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Flashback on Mochi

Well... Since Nana was in Japan and couldn't send them before, I received the pics today and decided to show you what making Mochi looks like... and give you at the same time some information about it too!
First, here is some info about Mochi, for those of you who don't really know what it is.

Mochi is a Japanese rice cake made of glutinous rice pounded into paste and molded into shape. The event when it is traditionally made and where I went to with Nana-chan is called Mochitsuki. During that ceremony, the making of the mochi follows three main steps:

Step #1 as such, is not really part of the mochitsuki ceremony, I think... We don't get to see it but we know that polished glutinous rice is soaked overnight and cooked.



The first pictures above represents Step #2 . You see me hit the wet rice paste with two other people in a mortar (called usu) with a huge mallet (kine) in a steady rhythm. 1,2,3. 1,2,3. The rhythm is very important, otherwise it's easy to get injured hitting each other with the very heavy Kine. Between several sets, one person is in charge of turning and wetting the mochi...



Once the paste is done, step three (look at the above picture) is to give the pounded mochi a shape... which is usually round or cubic.

And this is what it should look like:


Fans of food (I'm thinking of Heeja especially), you should know that Mochi is not just a mere cake and there is a variety of ways to eat it. The most popular example would be the famous Japanese traditional sweet, called Daifuku, which is basically a mochi stuffed with a sweet filling (such as red-bean paste).
They also make ice-cream balls wrapped with mochi, known in Korea as Yumiki Daifuku... (Snow viewing daifuku). I've been told that there is also a famous soup "Oshiruko", which is a sweet azuki bean soup with pieces of Mochi. Apparently, it's pretty popular in the winter!
Now let me show you a video... Okay okay, don't laugh too much, the hammer was really heavy!! I was not very good at it... but I tried my best !!
So this ends today's entry about Mochi. I really hope you guys get to try it someday! :)
Happy New Year!!!!!!
Keumerz @ 9:29 PM< [[ 2 comments ]]



Last week laaa

This week, I had the craziest adventures!! lol First of all... I studied all week-end long for a Microeconomics exam... Then, I took the exam on tuesday.... but half-way through the exam I realized I was in the wrong section, with the wrong teacher and the wrong exam! The material was more or less the same but my teacher sent me an email to tell me I could take a deferred exam in May.... I don't know if I'm lucky or not, but that should give me time to study for it again.................. Anyways, it's past, I'm just gonna stop thinking about it...

Wednesday night, I went for Karaoke with Nana-chan, Monica, Heeja and Fiona... We only went one hour cuz Laser doesn't exist anymore... It's now owned by Chinese who overcharge!!!! ridiculous..... Anyways, we still had fun singing crazy Chinese, Japanese, English and Korean songs... Later I went to the library to study Cantonese with Fiona and Heeja... crazy girls.. They got me into learning Cantonese!!! ngo seung gong gwong dong wa aaah! (I wanna speak Canto)

