My cousin was over in SF for work last week, so on Saturday I brought him around for a trip around the city. I didn't take many pictures, since I've been to those places before, but here are some pictures of the Palace of Fine Arts, which I think I haven't posted before.

It's basically a dome and a lake, although it does have a science museum within it. I don't think my pictures served it justice, it's much prettier in real life.
And here's a picture of my dinner, because I was so amazed by the serving size XD. This was at Lori's Diner, which had really cute interior design, incorporating a lot of retro American memorabilia like jukeboxes and retro arcade games.

~~~~~~~

And since it's high time for me to patina and mount my sculptures, here's some photos of them after they came back from the kilns. I took pictures just in case I mess up the patina. I transported the bust by putting it in my luggage bag, lined with scrunched up plastic bags. Happens that it just fits. I was a bit surprised at the bright colour(it started out looking like chocolate), but it grows on you after awhile. The director of the school of sculpture, who helped me fire it, mentioned that it was a nice clay to fire.

And I'm also thinking of using an accidentally decapitated bust from last term as a base to make a new sculpture. Here he is, giving me the evil eye for even thinking that I should re-sculpt him over.
And here he is again, after some clay surgery. Still a work in progress, but I changed the proportions a lot and removed a lot of jowl for a younger character. No reference for this one, just going to have fun.
~~~~~~~

More food pics. This one is a black bean burger with rice buns. It turned out pretty good, actually, although I prefer eating it with only 1 bun instead of 2 (up and down) since they are much denser compared to bread. I just noticed that black beans turn an iridescent purple if you soak them overnight, quite fascinating to look at.
Candied red beans.
Ginataan. Actually it's a hybrid with bubur cha cha, because I don't know the difference between them. Ginataan is probably the Filipino version of the same thing. Used vanilla essence instead of pandan leaves.
~~~~~~~

In other news, I've more or less finalised my lodgings for the end of this semester onwards. I'll be staying in Ingleside, the same house that I stayed in during winter, since the guy I subrented from is moving out at the right time. The rent is going to be slightly higher than expected, but as a bonus, it's furnished, which I didn't expect. I'm happy with that, since I don't want to waste money buying a bed, and then have to think what to do with it when I shift out. On the downside, it's 45 minutes from uni by train, slightly uphill(tiring to walk up), and laundry there is slightly more expensive. On the upside, it's got fantastic scenery, TV, newspaper, big kitchen and room, and more earthquake and tsunami proof compared to another place that I was considering.

You can tell I'm slightly paranoid when earthquake/tsunami proof or not comes in to play. The other place I considered was Park Merced, only 2 km away from the Winter house, but that's 2km nearer to the shoreline and downhill, and also on the 9th floor of a 50 year old apartment.

~~~~~~~

Also, I need a new handphone. My current one's battery is going crazy. Sometimes it insists that it's fully charged, only to run out of power in the middle of my next conversation. I tried looking for a replacement battery online, but couldn't find one, I think it's too outdated. I think I've figured out the system of buying handphones in the US (it's together with your phone plan) so now I just have to decide how basic a phone I want to get. Now my plan only covers talk (no texting or web, cos I'm too stingy, plus I don't use my handphone much. You'd pity my social life if you saw my call logs) so the phone I get will probably also only have talking and texting functions. And alarm clock, I guess. Seriously, phones like that get marketed as senior-citizen-phones. It has big buttons for easy dialing! I'm not kidding.

More food experiment pictures. You probably notice an Asian food theme going on here. I think it's because once I buy ingredients for one recipe, I have leftovers that I can use for another recipe, so it advances along that line. Then I think, oh, I just need 1 extra ingredient for this recipe, and that's how I accumulate spices in my cabinet.

Another batch of kimchi. This time, it's radish on the left, and napa(chinese) cabbage on the right.I think that the resulting juice could be a little more concentrated though, not sure how to do that...maybe squeeze the vegetables dry before marinading. Also, I became a little more elaborate and replaced sugar with a mixture of fruits, although I think just sugar turned out better and less watery. The last batch I made, I used what I think is pak choy (looks like an elongated version though), it was a very small batch, and I used all of it to make:

Kimchi noodles. Pretty simple, if you already have the kimchi. Just add noodles, lettuce, mushrooms, tofu , garlic and sesame seeds. The kimchi already has flavour enough, so you don't have to worry about the stock or adding salt. I tasted this at a food court here before, and surprisingly, it tastes a bit like a mild laksa, sour and spicy.

I also tried making Japanese curry (the thicker, sweeter and less spicy version of Indian curry). Turned out spicier than the stuff you can get ready packaged, but I think it's the brand of curry powder that I used, I even skipped using red pepper powder and used less black pepper, and it's still too hot. But other than that, it has that nice filling thick curry texture, although I could have mixed it a little more evenly.

