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May. 31st, 2008 09:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flameravenSo, despite getting almost a week off of classes, I didn't end up doing much due to weather. Thursday I actually meant to go to school for just a few hours, but I ended up staying there all day, working on things online. Mainly caught up on some of the manga scanlations that I've been ignoring. Friday I went for a few hours, and then curled up at home and watched TV all day. But despite being very low-key... I wasn't really all that bored. In any case it really was too miserable out to do much.
For Saturday, Kyuu had invited me to go to a Korean cooking event, and since I didn't really have anything else to do, I went. (I'd never had Korean food, either, so I was a bit curious.) I met her and Brian at the station at 10:30, and we took the train to Nogi, which is a tiny little town maybe ten minutes away by train. Despite being tiny and kind of broken down, though, they did have an international center, which is where the event was held.
At first I'd thought we were just going to go and eat food, but we did in fact end up cooking the meal ourselves. There were two "teams," one making chijimi, which is basically Korean okonomiyaki, and the other making tan po kam tan, which was a sort of spicy vegetable and chicken stew. The chijimi was actually really good-- it was basically carrots, green onion, shrimp, squid, and clams all wrapped up in batter and then cooked like a pancake, and I ate quite a bit of it. The stew wasn't bad either, but I ate less of that because even the mild version was still too spicy for me.
Just before I'd left for the station, Techi (from the shingegumi) had texted me and said they were going "to play billiards and darts" that evening, and did I want to come? When I texted back to ask when we were meeting, she said I could either meet them at practice at four, or they'd pick me up at six. Since I didn't have much to do, and we had no practice Wednesday or Friday, I told her I'd meet them at four.
I kind of regretted this afterwards, because it was still cold and rainy, and I was reluctant to leave my warm and toasty apartment (and my game of Link's Awakening) so soon after I'd gotten home. But it turned out all right. We practiced two or three songs, and then continued work on "Matcha," which is the group's signature song, basically, and which is also quite difficult... we worked on it at last week's Sunday practice for three hours, and still only got halfway through the song. I was a bit frustrated because they kept guiding me through one part slowly, reminding me of all the steps, because I kept messing it up. Thing is, I know the correct steps and even the count, but it's tricky timing and so sometimes I slip up. Repeating what I'm supposed to do won't do me any good if I already know. I just need to practice it more, and I could do that just as well by repeating the song at normal speed. Ah well.
At six we drove to the station to pick up Nozomi and Kazei (Kazue?), and then drove down to our location of choice. It turned out to be one of the internet/manga cafes, called Aprecio. They'd talked about this place before, but I was actually really surprised by how nice it was. Everything was super-clean and very quiet; they had little cubicles with big armchairs and headphones, where you could sit and surf the net, a dozen bookshelves stuffed with manga, and a very well-stocked drink bar that had a full complement of drinks (coffee, cocoa, cappachino, a dozen different teas, and a bunch of soda) and even had a machine that would give you three different flavors of soup! The bathrooms had individually-wrapped toothbrushes and a hairbrush, and there was even a shower. It was practically a hotel.
Anyway, the back room was where we were headed-- they had two pool tables, two electronic dart boards and then a bunch of slot machines and a row of what was apparently mahjong games. The four of us played 9-ball for awhile, and I actually made a few good shots, though I didn't win any of the games. Eventually Kazu and Nozomi came back, and we ordered dinner-- 100-yen curry which was actually really good. There were a few more games of 9-ball, and then Jun, Nozomi, and I switched to darts. The electronic boards aren't quite as cool as the actual metal-tipped darts, even if they do make scoring much easier, but it was fun anyway. I somehow managed to win the first game (after starting out over a hundred points behind), by scoring two bulls-eyes in a row (one was even in the exact center of the bulls-eye, how awesome is that?), and did pretty well at the other games, though I didn't win again.
It was actually a really fun time; the cafe was a perfect hang out place, and it wasn't crowded at all even though it was a Saturday night. If it wasn't so far away I'd definitely go there more often-- it is open 24 hours, after all. We need more places like that in the US.
