas, walked around so he could see peoples' neat outfits, then came back to my house and watched Casablanca. Long but fun day!

Then Sunday I met up with a couple of my friends, walked around Artist's Alley for a little while, then went and got a hot dog from a hot dog stand nearby, hung out with some different friends at Artist's Alley some more, bought a cute ring....

 It's a French macaron cookie! :)

Then came home because I was really tired, and took a nap.

I took some other fun pictures at the convention...

Caught this mock battle between a storm trooper and Godzilla from the second floor of the Marriott..

Ran into Jack Sparrow in the front of the convention center...

And these interesting characters, also from Wreck it Ralph.

 Might go back tomorrow for the last day depending on what is going on. So nice to have a 3 day weekend. :)

Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival

Today was one day of the two-weekend Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival in San Francisco! A friend and I met up to go and check it out.

There were sponsor booths, art/jewelry/things for sale, food booths, and a stage in the main plaza where they had a beauty pageant and some Taiko drum performers.

The American and Japanese flags flying side by side.. I thought this made a pretty picture :)

In Japantown (where the festival was held) they have street signs in English and Japanese!

The Taiko drum performers were amazing-- they had all these different drums that made different sounds, and they were literally dancing while drumming.. and they just looked so happy and into what they were doing, you could tell they really loved it.

We also went and had lunch at a Japanese restaurant in the little mall nearby. I have not had sushi in quite a while, so that was a real treat.

There was also this neat mural at the entrance to the mall.

So, fun weekend :). Can't wait to go back to San Francisco next weekend to see the Giants!

P.S. I changed my blog settings so you don't have to have an account to comment. Didn't realize I could do that but that should make things easier for my commenters :).

Halloween & CLA

So, fun week/weekend. At work we had our halloween party and people had fun costumes. I was a penguin.

We also got delicious catered Chinese food, and candy. There was a costume contest and the winner was the guy who dressed up as a revolutionary.

This weekend was the California Library Association General Conference, CLA for short, here in San Jose. I had a great time.

I went to a session on social media, a panel of mystery/crime authors, some lovely receptions where I met some new people, and a little evening amusement called CLA Battledecks which mixed slideshows and improv. I also saw lots of fascinating posters from different companies/libraries and enjoyed perusing the exhibit hall. Great weekend, and I still had time to meet with my study group and finish all my homework.

Here's a picture of a bunch of "swag" or fun exhibit hall freebies I got. Some flyers, bookmarks, pens, post-it notes, candy, a free picture of myself as a "Library Scientist"...

 ...and some books, including a free one I picked out about pirates.

I also bought a book by one of the authors at the panel I attended. She writes crime novels set in Paris, and she actually goes to Paris on a regular basis to do research for her novels. She signed my book for me, too :). I will be reviewing the book here when I finish it. At the suggestion of one of my new conference friends, I think I will occasionally start reviewing books here on my blog, because I really want to get back into reading more and that would give me the motivation to do so.

Happy November!

A Fall Weekend

This weekend I am celebrating fall. Today my housemate and I went to the Emma Prusch Farm Park Harvest Fair & Exposition. They had a bunch of neat booths, a pumpkin patch, music, and the occasional chicken wandering around. 

This hen and her chicks in front of the pumpkin patch attracted much attention from the kids. We think she was teaching her chicks how to peck for bugs or seeds. :)

Here is a glimpse of the park. It would be really nice to come here some weekend and just enjoy nature with a book and some fruit as a snack.

Here's another chicken. It's fascinating to see the different patterns of feathers that chickens have. This one is almost like a zebra chicken.

I picked out a pumpkin at the fair, and my housemate helped me hollow out the pumpkin so I could make a pumpkin stew like the one I made last year with my family. This one came out just as tasty. Later on we will get 1-2 more pumpkins, so I can make a soup or we can just have one as a jack-o-lantern.

I also went to Walgreens and picked out some Halloween themed pencils for the kids I tutor. They always need pencils to do their homework, so if they are extra good, they get to keep the pencil at the end of the day. :)

DC Trip, Abridged

So, I got a new phone today... and attempted to email myself all the rest of my DC photos but some of them did not go through in time. But, here are the ones that did.

Flamingoes at the National Zoo! I love flamingoes, they are so pretty in pink.