Lol...someone had to do this: The Turnip Prize

It's a parody of the Turner Prize, but instead of pretending that the winning art pieces are fabulous, the aim of the competition is to find the artwork that is the worst piece of shit. The prize is a turnip nailed to a piece of wood. The winner can keep the withered turnip but must nail a new turnip on for next year's winner. Something to entertain yourself with if you are feeling apathic towards the world of fine art.

OMG...what is this???

In-vitro meat

I'd never thought about it that way, but I guess it's possible to grow meat for consumption if it's already being done for surgery, right? Apparently PETA wants to award the first company that makes lab-grown meat available for public consumption. Just needs a crazy enough investor with iron confidence to take the risk, and maybe a little more research to make it a more efficiently produced product.

~~~~~~~

Recently, I've been linking around Wikipedia looking for food inspiration, and I found out something about beans: some kinds of raw edible beans(kidney beans, for example) contain toxins, so they must be cooked thoroughly before consumption, by boiling for at least 10 minutes. I think most people would do this anyway to get the beans soft enough, but apparently using a slow cooker may not bring the beans up to a high enough temperature, and instead make the toxins more powerful. Soaking overnight and pouring away the water, or fermenting, also help to remove the toxins.

~~~~~~~

And here's an interesting history nugget about soup:

The word restaurant (meaning "[something] restoring") was first used in France in the 16th century, to describe a highly concentrated, inexpensive soup, sold by street vendors, that was advertised as an antidote to physical exhaustion. In 1765, a Parisian entrepreneur opened a shop specializing in such soups. This prompted the use of the modern word restaurant to describe the shops.

Kind of makes you feel like having some soup yourself...

Food picture update. Haven't done this in awhile. Got my inspiration to cook again. Got all the recipes from here

Mixed grain rice served with iri dofu, pickled ginger and long beans. Need to remind myself not to buy anything ginger again...but the pickled ginger looked appetizing. The iri dofu was quite fragrant, because of the sesame seed oil and green onions, and apparently is a good substitute for scrambled eggs (it's actually firm tofu). It looks, feels and tastes like egg.
Daifuku. It's the same as mochi, except it's not in soup. I think I made the dough too wet, because the texture was weird, not elastic enough.I'm not sure why the outside cracked, maybe it's because of the corn starch dusting and refrigerating it overnight that drew out the moisture. And also I should learn to be more generous with sugar, if I'm making sweets. I think it's become a habit to try to use as little salt and sugar as possible, and make up by using more herbs or more ingredients. Got some success with the red bean filling as compared to the last time I made mochi though. This time, I boiled the beans longer and mashed them through a sieve, so the texture was creamier. I reused the skin to make red bean soup. I think it'll taste better with sago and pandan leaves.
Zaru soba. It's cold noodles served with just a dipping sauce and garnish. It's oddly comforting food. I like it best with seaweed, because the taste is milder, but I also had green onions, radish, 7 spices powder (nanami togarashi) and toasted sesame seeds as garnish. At the side, you can see my yet-again failed attempt at salad, this time with a miso dressing. How hard could it be, right? But I didn't enjoy the taste and smell of raw vegetables, I washed it and reused the vegetables in fried rice. Not to mention I used too much mustard in the dressing. I also bought a bottle of kimchi, to go with these more empty dishes. When I first tried kimchi, I didn't really like it because it was sour and really spicy, but I think I'm growing to like it. Plus, it's supposed to be good for you, like yogurt is.
Rice balls. This time, I put pickled plum in them, then sprinkled furikake on them and wrapped up with seaweed. Next, I want to try grilling them and sprinkling with toasted sesame seeds. It's kind of an empty dish as well, since the main star is the rice, and not the filling, so my salad and kimchi make guest appearances as well.Btw...I I received my animal anatomy book! You can see it slightly in the background.

~~~~~~~

Currently making a small batch of kimchi myself. It's pretty easy to make, here's a recipe. I substituted a lot of ingredients though, since I'm not too sure if I'll succeed, I haven't tried pickling anything before, I hope I don't make myself sick. But if I think it's got potential, but needs to taste more authentic, I'll go and buy the proper ingredients. I got a little crazy and started making the kimchi at midnight yesterday, then fell asleep and woke up realizing I left the salted vegetables at room temperature more than 2 times longer than I should. Also, not sure if there's a strict rule about how full you should fill the container, one source says fill it without leaving any air pocket, another said don't fill it to the top, since the kimchi will expand as it ferments. It was pretty fun opening the bottle that I bought, since it spewed open and the vegetables literally expanded so much I had to put the extra in another bottle. It reminds me of those ballistic bath bombs you can buy from Lush that fizzles dramatically when you throw it in the tub.

Hey...looky here: Free Rice went into version 2! If you don't already know, free rice is a website where you can take quizzes to earn points that are then converted into sponsoring food through the World Food Programme. Before this, they only had a simpler English quiz, but now they cover more advanced English, and other subjects like Math, Art, Chemistry, Geography and other languages. Something virtuous to do if you have some free time, or want to learn something new. For me, I still think English vocabulary is the easiest, because even if you've never heard the word before, you can sometimes guess what they mean by linking their root word to some other word that you do know. Btw...my geography sucks...maybe Asian geography is still ok, but the rest is just guesswork.