Thursday, I had a bunch of promises... Went for coffee with Asami-chan, then tutored Sangeun for one hours then I had dinner with Ryosuke and Miki. We had some Thai food and then went to a piano concert given by children of some music school... The highlight of the evening was their friend's performance (Takashi), a very talented pianist!!!! He was really amazing.... then...I met with Moonjin who left the next day for the break and together, we went to say goodbye to Joanna unni who just graduated언니 졸업 축하해요!
Friday, I had lunch with Kanako chan, my favorite ping-pong friend in McGill (lol!) had coffee with Amparo, a Spanish friend and later hung out with Fiona and Aki-nee chan. Those two are an awesome pair and being with them is truly AWESOME! daisuki dayo!! ngo oi nei day ahhhh!! So yeah, I had dinner with Fiona and Ly, one of her friends who's like half Canto half Viet? (Wow, can't I have simple friends for once? no wait, this is Canada, noone's simple! lol) We then headed to Aki's place, where we received homemade chocolate made by Aki who's seriously one the sweetest people I've ever met... (with the prettiest smile!) We stayed over, watching the movie "The Interpreter", which is actually one of my favorite movies. Here is a pic of Aki, putting me to bed, like a big sister... ^^ a bit embarrassing, but I admit I slept so well after that!
Saturday, I went to Mochi tsuki with Nana-chan. I LOVE MOCHI! (As you can see, I'm getting tired, so I start screaming about things I love....... don't mind me...) Later, I went for dinner with Charles, Fiona and Aki nee chan. As you can see on these pics:
After that, I went to explain MICROECONOMICS to Nana... I never thought I'd do that, but I tried my best... So we all headed to Atwater, except Aki who had to finish a paper... We had coffee there, Heeja met us too and we had a blast laughing about just anything.... Nana burnt me good that night... I was explaining to her the principle of Excess Demand and Excess Supply. And she said with her usual little sarcastic smile: "So 1 Keumyeo is excess supply right?".... which made everyone burst out laughing... What a BURN! lol Nana-chan u're the best... but gosh, you're gonna get it!
Sunday, I went through a crazy Snow Storm to go to my hometown in the North (Chicoutimi). It took me 10 hours instead of 5, and there were accidents all over the road... so scary... Anyways, I met a pretty funny guy on the bus... I've been doing not much at home except resting and preparing X-mas gifts and cards... Sorry, it'll be laaaateee !!! as usual...
Tomorrow heading to the Valinouet, the ski resort... Gonna be fun!! I wish you guys the bestest holiday ever!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Keumyeo
Keumerz @ 2:10 AM< [[ 0 comments ]]



Two Monica's


Today was not such a good day, since I studied all day and still got nothing done cuz I don't understand anything... I think exam time is quite depressing and I started getting all nostalgic again... But I don't wanna talk about today, I wanna talk about something happy. So I'll talk about yesterday! (Which is actually the day before yesterday, since it's now Sunday 1 a.m....)

Friday, I had my first exam. I think I did okay, but it took me more time than I expected. Later, I accidentally texted two Monica's for lunch. They didn't know each other, but they got along pretty well!! We all had lunch together at the Eaton Center. I had some Lebanese food (shawarma and... some meat, I can't remember the name) and it was delicious!


We talked for a long time, during and after lunch. For some reason, they have really complicated origins. Monica L. (on the left) is half Mexican, a quarter French and a quarter Italian (sorry if the proportions are wrong). Monica O. (on the right) is half Japanese and half Swedish! Of course, they both speak perfectly a bunch of amazing languages and having a conversation with them is more than interesting. We talked about asian languages for a little while, mentioning the characters in Kanji that Monica O's mom gave her: 萌香. Monica L. tried to recopy the characters and told us that she knew how to write her name in Korean. She described it as a computer, a 4 and a 7 with a thingy on the side.... Here's what it's supposed to look like: 모니카. (I hope it shows with the encoding...) Then she told us about the fact that she had roommates who were Korean and Japanese and that's why she knows a bunch of songs in each language. After lunch, we headed to Second Cup, where Monica L. treated us. Thank you so much !!! :) Strangely, the coffee shop was decorated with Greek drawings... but there was Mexican and Latin American music playing the whole time! People were looking at us weird cuz we kept switching languages between Japanese, Spanish and English (and sometimes even French!). It was kinda random that we met each other that day, but it had been such a long time and I was so happy to see both of them!



