hiptoptoominas

still staying on the "Asian" theme, this is my high school Japanese room, where i spent four years of my life to learn a language that i forgot in about three months. go me. i have many fond memories of this room, even back to when i was a froshie-man, studying with Benwitz-sensei, and always getting off topic, no matter what we were discussing. throughout those four years were feild trips to Japanese food stores, teaching the elementary students how to count, watching japanese music videos in class, and finally, taking the Japan trip with my classmates. sadly, i only have one picture from Japan, since we were busy almost every day, but i'll try to fit in as much info as i can.

best store evar!

this is United Noodle in Minneapolis. it basically sells foodstuffs from Asian countries, such as Japan, China, Indonesia, India, and many more of the like. if you like Japanese food, this is heaven for you. you can stock up on all the candy you could ever want, special cooking supplies for that perfect recipe, and there's also a small restaurant where you can eat udon to your heart's content. i went to japan a while back, and coming here gives me great joy and memories of Tokyo and Kyoto, among other places over there. i was especially pleased to find giant bottles of Pocari Sweat, my favorite Japanese sports drink. i know that the picture looks like it was taken in a grocery store, but if i could take a picture of the entire store, i totally would. the problem is that it's just too big! if you keep going forward in my picture, there are aisles upon aisles of Asian groceries, and the restaurant is just on the other side of this one. if you go backwards in the picture, there's the whole other half of the store which is for refridgerated and frozen stuff like pork buns and cake and ice cream. seriously, people, if you ever go to Minneapolis, google this place and find it! it's hard to find, but if you come to the fish store with the metal sculptures out front, you're almost there. the store is kinda in a back alleyway, so try not to get confused or frustrated. a lot of times, the best places are just hidden plain under your nose.

it's a bridge?

this is the Guthrie's "Endless Bridge", as i believe it is called. it's got a little balcony right on the end so that you can see the river and the rest of the city. it's pretty cool. i wonder how they structured it, since it's a really long cantilever. but i guess that you can have a long cantilever if it's not very wide, which this one isn't, so i guess it works just fine. it hasn't fallen down yet, so that's a good sign!

note: if you do follow this blog, please send me a comment so i know who i'm talking to, since right now i feel as if i'm talking to myself. i'm not saying that it's not fun to talk to myself, believe me, it's great fun. it's just that i'd like some recognition for what i'm doing here and if people like it or not. maybe i'm just thinking too much again. i do that sometimes...

le target lounge.

it's too bad i can't spell that in french... it sounds better that way. this was in the Guthrie, and i just had to take a picture, even though i got yelled at for it. apparently you're not supposed to take pictures in there. whoops! well, the i haven't been in the old Guthrie, so i can't really compare the two, but the new one is big and kinda confusing. the cool thing is that it has a really really really really really really long escalator that we rode. . . . kthnxbai!

Minneapolis.

yup. here it is, from the top of the new Guthrie Theater. my sister lives here, so when we took her back at the end of Spring Break, we also went to the Guthrie, because my dad's friend had an extra ticket and invited him on a "man-date". (my mom was joking about it the whole time.) Katie (my sister) and i stood in line to get rush tickets for the Two Gentlemen of Verona, and amazingly, we got in! we were very excited, for this meant that we didn't have to go waste time at some museum down the street waiting for my dad and his friend to get out. the play was done as a 1950's live television broadcast, with us as the "live studio audience". they even had old cameras that had live feeds running to two giant screens on either side of the thrust stage. that way, us people in the back of the theater could clearly see the actors' faces and expressions. i really liked the production, and it was fun to go to something like this with my sister. we don't see each other a lot anymore, so it was really nice to spend time with her. later on in the day, we headed over to United Noodle, but i have a picture for that, and therefore, another post.

