.: The time of the year

I made Malaysianized pasta sauce to eat with Macaroni the day before my birthday and invited my Japanese friends. Ever since we found that shop in Ueno, my cooking repertoire has increased immensely. (Besides how many fish dishes can you cook before turning into a fish yourself?)

The Sauce

Ingredients;
Minced beef
Onion & garlic (bawang merah & bawang putih)
Ginger
Dried Chilli( I only used one because its super hot)
Prego (Okay, okay I cheated a little)
Tomato Puree
Green pepper
Button mushroom
Salt & Sugar
Lime juice
(Cream; My friend suggested this but I forgot to include it this time)

Instructions;
Blend the onion, garlic, ginger, and chilli. Heat the blended stuff in a pot with some oil and then cook the beef with it. Next, put prego and tomato puree (Add 2 cans of water) and let it soak in the beef. After that, add all the rest of the ingredients in moderate quantities.

Anyway, Yoshi-kun, Sho-chan, and Shu-chan said they were, "Ume.." Hehe.. after they had their second helpings, (Actually I made a lot for the whole house and more. But the 2nd batch of macaroni was still cooking in the pot.) I had my first birthday surprise, Yoshi-kun took out a box from the fridge and said, "For you!"

I screamed in delight. The chocolate cake was sooo kawaii. The most important thing is that they got my name right. It made my day. It was the sweetest thing for them to do. I told them, "Demo, watashi no tanjoubi wa ashita desu." They said it's okay to celebrate early. Of course. The cake was one of the best birthday cakes (mine and others) I've had so far. Chocolate heaven in a box.

Yoshi-kun brought his guitar so we looked up for chords on the net and did a little sing along. What's great about Yoshi-kun is that his guitar skills are much much much better than most and he pick up songs easily although he has never heard of the songs that I asked him (nicely) to play for me. Among them were my all-time favorites; Can't take my eyes off you, How do I, You were Meant for Me, Aitai Kimochi etc.

Then we played Simpsons Monopoly. Now even though I won the game, it doesn't mean I was making all the rules as we were going along, okay. I played fair, in fact I was nicer with them since it was their first game of monopoly. Okay okay, maybe it wasn't that fair. But I was the birthday girl after all. ;p

Exactly 0000, Kate came running down the stair with a goody bag for me. I was screaming again, she got me 2 mangas and a pair of red earrings that she made herself. I wore them staight away to go for karaoke.

We sang all night and by the time we got back it was only 3 hours away until I had my volunteering to do, at 8:30am. I sorta dressed up because I was feeling that great. We met Jeff and Kate Kamakahi at the station and they got me Pocky sticks (winter edition special) for my bithday breakfast. I've developed an obsession for Pocky/Rocky sticks by the way. I have to have them in my room. I shared that morning fix with everybody and it tasted even more yummy.

I was in charged of the Japanese green tea booth with Nobu-san, Aoki-san, Kajino-san, Tomo-chan, and Mika-chan. Dan also helped a bit in the booth. About the tea, Nobu-san told me to eat a piece of chocolate before drinking it. Thank God she told me that because it was soooooo bitter, it wasn't even real. The chocolate made it bearable and somewhat tasty in a peversed sense (whatever that supposed to mean). I had a great time serving the Japanese sweet cakes and saying, "Sho sho o machi kudasai. Go yukkuri doozo.." Please wait and enjoy the cake. Tomo-chan and Mika-chan really helped me a lot with my conduct since their english is so good.

Spending your birthday in a bazaar is not bad at all. I got a cool hanging watch from Bakh, a necklace from Vanya, Kate and Jeff, a ring from the lady in the watch store, some cakes and sweets from my new friends, 50% cut on my smokey quartz to add to my wrist collection etc. I did some shopping for the people at home too which will save me a lot of time among other things.

When I got back I was too tired and cranky to go to sleep so I called my sis and heard Nabil chatting like a grown up. Man, I missed the little monkey. Chatted with another monkey and got a birthday coupon for BK's Whopper(hopefully with the cheese in place) and Gulai masak lemak ayam. Waaa.. I'm drooling for home.

I guess my birthday went great. I particularly miss home, more than I did during Raya. I guess it was because birthdays are personal and stuff like that are hard to figure out. But, I'll always have my comfort food anywhere I go.