On the same day, I went to bring back that Crap of a computer that Futureshop sent me. (They sent me a computer that I ordered ages ago very late and on top of that it was broken!) I returned it and demanded a refund and I promised myself to NEVER EVER buy there again. Instead, I went to Dumoulin and bought a computer there. They're much nicer and this time, the computer works! :) I went for dinner at Osaka with KH oppa who kindly helped me carry the computer to downtown. Osaka was packed as usual and I saw a lot of people whom I knew. Miki, Ryosuke, Sachiyo, Li Shan, Uri, Winnie. And they seemed to be in different groups too. I was so surprised! haha. It was fun to see them all there.
Keumerz @ 1:02 AM< [[ 0 comments ]]



With You

Today (thursday) I woke up to the sweet voice of..... Nana-chan! lol I had asked her to wake me up by phone. Yesterday night I really thought my head was gonna explode, I was so tired... Ask Heeja, I was going crazy acting like I was totally drunk... Hm fatigue..... never a good thing.

So I studied in the morning, read some stuff for my exam and headed out to meet Aki-nee chan. We had coffee with Nasser, Heather, Fiona and Masa-san. We talked for a little while, then Heather and I got busy doing some stuff on the computer... Later, most people left and Nana-chan came by so we had a talk. Fiona told us about some Asian history and it was really interesting. She tried to teach me some Cantonese but not much success there...

Then I went to study again and as I was walking home I started to stress about my exam and get a bit nostalgic and melancholic... And then, a nice surprise was waiting for me on Facebook... My oh-so-sweet bf sent me this video:




The song, by Chris Brown, is called "With you". I thought it's very sweet, so I felt like sharing it with you guys! :) Boo!
Keumerz @ 12:00 AM< [[ 2 comments ]]



Daniel's b-day, Heather's cats and Nana's okonomiyaki

Yesterday, Seungsoo oppa (Daniel) had a birthday party at Cine-Express, the bar where all the Koreans usually go to drink and party. I hesitated a long time before going, cuz I have exams on monday, but I in the end, I am really happy that I went. When I got there with KH oppa, Seungsoo oppa was already drunk and so was.... Heeja! well, she wasn't trashed or anything but her face was red and happy... lol I think Seungsoo oppa must have been happy that so many people were there for him, despite the exams coming up! There were many 30 people!! ^^; Most of them were Koreans and I did not know them. But there were also the usual Alex oppa, Seongwang oppa, Jaehwa oppa, Jungyu oppa and so on. Aki-nee chan and Jini unni were there too!!! Well, I talked mostly to Winnie (see pic on the right) and some other students from our Korean class and found out they were pretty cool people! (I think from now the Korean class will be much more enjoyable!)


After the party, I went over at Heeja's for a studying session, which turned out to be a night of talking and playing with the kittens... which are not kittens anymore... they're big and fat... but still cute! lol Here are some pics:


Aren't they cute? lol They were much better when they were small but meh, I guess they had to grow eventually......... Anyways. lol I think I am becoming soft, cuz I'm really starting to enjoy the company of cats...... Hmm. What's going on?!


In the morning, I talked some more with Heather and we had fun trying to webcam and understand how come she had a shower gel called Irish Spring..... The cats kept playing and jumping (like, literally, one of them jumped-attacked the other one... it was impressive). Then, we were about go to studying when we decided that it was useless to study on a empty stomach.... So we went to Eggspectations, a restaurant on De la Montagne st.... It was pretty good and fast... (even though they brought us side jams and stuff like that that had already been opened......................) Anyways, we tried to catch up for all the time we haven't been able to spend together this year... lol... I think we ought to have a potluck party as soon as Kiki comes back..... Don't you think?

Afterwards, I headed to Nana's place, which has become my new favorite place to study... lol.
The table of her kitchen is perfect to study... It's cold enough to keep me awake for ever... Her roommate is pretty funny... Her cats are rather cute, except when they try to jump on the counter..... And and and! Nana is seriously a great host... every time, she gives me tea and treats and I get to eat something delicious.... This time she made okonomiyaki... it was so good!! ^^ On the left, there is a pic of Nana, about to eat the product of her efforts. (Nana-samani kansha shiteimasu. Mata ikimasu. haha). In the end, I went home with a strange cab driver who overcharged me and took the longest way... Grr.
Keumerz @ 12:19 AM< [[ 2 comments ]]


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