Tag: Mitsuwa

all things Japanese

Saturday, 10 February, 2007 at 3:24 am

I don’t want to go to sleep (despite it being almost 3 in the morning >_<), but I don’t really have the mental capacity to do much of anything, so I’ll just ramble on here for a bit. (Nice statement, no? “I don’t want to think, so I’ll just write in my blog.” :x)

Last Saturday I was home, and Mum and I went to Mitsuwa. Mostly she needed some groceries, and I also wanted gyouza so I could use up the ramen broth packets she bought for me.

While we were in the market area this song came on over the sound system that sounded extremely familiar to me. I said, “Hey, I have this song. It’s Utada Hikaru, ‘Colors.'” Do you know how rare it is for something like that to happen? One, I don’t have many Japanese songs on my computer (or many that I listen to often). Two, what are the chances that I’d have a song that is popular enough to be played in a Japanese store in America? So that was fun.

We ended up buying … well, sad to say I was very self-centered and didn’t notice what Mum bought. I just know she bought dashi because she said she needed it. Oh, she bought kamaboko too. I remember that because it was the normal kind with the clear packaging so you can see that it’s the normal kind, and she said it was probably just New Year’s causing it to be sold out.

Anyway. I bought (with Mum’s money) gyouza and this product that they had free samples of. It’s some ramen, not really the instant noodle type, although it’s similar, but a fancier version. We bought the miso ramen one. It was in the freezer section. The instructions say cook the (frozen) noodles in boiling water for 2 minutes, then in the bowl place the broth and mix with 1–1½ cups boiled water, then when the noodles are done drain them and put them in the bowl. Similar to instant noodles, no? It has 123% the daily recommended value of sodium. ACK! It’s pretty good though. I think I’ll water down the broth more next time though.

I seriously feel like going to a Japanese restaurant. But I don’t have the stomach for what I want. *ticks off on fingers* Unagi donburi, sushi (specifically the eel sushi from Ozeki’s with the eel sauce *grin*), ramen, teriyaki chicken (specifically from that one place at the outlet mall)…hee. Too bad I’m living on a student’s budget. *snerk*

After the groceries I slipped over to the bookstore to look for Kera, but they sold out again. :( I guess it’s really really really popular now. (Darn!) Mum offered to buy it for me whenever it comes in, but I told her she didn’t have to bother herself with it.

Next I looked for any Anna Tsuchiya music, but they didn’t have any. boo. I looked on Amazon; they have her album for $35 as an import. Better than Tommy heavenly6, I had to buy from the marketplace for her album, but not so good because it’s $35! (I think the Tommy heavenly6 album was $25 or something? Not expensive. Maybe it was $15, I don’t remember.)

That was my Japanese excursion, which refreshes me after being in SLO for so long. hahaha.

Now I guess I should go to sleep. bah.

posting…New Year’s weekend

Monday, 8 January, 2007 at 11:22 am

I’ve been a lazy blogger. Bad me. Umm, lessee…

December 27th, Wednesday, took my car in for 30,000 mile maintenance. The service area’s computers were out, and we (Daddy and I) waited an hour then found out the computers were back on but they didn’t tell us. -.-

My car didn’t get worked on until 2 in the afternoon, and so my car wasn’t ready until the next day. Argh. I woke up at nine to see if the car was ready but they didn’t call so I called them, then got put on hold for about 5 minutes before I was disconnected. (It’s a very busy place with not so good channels of communication open with the customers.) So then Daddy Hidek and I went in the van to pick up Noelle Tadash and SM00 for the weekend.

Friday we (everyone, Mum Daddy Hidek Noelle Tadash SM00 me) went to Mitsuwa in Torrance. Mmm, good udon. *grin* Everyone else (except Daddy, he didn’t get anything) had ramen.

Went to the bookstore. I bought the Paradise Kiss manga series in some special large(r) format. I don’t know what it is, I can’t read the Japanese on it, but I do know it’s an inch or so larger on the sides. Then we went to Fry’s, but Mum Daddy and I stayed in the car. They had the Wii but you had to buy 5 games with it. o.O Odd.

Oh yeah, it turns out my car was ready at 10 on Thursday. They must have called right after we stepped out the door. ;.; We went to pick it up at 3 but their computers were down again so we couldn’t pay with credit card. ARGH. So we left then came back at 5 to pick up my car.

Hidek rented Talladega Nights from Blockbuster, we watched that Thursday/Friday night, I don’t remember. We thought it was really funny. ^_^;; Daddy and I (and Mickey, some) watched practically all the extras. I really liked it. But this movie had less, er, guest roles? (drivers from NASCAR) than Cars did. :/ I thought that was kinda boring. But I guess they didn’t really fit into the story.

