Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Somewhat of a Mystery, and Interesting Things I've Seen and Done...

Let me start this entry off with... "Somewhat of a Mystery!?" So over these couple of weeks and months, I came across some weird things that I've never seen before, ridiculous things that I found funny, and so forth. The first thing I want to talk about is this thing to the left... What on earth is this thing!? When I first saw this, I was like... "What a weird looking cocoon... and what type of winged insect will come out?" I found this "cocoon" on my visit to the farthest school out of the 17 that I go to. Its roughly an hour and a half bus ride on a hella windy road up the mountain. I have heard rumors of passengers yacking all over the bus because the roads were hella windy. Luckily for me, I did not puke nor did I feel sick at all. I enjoyed the beautiful mountain scenery and took some pictures along the way. Anyhow, back to the "cocoon." After I finish my lunch with my students, I found the mysterious looking "cocoon" near the entrance gate and asked one of the teachers what it was... She responded and told me that its not a "cocoon," but instead a flower. My instant response was "WHAT!? REALLY!?" In my opinion, it really wasn't an appealing looking flower... but supposedly, this flower is very rare since it only grows in locations of high altitudes. This would be the last time I would see such a weird looking flower so I took a picture of it and decided to write about it. This mysterious flower has a Japanese name called "Kumagaisou" Or I how I remember its name.. "Kuma Ga Isou" aka "There's likely to be a bear there" (rough translation). This flower only grows in places of high altitudes and is on the endangered plant species list. I found about this later from my favorite nutrition teacher at one of my elementary schools. She told me that its super rare and I'm very lucky to have seen one. When I heard that... I just needed to write about it... plus I needed to write in general cuz it's been too long since my last post. Haha... Anyhow... if anyone gets the chance to see one... take pictures and protect it! Do environment a favor! ;)

On to the next interesting thing I found... I found this thing to the left at one of my schools... It's a cool looking pencil holder box/container? So... what is it exactly? Is it a cat? It could be... but what's up with its random rhino nose? Bizarre... well for me that it... I decided to take a picture... When do you get to see a rhino cat right?


Next thing I found one day at school is super cool! IT'S SO ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY!!! haha.. It's basically a milk carton or juice carton house... now... it needs more work with the roofing, but its cool nonetheless. This cool carton shack was made by Special Needs or Special Ed students. They're super creative and very diligent. This house was well made and its using recyclable materials. I'm very proud of them. =)

Next! Check out the picture to the left! It's an awesome looking dragon right!? But did you know this thing is made out of paper? Yeaup! It's made using special paper called Mizuhiki. I had the privilege in going to the Mizuhiki Museum in Kawanoe City of Shikokuchuo, the Paper City. I went with my friend, Stacy and her family... and we had a blast. We were able to check out all the cool paper craft they had there... a dress made out of kimono... a huge toilet paper roll... and so forth. We also got the chance to make our own postcards through the Mizuhiki process. It was super fun and I recommend it for others! In fact, I'll even go with them. We met a cool man who worked there... He gave us a grand tour of the facility and even gave us a free gift to take home with us. He was super excited when he found out that we were all from the US... He told us that he went to Washington DC before to present a Mizuhiki craft to the senator in DC, and he missed being in the states as well as miss speaking English. If opportunity permits, I definitely would love to meet him again and learn more about Mizuhiki paper and get to know locals of Shikokuchuo.





Thursday, June 17, 2010

Nitori!? Ikea!? One Word: Awesome

So a couple of weekends ago... I went to Emiful, one of the main and largest malls in Matsuyama (according to my knowledge) to do some shopping. I needed to buy some Polos and other attires for work since my old ones were.... how do you say it... ummm... getting old? haha Anyhow, I bought some cooking utensils and some foreign foods like Pho and Indian curry mixes, and headed out the door to go back to Okaido in main area Matsuyama. However, I came across a building that caught my attention big time.


It was the Nitori building. According to rumors and the commercials (Japanese people call it CM) I watched in the past, it was basically like an Ikea. When I was in college back in California or Davis... I always went to Ikea to do my shopping for kitchen utensils and other household items. It was on the way toward Sacramento or Natomas, and it was very close to Davis. Whenever a spatula got f'ed up by the apartment gas stove, I would hop on the car to Ikea. haha... Ikea was the place to go... cheap furniture, utensils, photo frames, wine racks, and also food. Their Swedish meatballs were the bomb! A couple of them in a pot of marinara sauce or other tomato based pasta sauces... and you got yourself a quick and easy spaghetti and meatballs. Mmmmm yummy! =)

Anyhow... Nitori is kind of like Ikea... the only thing different is
they dont have a food court. haha. And I guess you could say.. the prices are debatable.. But that was kind of the same thing at Ikea. The one thing that both Ikea and Nitori are similar in is the showcase floor upstairs. When I entered the showcase floor of Nitori and checked out the models of furnished kitchens, living rooms, and dining rooms... I hella remembered the times when my friends and I ventured into the Ikea showroom playing "house" or role playing as a family in their new home and so forth. haha. I was being nostalgic as I checked out Nitori's model rooms.

After taking some pictures and realizing that I dont need a bed or couch since I had no way of carrying it or paying hella muns to have it sent to my home... I went to the shopping area to check out the stuff I could afford and carry back home with me. I went to the kitchen utensil aisle and found myself stupefied or amazed with the affordable prices of some pots, pans, and dish racks. After doing a nice sweep look around of the shopping floor of Nitori, I came back to the utensil aisle and bought a compact two-story dish rack and a very large and deep frying pan. The total cost was like 1300 yen. Affordable pricing! Well I think it is haha

I left Nitori with great satisfaction for I was able to buy stuff for my kitchen and I remembered all the good times I spent in Ikea with my friends and so forth. Both Nitori and Ikea are awesome places and I recommend for many other!

On my way back home, the pan and dish rack eventually got heavy on me and became a little bit of a nuisance, but it now sits in my kitchen glistening brightly as ever and making my kitchen convenient and better to work in. All I need for my kitchen is a table to have more space to do some dicing, chopping, and slicing haha.