Archive for the 'Life' Category

Post-Wedding Shots

I wasn't trying to live up to the cliché by having a cat in the photo with me. I'm fairly allergic to cats. It's actually a very well-fed stray in my neighborhood who decided to beg for food from me and the photographer by rubbing itself all over us!

Nadia and Cat

The next day we went to Kyoto with our friends and family. I'm still not sure what this taxi company thinks its name means…

Kinki Taxi

Our hotel in Kyoto. We were kinda wondering how bad the place was going to be based on its name, but it turned out to be fairly serviceable. It has an excellent breakfast bar (awesome pastries!) which is included in your room rate.

Super Hotel

Kinkakuji — bling bling that puts the phattest crib to shame! It was originally a shogun's retirement home, but later converted into a temple.

Kinkakuji

Obligatory food p0rn: soba and tempura set. My family loved it. Kyoto has great soba and tofu and pickled veggies, but nothing else from what I understand.

Soba & Tempura Set

Oyako-don a.k.a. Mother and Child Over Rice. It contains chicken and eggs, hence the name.

oyako don

Shabu shabu!

shabu shabu


One More Picture

Someone told me it was silly to post wedding photos without the bride and groom in them. Unfortunately we haven't gotten any until now. It's a snap shot taken with a cell phone by one of our guests. You can see me feeding Hero Material some of our delish cake.

FYI — the dress in the picture is not the wedding dress I wore to the actual ceremony. I had to change because the wedding dress had a huge train, and there was no way I could do anything without two people hovering around me to take care of the danged thing. (It was heavy too.)

More stories to come…! (When I'm more lucid.)

bride and groom

ETA: Kumi Lipman from Cleo did my hair and makeup. I can't even begin to describe how much I adore her.


A Few Photos from Wedding (More to Come!)

Hi everyone,

I'm now officially a Mrs! :) Hero Material and I got married on January 4th. It was supposed to rain, but the weather was perfect during the ceremony and reception.

I still can't believe that my brother and Hero Material's best friend felt sick before the wedding. They were going to take pictures! My brother was so sick, the hospital gave him an IV the day before the wedding. Thank God he recovered fast.

I'll post more stories and photos as soon as I get them from photographers (studio, bro & Hero Material's best friend), but here are a few:

The hotel lobby —

lobby

This is the Atrium where we got married. This photo was taken when it was still empty. The virgin road is made of ivory faux marble (superbly-polished…!).

atrium

This is my bouquet after the reception. It looked so fresh and dewy earlier in the day, and I wish I'd been able to take a picture of it then, but was too busy.

BTW — Hibiya Kaden created my bouquet and everything else I needed (flower-wise) for the wedding. I highly recommend their service if you ever need a florist in Japan. They worked within my budget, and though they never showed me the bouquet until the day of the wedding, it was just perfect. Their florist (who took my order and worked with my so-so Japanese) came to our reception to make sure that everything was fine and to congratulate us on our happy occasion.

bouquet

Close-up:

bouquet

More to come soon…! :) (I have Kyoto pictures to share as well.)

How was your new year celebration?


Pictures from Christmas

Peanut and Buttercup were up early.

Peanut and Buttercup

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This is Buttercup saying “Merry Christmas”. Don't ask me why she looks so crabby…maybe she thought she was getting a stocking full of cashew but didn't…?

Buttercup

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Peanut tried to kiss my fingertips but couldn't quite reach them. :)

Peanut

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Kuro says hi!

Kuro

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Awesome dinner with Hero Material (it was doubly awesome because I didn't have to cook):

Appetizer:

appetizer

Our rose champagne:

rose champagne

Garlic toast – salty & garlic-y with lots of olive oil:

garlic toast

Pasta w/ crab & tomato cream sauce. It was very delish!

crab pasta

Broiled tai. Very nicely flavored.

tai

Beef with green sauce. Tender and flavorful:

beef

Christmas cake!!!!!!!!!! The frosting was the best. Super light and fresh white cream with strawberry topping. The sponge cake with super moist and soft. Sublime. Yum!

christmas_cake

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Lovely illuminations:

Carriage:

carriage

Cinderella's pumpkin carriage:

pumpkin carriage

Heart trees!

heart trees

Train:

train

Ship:

ship

Christmas tree with solar-powered lights:

solar Christmas tree

Afterward we watched Avatar in 3D. It was good although some parts were very predictable.