Neat mural near the U Street Metro station! This district is often associated with the Harlem renaissance, a very artistic and creative time, hence the gentleman playing a violin.

A glimpse of the Potomac River while whizzing by on the metro.

The white house, and a stunning view of DC sky. Look at those billowing clouds!

A closer look. It was kind of awe-inspiring to be that close to the white house. I could have gotten even closer, too. There were some ladies protesting on the white house lawn about women's rights. They had songs, too.

A deep fried oreo from the Arlington County Fair. I just couldn't resist. They had deep fried twinkies, too. We also watched a piglet race and just browsed the game offerings-- everything you'd expect from a classic fair/carnival.

So, fun times... guess that's all for now... not pictured are some jaunts to Georgetown and Dupont Circle; a visit to Friend's favorite specialty grocery store, Wegmans; a day at the National Air and Space Museum and the Natural History Museum; and more National Zoo highlights (lions and pandas and monkeys, oh my).

Hope everyone's having a good weekend! I am off to a neighborhood potluck tonight, maybe... and a much needed trip to the Campbell farmer's market tomorrow.

Obon Festival; Visit to Santa Maria

Well, I think I'm basically over my cough/fatigue thing I had for a few days... so I'm finally getting around to updating.

The Obon Festival was nice. I went with a friend of mine and some of his friends. There was food, there were games, there were decorations, there were drum shows, there were candies, and also Hawaiian shave-ice, but I didn't take a picture of it because it was really piled high and I did not want any to fall off while I tried to maneuver my camera to get a shot strategically-- but, just imagine, sweet flavored ice fluff like snow (I got cotton candy and banana flavors), and also vanilla ice cream in the middle of that. It was perfect for a hot day. 

Here's the inside of the food tent. There were a lot of choices. My friends and I shared some teriyaki beef sticks. 

This is the Buddhist temple that hosts the festival each year. It has a neat looking roof.

There were pretty paper lanterns hanging up high. 

My friends and I also looked around at some shops in Japantown (the festival was in Japantown) and this is the bag from some candies I got. The candies they have over there have such colorful bags and wrappers.

The candies are supposed to be flavored like various kinds of soft drinks. So, that's fun. They kinda had this "carbonated" texture because they used this powder in the candies that is the same powder found in "pop rocks." 

When I got home, it was great to see my family, and our cat Mindy. I don't know if I've ever shared a picture of Mindy before. She's very cuddly and friendly. She likes to roll around in the sand outside and then clean herself and then eat or cuddle on the couch and take naps.

Sometimes she sleeps in kind of funny positions. 

I made some plum muffins at home because there were a few plums still left from the plum tree. They turned out nicely. 

This is the cat that comes and visits my housemates and I. She kind of lives in our backyard but she is not really our cat. We just feed her and brush her, and she is nice. 

Next time I'll share about my most recent outing to Palo Alto where I met a pen pal I've had for about 10 years! It was a fun day.

San Francisco and other things

Here's a more expanded look of my little San Francisco excursion.

Here are some boats from Pier 39, my friend took this picture. The view of the mountains from Pier 39 is so pretty, and it's so nice to just go and see the water.

Here's a picture from the Pride Festival, which was that weekend. People were dressed so colorfully and really had a lot of fun.

Look at that interesting outfit! People were taking pictures of this guy left and right.

I will post some other San Francisco pictures later. :)

Friend's mom sent me a cookbook from Baton Rouge! This was the highlight of my week. She got it from a restaurant over there that she visited. So thoughtful. :)

It's got recipes for stews, rice dishes, seafood dishes, vegetable dishes, even some dessert dishes. I immediately made the Shrimp Jambalaya.

Due to the interesting method of simmering some onion, garlic, celery, and bell pepper in oil for a while, and then simmering it a while longer (40 minutes!) with some tomato paste and water, the shrimp and rice mixed in (shrimp first to cook for 20 minutes, then the rice at the end) came out this deep, dark color, with some fresh green onion and parsley to give it a pop of brighter color. Somewhat reminiscent of "dirty rice," I would imagine. There are a lot of ways to make jambalaya and this was quite good, with some hot sauce mixed in.

My housemate and I went to this farm today called Emma Prusch Farm Park because he thought it was going to be a farmers market but it was just a farmstand with vegetables. Still kind of fun to go and visit, the park itself is lovely (not pictured) and they have all kinds of birds wandering around.