Erm, I don’t remember, one day we watched Shimotsuma Monogatari (English title: Kamikaze Girls) and Dark Water. Was it Saturday? And we watched Talladega Nights on Friday? It was weird, ’cause after watching Dark Water, that night SM00 went into the hallway and she came out saying water was dripping from the smoke alarm. O.o! The girl was coming to haunt us! But it turned out that the toilet upstairs flooded, and leaked downstairs. ehehe That night the boys and I played Texas Hold’em. Then SM00 joined us to play the boardgame Payday. (1994 edition. Apparently, the old version didn’t have the lottery. o.o But that part is so fun! XD)

Sunday we went to their house to make mochi. (Gee, I can’t say “pound mochi” can I?)

Monday, New Year’s, that was fun. I actually got to see the whole Rose Parade for once. o.o I think last year I was too nervous about school to sit down and watch television. And all the years before, we always went to a relative’s house to celebrate and not much tv watching got done. I guess I missed out on the Stephanie Edwards and Bob Eubanks era. :( I remember her, but I never really watched so I don’t know how she did the parade.

Tuesday Daddy, Hidek and I went to Borders. I returned the Nana manga that had the security device with the dried up glue that was pulling out the paper and got a $20 journal for only $1.73 with the return and my holiday savings. woohoo! Then I went with Daddy to Barnes and Noble. Why? I dunno. Just felt like going out, maybe I felt like looking at their journals and date books.

Wednesday Mum and I went out shopping.

Thursday I watched a lot of Monk season 3.

Friday, I don’t remember. o.O Saturday all the relatives got together at Noelle’s house for New Year’s. We left our house at 9 like we planned (shocking; maybe everyone was hungry, haha) and got to Noelle’s house around 10. Had good ozoni. XD Hidek bought Wario Ware, so we played that. I made wonton with Daddy helping. Then the boys played NASCAR I don’t remember which one, for the Gamecube. Then we had dinner. Yummm. I’ve got some leftovers sitting in the fridge for dinner sometime this week. XD

Sunday packed up my stuff. Pretty much all I did was watch tv. Drove up to school. Unpacked stuff.

meh

Wednesday, 7 January, 2004 at 5:48 pm

Hm, I was just reminded that I saw that Kids Bop commercial for the CD with Bring Me to Life on it. Can you imagine it? Kids crooning about being “numb without a soul.” Hmm … *imagines hoardes of young goth lolis and kodona all over the place*

Ooh, in my Kera magazine (which I bought today XD) there’s some blurb about Evanescence. ^^;; Of course I can’t read it though. And then there’s this page in the back that looks like you can order older issues. And the one with Amy Lee on the cover is shown. But then I think it’s only available by calling in. ;.; (How much would a phone call to Japan to order a magazine cost? ^^;;;)

Oh well. Today I went with Mum to Mitsuwa and that store is closeded. o_o Guess business wasn’t very good … Mum bought plates from … U … something. Utsuwa? Yeah, utsuwa.com. ^_^ They’re black, and about 7 inches in diameter. She was looking at these reeeeally pretty plates with sakura on a stone-y texture, but they cost $5.50 each, so, yeah, forget about that.

Aaand … I got Nana volumes 1-3 and Gokinjo Monogatari volume 1! :D But I don’t know where to get the translations. ^.^;;

So now I have only $15 or so. Mm. I want to buy Haibane Renmei volume 2. But I don’t want to pay more than $25. ^^;; Oh yeah, I still have to see Millenium Actress … gehehe …

Well, I’ve been working on an Amy Lee mood theme for a while … but now I’m kinda bored with it. Ehehe. It’s hard finding piccies for some moods. Like busy. Or thankful. Or envious. @_@ Last night I started working on my new dreamlog, but then I got bored acause I lost this bunch of papers where I wrote down some dreams from a week ago. ^^;;; So now I feel like, “I don’t wanna do this!” Bleh.

I’ll fight that

Saturday, 20 September, 2003 at 3:05 am

I watched Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door Thursday, with Noelle. ^__^ (And since then I’ve had two separate mentions of Halloween. O.o One from SM00, I forget what for, and one from my mom today, talking about doughnuts she bought with orange and black sprinkles. “What am I supposed to do, keep it for a month and a half? They wouldn’t be doughnuts anymore!”)