doodles of oodles of noodles

snrk. it rhymes. this is the Noodles and Co. in EC, where i went for lunch with a camp buddy one day during spring break. i like the fact that they use real cheese in their macaroni and cheese. they also have soy sauce and hot sauce at every table. this made me happy, as did the availability of chopsticks. drinking root beer, eating mac and cheese, and using chopsticks. it was a fun day. i just realized that i have a lot more foot photos that i have to post, and they're probably gonna be in random order, so... deal with it. as is usual on thursdays, i don't want to go to class, but i have to, since we're gonna be writing yet another paper. whee. (that was sarcastic.) i'm so excited. (that was sarcastic too.)

flooding

this is another part of the church, called the Memorial Lounge. it has a kitchen in one corner, and the bathrooms are in the other corner. there's a piano and several bookcases full of random religious books in the last two corners. every Lent, the church has this thingy where there's a small service, and then everyone comes in here to have a dinner and discussion on a certain topic pertaining to Lent in some way. i had come to participate in the church's knitting group, in which i am slowly becoming involved. it's a good way to be with my mom, and i get to knit something other than scarves. we're all knitting prayer shawls for people who apparently get cold while praying. i don't really understand why we're doing it, but it seems as if people want the shawls, so we're making them. it's not that bad. just put on 58 stitches and knit three, pearl three, until you get five feet of shawl. it takes about three or four skeins of yarn, depending on the yarn. well, the dinner that night was soup, and the discussion was about flooding. like Noah and the Ark type. we found out that pretty much every culture on Earth has a flood story. whether it be from Transylvania, or the Ivory Coast, they're all about the same. some dude is good, and he gets saved when the deity decides to drown the Earth in water, and the dude is left to repopulate. i feel sorry for that dude. i mean, if he was on a boat, like the Bible notes about Noah, what if he got seasick all the time?? that would suck! though, it would let you get a lot of prayer shawls done.

church!

so, it's a bad photo... get used to it. if you can see past my enlightened foot (literally), you will see the interior of the church that i attended throughout my childhood. i am sitting in the back of the church and that white thing below the window is the alter. it's made of marble. sorry that i couldn't take a better photo, but we were short on time, and i had to get home. it's a pretty big building, and i'm proud of it's architecture. there are giant wooden beams that hold up the ceiling, and a marble baptismal font. fancy, yes, but it's been that way for a long, long time, and we haven't changed much over the years. i don't go very often, since it's hard to get anywhere without a vehicular transportation device. damn you college!

so, i've been busy. sue me.

this is sally. she's actually a lot bigger than she looks here, because here she's all curled up on the couch. yes, our dog sleeps on the couch. don't ask me, she's mom's favorite. mom didn't even want a dog, but soon enough, she was rolling on the floor and throwing the duckie toys across the room for sally. i don't know... i'm more of a cat person, myself. i don't mind dogs, as long as they're big. if i can punt it, it is not a dog. it is a chew-toy. the smallest dogs that i will accept are corgies, because i think that they're adorable. just look at Ein from Cowboy Bebop! adorable i tell you! adorable! i'm supposed to be writing some papers today, but i think i'll put up some more posts instead. high ho, sally, awwaaayyyyy!

my bad.

looks like someone forgot that they had a blog to upkeep. whoops! well, lately i've been getting through school, waiting for spring break to come, and trying to catch up on my sleep. some friends and i stayed up all of saturday watching Full Metal Alchemist, and i was awake for 36 hours. yay for mountain dew and chocolate pies. i think once we get to next week, i'll put up some more foot pictures. this week, i have to get all of my crap done so that i have nothing to do spring break time. i need to work on my outfit for No Brand Con, write my peice for the Volume One fiction contest, possibly go clothes shopping, clean and organize my sister's room (because she hasn't done it in twenty years), make earrings because i recently got my ear pierced (i don't know if i've already talked about that, but if not, i'll mention it in another post.), write some more music, and generally lay about and maybe sleep even more than i already am. SPRING BREAK, HERE I COME!!! ^_^

dancing!

this can be danced to every kind of music. trust me.
(and please don't listen to it. my sister is a dork.)

dinner

mmm... food...