so i guess given the fact that i had this account from years back, i'm not "new" to blogging, but in all honesty, i am "new" in the blogging scene that has become so popular as of late. figured if i want to get into social media and online community stuff necessary for marketing, branding, et cetera online, i should start practicing again here.
i need to revamp this site too- it's horribly ugly.  i'll work on it sometime soon.
here's to practice and a new look.

some friends are seriously good for the soul.

it's been way too long, pseudo. 

thank you for the wonderful time last night.
the timing couldn't have been better.

been over a month now and i've definitely been faced with a handful of challenges.

i can't wait to feel the growth and see what lessons come out of this experience.

here's to working hard to learn a lot and become a better me.

holy shit.

i'm back again.

new chapter, new year, new goals.

will have to write more later.

here's to a heartful time here in tokyo filled with fun, enlightenment, and growth!

Reunited with luggage
For the passengers who landed in the Hudson River, their returned items are keepsakes.

how is it that the flight that crash landed into a freaking river is able to return lost luggage to the passengers, and stupid russian aeroflot airlines is unable to return my lost luggage?  stupid effers.

Education is when you read the fine print. Experience is what you get if you don't.
- Pete Seeger

http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/106964/Japan-Pays-Foreign-Workers-to-Go-Home

TODAY'S HOROSCOPE FOR

Olivia Wong

Libra: Fabulous news is coming your way today.  It's just what you need after a rough few months. .

being chinese and from san gabriel valley, i grew up with chinese buo luo bao, pineapple bun.

                      


ok, keep that image in mind, so you can imagine my surprise when i first saw these similar pastries in japan:

                    
except they're called melon pan, melon bread.

weird.  i remembered being boggled by why each country chose different fruits to represent similar looking and tasting pastries/breads.  then, today as i write this entry, i started to realize that it's probably based on the different images each country has of fruit.  when i (being chinese) imagine sketching a pineapple, i think of an oval with diagonal criss crossed thatched patterns with a crazy hairdo-like bunch of leaves on top:

and now that i've taught in japan for abour 2.5 years, i've come across many, many images of fruits drawn by elementary school kids. 

everytime my students draw a melon, it's a circle with diagonal criss crossed thatched patterns:

okay, so with those images in mind, it makes sense that chinese pineapple buns are always yellow.

and similarly, the orange and green melon pans make sense:

         (cantaloupe)                                          (honeydew)

but what the hell is up with this:

here's the "melon pan" i got with school lunch last week. 
now what kinda "melon" is pale yellow? 
ok, yes, there are yellow watermelons, but that won't fly cuz in japan, watermelons aren't called melons.
they're suica in japanese.

now that's just lazy.  you could at least try to be a bit more consistent.

now i'm starting to wonder what came first: the pineapple bun or the melon pan? 
i'm inclined to think that it started in china first and then came to japan, where it got its name changed to "melon bread" as opposed to "pineapple bun."  did the japanese take the chinese pineapple bun and adapt it creatively (as they so often and so fabulously do) to the japanese market?

who knows though.  it could've been the other way around.  or it could have even started somewhere else completely.  but whatever, it's not an important detail.

anyways, this week, i looked at the school lunch schedule and "pine pan" (pineapple bread) was written for this wednesday's menu.  i got really excited cuz i thought maybe something like the chinese pineapple bun would come out and then i could discuss this whole similarity issue with my japanese friends at work. 

 

 

this is what pine bread turned out to be:

 hardly anything worth comparing.  it was decently tasty though.  i did enjoy the chunks of pineapple in the oddly similar to a hot dog bun shaped bread.

and just for fun, can you guess which ones are pineapple buns and which ones are melon pans?

done?  okay, and the answers are......................
(left to right, top to bottom)

pineapple bun       ,       melon pan

pineapple bun       ,       melon pan

and this one's just fucking disturbing.

that's definitely melon pan.