Wheee! More Spike and Faye-Faye and Ed XD goodness! Plus hearing the soundtrack that I’ve been listening to for about a year now without having ever seen the movie. ^_^;;; That was cool. “Ooh! This song! *hums along*” ^-^

We made a stop at Mitsuwa on the way home. Mommy and I shared a “pork-flavored ramen” from Tampopo. XD And it was better than the other, a bit … still really salty. Not that that’s bad, I’m just thinking about my system digesting it. ^_^;; I also got her to buy nori in the market. (wheee, nori!! :D)

Then we looked at that “book” (manga) store. There was this huuge thing with GLAY on it. $50. Hm. o_o (They’re like full of pictures, or something, I don’t know.) The Ayumi Hamasaki one from some 2001 tour is still there, $15. And I knew no one else there. (There was a book on the top shelf that was labeled Brad Pitt. :b) Couldn’t find Gokinjo Monogatari or Paradise Kiss or any other manga I knew and was interested in (Inu-Yasha :b). The Ring 2 video is still there. *shiver* Must watch some time. ^^

Looked through Trendy (really, it’s the store’s name). Not much. Inu-Yasha DVDs, three, for $60. All-region coding, too. And subtitles. But … I didn’t want to spend that much money at the moment. And there was this Totoro doll, too. One of the smaller ones. It was so round and cuute! ^__^ Me want. But didn’t buy. (*can imagine SM00 hiding him as well* D<)

Then after dinner Mommy, Hidek, and I went to Westside Pavilion. I wanted The Sandman: Season of Mists and maybe some shirts, and Hidek wanted an Element hat. What we got: Element hat (black and red, oooh), Element t-shirt, and Vans t-shirt, and two pairs of shorts (Dutch girl style, as Mommy said ^_^;) and a Nirvana book for Hidek; larger purse (ish cool ^_^) to fit my sunglasses, The F***-Up, For All Time, Sorceress, Born Blue, and lastly, The Sandman: Season of Mists, all for me. No manga this time. *gasp* (And the string of “teen” books, I’ve wanted them all for a long while. For All Time since 9th grade or whenever. o_o)

I don’t know how much I spent … hopefully no more than $50. ^^;;; Oh yeah! Westside Pavilion has a skate shop. I never knew. They also have a PacSun that’s more LA-style (read: more coool :b) than the one in Thousand Oaks (i.e. upper middle-class x_x). I was actually beginning to think that it might not be so bad after all. :b~ Ooh ooh, and and, there’s an anime cart right outside the PacSun! *dances* Although it’s not as fully stocked as the one by Noelle (two shelves of manga and one shelf of DVDs *sniff*), it has a website! :D I still have to check that out. ^^;; Will do tomorrow.

Parting words … new layout (BoA ^^) at [STF (link to layout archive)]. I still have to make a new layout for IAT. And make the wallpaper site. (Or maybe not.) And divide Elsewhere into writing and images (I’m gonna rename EW “Ever Elsewhere.” ^^)

Mitsuwa, Ringu 2; tv, Ewan McGregor, RRK

Saturday, 14 June, 2003 at 1:23 am

Mommy and I got treats at Mitsuwa. We got nori and boro and rice candy. w00t! Except … they cheated me. ¬_¬ It saaaays “free children’s STICKER inside” and they give me a temp tattoo. Boo.

Mommy and I saw “Ringu 2” at Mitsuwa. Actually, I think that store is called Book Market or something. (It says “Recycle!” on their bag, haha.) Anyway. We were looking at the back and then Mommy put it back and as she was putting it back I noticed this tiny picture in the corner and I picked it up again and showed it to Momma and said, “That’s creepy.” It was just a picture of hair hanging off something with a white sheet covering the head and body. ^.^;; But it still gave me chills. >.> Yeah. I wanna see the Japanese version. Muuust haaave! Also the Animatrix. Hehehe. We watched the second one in multimedia. It was cool.

…

After dinner today I flipped through my favorites and Ewan McGregor was on the International Film Channel. I think he did an independent film recently? I’m not sure. It looked interesting, the little clip I saw … He said he doesn’t limit himself to just Hollywood films, he bases it on whether he can get excited about the script, and I thought … ‘He liked the Phantom Menace script?’ Well, maybe it looked good while it was on paper or something …

Oh yeah. I saw the last ten minutes or so of Rurouni Kenshin today. I saw what’s-his-name, the guy Noelle is talking about, the “12-year-old assassin.” :b Yeah, no kidding. x.x I don’t like his voice. I also don’t like Misao’s voice. Wai wai! I saw Misao today! Coool! :D (‘Cause Kaoru was such a disappointment :b) And people kept calling Kenshin a bum. Haha. Oh yeah. What’s-his-name. The guy who’s being called “Leader.” (I say, “Take me to your Lee-dur! :B” whenever I hear it. ^^;;) He had those two blades out of one sheath. Hehehe. nifty. Yeah.