We left at nine, since Nozomi had to go home, and they wanted to go bowling afterwards (and apparently other places after that; they were talking about Rika getting off work at 1 am, and meeting her to go somewhere) but, while I wanted to go, unfortunately I hadn't brought enough money with me. So they dropped me off at my apartment, and I stayed home and played some more Zelda.
Still, it was a really fun time. A nice break in my weekend.
For Saturday, Kyuu had invited me to go to a Korean cooking event, and since I didn't really have anything else to do, I went. (I'd never had Korean food, either, so I was a bit curious.) I met her and Brian at the station at 10:30, and we took the train to Nogi, which is a tiny little town maybe ten minutes away by train. Despite being tiny and kind of broken down, though, they did have an international center, which is where the event was held.
At first I'd thought we were just going to go and eat food, but we did in fact end up cooking the meal ourselves. There were two "teams," one making chijimi, which is basically Korean okonomiyaki, and the other making tan po kam tan, which was a sort of spicy vegetable and chicken stew. The chijimi was actually really good-- it was basically carrots, green onion, shrimp, squid, and clams all wrapped up in batter and then cooked like a pancake, and I ate quite a bit of it. The stew wasn't bad either, but I ate less of that because even the mild version was still too spicy for me.
Just before I'd left for the station, Techi (from the shingegumi) had texted me and said they were going "to play billiards and darts" that evening, and did I want to come? When I texted back to ask when we were meeting, she said I could either meet them at practice at four, or they'd pick me up at six. Since I didn't have much to do, and we had no practice Wednesday or Friday, I told her I'd meet them at four.
I kind of regretted this afterwards, because it was still cold and rainy, and I was reluctant to leave my warm and toasty apartment (and my game of Link's Awakening) so soon after I'd gotten home. But it turned out all right. We practiced two or three songs, and then continued work on "Matcha," which is the group's signature song, basically, and which is also quite difficult... we worked on it at last week's Sunday practice for three hours, and still only got halfway through the song. I was a bit frustrated because they kept guiding me through one part slowly, reminding me of all the steps, because I kept messing it up. Thing is, I know the correct steps and even the count, but it's tricky timing and so sometimes I slip up. Repeating what I'm supposed to do won't do me any good if I already know. I just need to practice it more, and I could do that just as well by repeating the song at normal speed. Ah well.
At six we drove to the station to pick up Nozomi and Kazei (Kazue?), and then drove down to our location of choice. It turned out to be one of the internet/manga cafes, called Aprecio. They'd talked about this place before, but I was actually really surprised by how nice it was. Everything was super-clean and very quiet; they had little cubicles with big armchairs and headphones, where you could sit and surf the net, a dozen bookshelves stuffed with manga, and a very well-stocked drink bar that had a full complement of drinks (coffee, cocoa, cappachino, a dozen different teas, and a bunch of soda) and even had a machine that would give you three different flavors of soup! The bathrooms had individually-wrapped toothbrushes and a hairbrush, and there was even a shower. It was practically a hotel.
Anyway, the back room was where we were headed-- they had two pool tables, two electronic dart boards and then a bunch of slot machines and a row of what was apparently mahjong games. The four of us played 9-ball for awhile, and I actually made a few good shots, though I didn't win any of the games. Eventually Kazu and Nozomi came back, and we ordered dinner-- 100-yen curry which was actually really good. There were a few more games of 9-ball, and then Jun, Nozomi, and I switched to darts. The electronic boards aren't quite as cool as the actual metal-tipped darts, even if they do make scoring much easier, but it was fun anyway. I somehow managed to win the first game (after starting out over a hundred points behind), by scoring two bulls-eyes in a row (one was even in the exact center of the bulls-eye, how awesome is that?), and did pretty well at the other games, though I didn't win again.
It was actually a really fun time; the cafe was a perfect hang out place, and it wasn't crowded at all even though it was a Saturday night. If it wasn't so far away I'd definitely go there more often-- it is open 24 hours, after all. We need more places like that in the US.
We left at nine, since Nozomi had to go home, and they wanted to go bowling afterwards (and apparently other places after that; they were talking about Rika getting off work at 1 am, and meeting her to go somewhere) but, while I wanted to go, unfortunately I hadn't brought enough money with me. So they dropped me off at my apartment, and I stayed home and played some more Zelda.
Still, it was a really fun time. A nice break in my weekend.
