Lemon riccotta pancakes

My sister and I made lemon riccotta pancakes for breakfast. The recipe is from Bobby Flay. It was super yummy with a hint of nutmeg too. We made a syrup from lilicoi jam that my sister brought back from Hawaii.


Try it with really good tea on a lazy Sunday. It will really make you happy...

Pizzeria Delfina

Anybody visiting San Francisco should go to the Mission and eat at Pizzeria Delfina or the bakery nextdoor called Tartine Bakery. It's really nice and you get to see the hipster neighbors (who probably all work at Google) and the mural filled neighborhood on the way from the metro station.

The Mural Project in the Mission

My sister and I discovered the Mural Project in the Mission on our way to her favorite pizzera.


I always thought the Mission was a scary neighborhood of San Francisco, but I stand corrected. Once you walk past the countless scary but joyful homeless/hippies who dominate the metro station, walk south on Mission Street towards 18th Street. It's on the left side where the street hits a small passage called Clarion Alley.

Mitsuo Aida

I came back to Japan for the beginning of my winter holiday, and just randomly stopped by the Tokyo Kokusai Forum in Ginza where I encountered poet and calligrapher Mitsuo Aida's work.

It is simply amazing and so human. He started learning under a Zen monk and learned and absorbed all the sayings from Buddhism. Then he translated that into his own words and into a more human form poetry. His calligraphy also evolved from a sterile perfect writing, into a human, unsecular and touching form.

It's really unfortunate that it is impossible to represent his true work in English. This article explains the painstaking work behind having translated (funny that it is done by a guy who writes English lyrics for Japanese singers, a surprise that those eternally fake English were written by a non-Japanese!).

I've picked up a few below that I especially liked. My feeble attempt to translate leaves much room for improvement (excuse excuse).

It is (up to your action) now and here

Lifelong study (brings) lifelong prime

It is always your heart that decides your own happiness

You blossom your own flower, full of life

I will do it later, yes later. So we say, and the sun sets (this is not written as an admonishment, but just the mere fact that we procrastinate, and that this is a lovable human quality)

We are afterall, human (sort of asking for forgiveness)

The permanent collection at the museum are all brilliant works, so I hope everyone gets to see.

Foliage in December

It was cold but sunny in Japan. Maybe that's why the foliage forgot to fall off before Christmas.

New bag & boots from Rabbit HK!

Rabbit is a HK label by a HK designer Gigi that started in 2004. They sell really nice leather wallet, bags, and shoes. I bought a bag and boots made of really comfy lamb leather. I will try to wear these without looking hippie-esque.


After being a complete loser in HK for too long (not going out, not shopping, not relaxing) since moving here, I was so happy to go out, discover a quiet area in Causeway Bay - usually a big hangout for the young migrant workers by the millions. And I found Rabbit.

Rabbit is on the second floor of the shopping mall Island Beverly where they have tons of mini shops of HK designers (but many also from Shibuya, like Love Boat).

I am looking forward to discovering more HK shops!

Deep sea water fish

Have you seen these deep sea (defined to be living 200m deep or more) water fish? They look like crazy jewelery on a high fashion lady.


Due to the absolute darkness, many can emit light themself. Some just don't have eyes and others just show its entire brain because there's no worries of being seen.

There is also a fish that once the male and female meet, they somehow get sucked onto each other, because it is so damn hard to meet one another in complete darkness.

I also saw a video of a flat fish that does not get cooked while it's emersing itself in 200 degrees of volcanic eruption in the water. How are we supposed to cook it and eat it if we ever have to?

As crazy as they sound, most of them really do look the part and not at all a lady's brooch...



Photo credit: National Geographic, etc.

Ryuichi Sakamoto's North America Tour 2010

Right this moment, there's a real-time live of Sakamoto's North America tour. I heard this is a one-off event (no recordings - but of course there's youtube), so that everyone has to tune in like, NOW. It gives me such a nostalgic feeling of my university days when and where I could encounter these kind of cool events quite often including a visit by Sakamoto.

Sakamoto is a musician and composer who uses a lot of computer music type sound in his composition that is easy and dramatic to one's ear. His piano playing is not classical yet he can provoke millions.

His music gives me a similar feeling as visiting a MOMA. It's less about the obvious technique or historical explanation of music, but more about space and the mix of different sounds, with the piano as the major instrument giving an earthy feeling too.

OMG. Now he's playing the Last Emperor, and now I can really feel why people go so crazy over him. I am getting multiple flashbacks of the little boy as the last emperor playing with his little tamamushi (the green, jewel looking bettle) in the grandiose palace that is about to be taken over.

Below is a more recent composition.

The Scribbler

Is it just me, or do you find these extremely bubbly and happy? It's a girl wearing animal!


The illustrations of this blog are so thin and disappearing, and yet there is strength from the persistent continuation of the scribbly touch and the thin penmanship.



Images: the Scribbler

Takashi Murakami and the Versailles

When I first saw that Murakami's art will be exhibited at the Versailles (in the hall of mirror!), I thought, wow he's gone that far! I didn't really think of the meaning.

I now see a little more what that is, from his comments. Murakami describes the Versailles as a place "of an ambition for elegance" where so much has happened.

Time has passed and also for someone from the Far East who is geographically, and emotionally far from the real history, the image of Versailles get beautified and exaggerated.

He compares this to the French people depicting the same way about the Samurais.

So, his exhibition is all about that! Exaggeration and exaggerated impressions, which should make his art work balance out very uniquely against the genuine, yet with full of exaggerated perceptions of the French architecture.

Photo credit: Chateau Versailles

Goldfish Street

I walked around HK's goldfish street (not a market from hell but almost, with so many people), which was a weird but somewhat artistic experience.

I used to have these (guppie). It was pretty common for elementary school kids to have them in Japan then. I was always able to tell the difference between male and female, but now I can't...

Lovely HK-style packaging.