A Quest for Baking Soda

Hi! It's still snowy here. :) We're supposed to get snow this evening and tomorrow, so I may not ever be able to ride a bike around here again. I've been walking around town instead, which I kind of enjoy. You get to stop more and enjoy the sights. I love how pretty everything looks with a nice coat of snow. It's really beautiful!
It's the Ogawa River, I think. This river is about 3 minutes away from campus. You can see a guy fishing in the shadows - usually they just catch them, then throw them back.
A Japanese cemetary. All of the monuments are little obelisks and they're clustered really close together. I don't really know the traditions relating to burial here, though I am curious. I feel like it's a little rude to ask, though.

I have to insert a random kanji (Japanese character) interlude today. As a quick background, kanji are Chinese characters that have been adapted to Japanese. A lot of them are kind of pictographic. Most complex characters are made up of a bunch of simpler characters called radicals. Some radicals have a specific meaning in every kanji. For example, all kanji containing イ have something to do with people (ie 使う, use), all kanji with シhave to do with water (洗う, wash), and so on. So, sometimes you can piece together the meaning of a character by looking at its radicals. It's a really clever system. Here's an example we learned today: the character for bird is 鳥. It contains the radical that means white, 白. ((By the way, I hope you can read all the characters...just realized that might be an issue)) The character for "crow" is almost exactly the same, except for one thing: 烏. If you would notice, the white radical has a line missing. That's symbolic of the fact that because crows are so dark, you often can't see them. This is why I love learning kanji - absolutely fascinating.

Yesterday, after class Amanda and I finally caved and had to go to the grocery store. It was still treacherous getting there by bike, so we decided to walk. No big deal, right? It was a 40-minute walk to the store. Honestly, though, it wasn't bad! I totally didn't notice the time until we got there and then I was a little surprised it took as long as it did. Once we got there, we tried this little snack called taiyaki. They're little fish-shaped (not -flavored, thankfully) pancakes that are filled with something. I tried the custard- and red bean-filled, but I've heard the chocolate ones are also good. :)

I was doing pretty well with finding things in the grocery store, except for baking soda. I needed it for Amanda's cake, and while I found the baking aisle (which is really about a third of an aisle, and full of sprinkles and not much else) I could not find the baking soda. So, Beisia shop clerk to the rescue! Sort of. In our pidgin Japanese, Amanda and I attempted to explain what we wanted. "For baking a cake." We started with. He grabbed a fellow clerk to come help us. We tried to tell him its name in Japanese but apparently garbled it because they both looked at us funny. Then, I tried to explain that it makes the cake rise, but ended up just saying, "When you're making a cake..." and making rising motions with my hands. They were still confused, not surprisingly. I told them the name in English, and they said, "Aa! Baking powder!" "No, not quite..." I answered, at which point he started grabbing boxes off the shelf to show us. And, wouldn't you know it, the baking soda box had "Baking Soda", in English, clear as day, written on the side. Fail. But, the important point is that we now have baking soda, so I can make her cake tonight. And Japanese grocery store workers are exceptionally helpful. I cannot tell you how many times I have asked them, "Sumimasen, ____ wa doko desu ka?" (Most useful phrase ever: "Excuse me, where is ____?", and they are always super-nice and usually take me right to it. I love Japanese customer service.

After shopping, we grabbed dinner (because every grocery store here also has a food court!) - I had ramen while my roommate had McDonald's. Remember the Texas burger? It's not the only one! There's a whole series of 'em: Texas2(with chili; they had the original Texas burger last year with fried onions and barbecue sauce), Idaho(with a hash brown and bacon), Manhattan(with what looks like a deli sandwich crammed in there), and Miami(with nachos on top). :D They all look unappetizing to me!

So, after that adventure (and buying TONS and TONS of food, it seemed like), we took a cab back to JCMU because it was cold and icy and we had lots of groceries. And my roommate called a cab all by herself! I was very impressed. Hopefully I will get to that level of confidence in my speaking skills someday.

Today's been pretty uneventful so far! Besides a bread adventure for lunch. We walked through sleet to go get Vidal, and I have now had tasty custard-filled bread and an orange-chocolate loaf waiting for me for breakfast tomorrow. :D We just had 2 hours of class (and a listening worksheet to complete on our own) today, and besides a quick meeting with one of my teachers I have a free afternoon. My plan is to make something new for dinner (gyuudon, a rice bowl with marinated beef and onions on top, mmmm), bake a cake, and play 42. I promise to have pictures of the carrot cake odyssey...I'm hoping it turns out okay, because I've been craving cream cheese icing.

Have a lovely week! Enjoy staying warm...I keep seeing the weather in Dallas and being a bit jealous.