How was your Christmas? :)


My Vision of a Post-Apocalyptic World

These days I've discovered a new treat called kawahagi mirin. It's basically a filefish fillet marinated in Japanese mirin and dried. I like to roast it over an open flame on the stove before eating it.

So as I was roasting two, I told Hero Material: Hey don't you think this is just like some post-apocalyptic world?

Hero Material: Huh?

Me: You know, it's like the world just exploded, and we have to cook over the open flames!

Hero Material: *laughs*

Me: What?????

Hero Material: In your post-Apocalyptic world, you can get flames by pressing a button?

Me: Well…it's kinda important to be able to make hot food…

Guess I won't last very long in Hero Material's version of the post-apocalyptic world.


Good Bye Shiro

On Friday November 13 at around 1:30 a.m. Japan Time, I found Shiro lying on her side under her favorite big wheel in the green cage. When I touched her, she was cold and didn't respond at all. I thought she was dead, but Hero Material said she was still breathing.

He took her out of the cage and held her gently between his hands. They're almost always warmer than mine, and we thought maybe if we could make her warm again, she'd be okay.

After all, that courageous hamster had fought and won against many illnesses.

I still remember the first time I saw her in a local pet store. She was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen: pure white except for the soft velvety gray ear tips and gorgeous sparkling black eyes. She lived in a small glass cage with Kuro. We were initially going to get only one hamster, but I thought maybe she'd be lonely by herself. So we bought Kuro as well.

They were my first pets. That night as they were playing in their new cage with a wheel (their old one didn't have one) I couldn't take my eyes off of them. They were hilarious, active and utterly adorable. I was in love.

Subsequent discovery that Kuro is a male hamster shocked me — he was supposed to be a she! — but Shiro and Kuro got along so well I didn't have the heart to return him to the pet shop. Nor did Hero Material. We kept them both. Shiro delivered her first litter: Peanut and Buttercup.

Then a disease ravaged her small body. It was a diarrhea caused by some parasites. I don't know how she got it, but it destroyed her appetite on top of everything else. She refused to eat her favorite food — green veggies, nuts, seeds, etc. At one point, her weight dropped all the way from 55 grams to 17 grams. When she collapsed on her side, we thought this was it…until she jumped back up.

She never made a full recovery — the diarrhea never stopped even though her weight reached around 36 grams. That's still very small for a hamster. Her mate Kuro weighs around 50-55 grams.

Small or not, sick or not, she was a fierce mother. I remember the time when I decided to clean her cage after she had her second litter. It was getting very stinky, and her babies were old enough that I could clean her cage without turning her against them. When she realized that her babies were exposed to some alien presence, she gathered them together and covered them with her own body, while giving me the death glare.

She always gave her affection to us generously. When I put my hand near her, she placed her paw on my fingertip and said her little hamster hello. She nose-kissed Hero Material many times, and she loved the attention she got from us.

So as she lay cold on Hero Material's palm, we took Kuro out, so they could say good bye. He groomed her cold blue belly and petted her a little.

I don't know how long we held her. I started to feel anxious because I saw blood where she'd lain down. She had no wound or open cut on her, and because where the stain was, she'd probably vomited the blood before we found her.

Finally when her paws started twitching and her whispers flickered, we thought maybe…maybe she'd come back to us just like she'd done many times before. However, it turned out to be her last breath.

Most winter white hamsters live for 2-3 years. She was only one year old.

We placed a big cashew nut between her forepaws. Cashews were her favorite food in the whole world. We didn't want her to be hungry. Then we wrapped her in a long swath of scentless white tissue. It was her favorite thing to make nests with. We wanted her to have something she liked so she can make a home for herself. Then we placed her in a white box in which our wedding ring came and buried her under a beautiful willow tree by the river, so every time we walk by, we can say hello. So that she knows she'll always be remembered and loved.

Farewell, Shiro.

Shiro