This is a mama bird of some sort and her little chick. :)

A little peek at the farm. 

A goose! Brings back memories of being chased around by geese at Waller Park back home.

Also lately I have been enjoying crepes. Deb's crepe recipe is easily adaptable to savory crepes with the omission of the honey. The other night I made crepes with roasted asparagus, spinach, and zuchinni from the garden. Tonight I made a simple crepe with turkey lunchmeat, some pieces of fuji apple, and a little monterey jack cheese. Protip: if you ever don't really feel like cooking a big meal but still want something light and satisfying and not frozen or "just-add-water," make some crepes! 

Chocolate & strawberry dessert crepe I made a long time ago. 

So, fun times... now back to studying... so I can try to get ahead before I go and visit Santa Maria in a week and a half. Hope you guys are ready to have a good week!

The Pros of Cons

This weekend was FanimeCon... "con" being shorthand for "convention." I didn't buy a badge this time, because it's this first time I've actually lived in San Jose (where the convention was held) and I didn't know how much time I'd actually want to spend over there, since I wouldn't need to stay in the hotel with my friends. So, I just hung out with my attending friends a couple times and took a couple pictures. We went to Pizza Chicago again-- twice. Great pizza. My friends are really pros when it comes to cosplaying, or dressing up in costumes. They got really into it. They'd have totally different costumes for different days. I was just happy to be there and marvel at the creativity.

This is a friend of mine at a past con, cosplaying as this character named "Golbez."

I didn't know these guys from another past con, but you will recognize them as Mario and Luigi. They had the voices down really well, too!

This is one of my other friends from a past con. She played Snape from Harry Potter.

Ariel and Ursula from The Little Mermaid. There's a unique costume idea!

Here are some robots of some sort. Transformers, maybe. Those costumes must have been heavy!

So, that's fun. It was nice to have an extra day off work. I didn't really do anything, just relaxed and read a book and some cooking blogs. Hope everyone else had a nice holiday!

Boogie on the Bayou, and more sushi

Well, the festival was okay. It was really hot that day, and there were a lot of people. It was crowded because there was not very much space on the narrow street in which the festival was held, plus a lot of people were at the festival all at once. A lot of the same booths were there as I saw in Mountain View. There were a few New Orleans/Southern food booths....

......and one little Jazz band that made an appearance before wandering off...

.....but it wasn't as exciting as my friend from work had hyped it up to be. He was really disappointed because he lived in New Orleans for years and it is a lot different than this festival. I had an ok time though. I got some really good jambalaya, and there was a gelato place along the street so I got some gelato. I got to choose 3 flavors for my size, so I chose: white chocolate raspberry, creme brulee, and tiramisu. As far as I'm concerned, nothing is a bust if there is gelato involved! I could see myself going back to Campbell just to get some more of that delicious gelato.

It has gotten even easier for me to make sushi with practice. This week, I made coconut curry shrimp sushi with cucumber and avocado, topped with a chipotle mayo sauce. Eating that delicious, spicy jambalaya at the festival just made me realize how much I like spicy/really flavorful foods, and I should cook that way more. Using multiple spices together to create unique flavors is really an art, and it's an art I want to learn.

On Saturday, a friend came into town to visit me and we went to San Francisco. We walked to the Mission district and got dinner at Bar Tartine. I heard it was a good restaurant from one of the blogs I read. It's kind of one of those "hidden gems," because on the outside it's just this unmarked, inconspicuous little shop. I knew we were there because the map function on my phone told us we were there, but I had to ask a security guard nearby exactly where it was, and we were right next to it. Their dinner menu is really specialized, it's just one page. My friend and I shared a biscuits and gravy dish with potato and herbs that no longer seems to be on the menu, and the stuffed chicken with stewed smoked sausage, sauerkraut, mushrooms and sour cream. These dishes were just packed with flavor, so even though they were not huge dishes, we were quite full and satisfied by the end. Two servings of bread before our dishes came out helped too, I'm sure.

This weekend is Fanime again! That is the anime convention held here in San Jose that I went to last year. It will be nice to see my friends and all the people in fun costumes. I realized I never shared any pictures of people in their costumes, but next post I will post costume pictures from this time and last time I went.