~~~~~~~

Today, I saw an interview through a Facebook link saying that an earthquake may be more likely to happen in the following week: this Saturday up to the Monday 9 days after that, due to the pattern of earthquakes happening around the Pacific ring of fire, the beached dead fishes and the moon being the closest to earth for the past 20 years.(That date, ironically, is exactly the dates of my Spring break holiday,I guess those who are going off for a holiday further away can feel some relief) A lot of people say that it's impossible to be so precise with predicting earthquakes, but that got me a little bit concerned. Even if it doesn't happen within the next week, it is apparently still more likely to happen within the next 3 years.

So I think it's better to be safe than sorry, so since Fleet Week and the Earthquake drill last year, I've prepared a go-bag, which I put under my bed. My roommate scoffs, but I'd like to think I'm not as blithe as her. I've been doing some research about what to do in the event of an earthquake, and what goes into a go-bag. It's a bag that contains emergency supplies that you can quickly grab and run if you need to.It's not such a pain to assemble one, since most of the items are stuff you'd use on an everyday basis anyway, so just put your extras in the bag. Coming from a country where 'natural disaster' only means haze and slight floods in some parts of the city, making your commute to work such a bummer, I have a lot to learn about earthquake preparedness. This is a good site, that also has a slightly more thorough list of things to put in a go bag: 72hours. 72 hours as in emergency supplies should cover for 3 days. Oh yeah, in case of a quake, you aren't actually supposed to run, you are supposed to duck and cover, and get indoor and under sturdy furniture if possible.

I'd already had that bag for a few months now, but after watching the interview, I decided to revise it a bit. Among other things, I decided to buy a torchlight to go into the bag. So I went around looking for one. Before this I was considering buying only a book light, so I can use it to read when I feel like lazing around on my bed and not disturbing my roommate, but decided that in an emergency, I won't want to be stuck with something so small and flimsy. Back to the main story: I went to a few outlets of the local convenience store, and saw that most of the flashlights were already sold out, those left were either book lights or those bulky box shaped torchlights that look like the handphones from the 1970s-or-whenever-that-was that run on batteries the size of car batteries. I finally found some at the branch near my uni's main building, and when I got there, there was also another person buying a torchlight, one of the last 3 standard ones on sale.(So I guess after we'd bought ours, there'd only be one left for one lucky person,huh?) So I think that panic is starting to waft around SF (incidentally, there was some trace amounts of radiation also wafting around SF today, at levels not harmful to health).

Another worry is that, if Japan has a tsunami, and I think SF is too uphill to worry about that, there's still fires to worry about, because of all the ruptured gas pipes. The last time an earthquake happened, fire was one of the main problems, and destroyed all the buildings west of Van Ness Avenue. Apparently they decided to demolish all the buildings along Van Ness to create a barrier where the fire couldn't spread, that's why Van Ness is such a wide road today.Err...wait...might have gotten the geography wrong, but the story was something like that anyway. Either way, it's still worrying since even on a daily basis you can hear fire trucks all over the place. Also, the sturdiness of the buildings here are a bit questionable. Maybe not the modern skyscrapers with the tough building guidelines, but what about the older buildings with the stingy owners who don't want to take earthquake precautions and renovate?

I hope nothing happens, but there's always that nagging bit at the back of my head thinking what will I do if something really does happen. The stuff happening in Japan is like an ongoing nightmare, and that's only the radiation problem, people seem to have forgotten about the quake and tsunami rescue efforts in Japan and New Zealand, with so much to worry about.

Food entry.

I'm currently in the stage where I just randomly chuck whatever I have in the fridge together to make a meal. I imagine if I was in one of those reality TV cooking competitions I would have gotten yelled at several times. Just now I got hungry, and without any ingredients that seem to match each other in my fridge, I made pancakes with frozen corn and black pepper in it, and ate those with a little mayonnaise, because that's what yeenyees do when left to their own devices. Such strange animals.

But with the Spring break coming, I think I can do a little more experimenting with new and proper recipes. As usual, on Wednesdays, I had Mexican food for lunch. My method of selecting what to eat is: if you haven't tried it before, that's what you'll get. So today, I got acquainted with refried beans ('re' apparently means well cooked, not cooked 2 times) which tasted like good comfort food, so that'll probably be one thing to try making. It's basically mashed pinto beans with spices in it, but feels very filling when stuffed into the chimichanga I had for lunch.(I was curious to try chimichanga since one of my lecturers said the model we're working on this term was named after it)

Also, I want to try making Japanese rice balls. So I googled a recipe and found a site, and now I feel like trying a whole list of Japanese recipes. Just a few simple stuff like cold tofu and zarusoba, those kind of things. It also helps that I can walk to Japantown and get a few supplies. I like my little collection of spices and sauces...

Lately as well, I've been interested about 'superfoods', since I have freedom to buy my own groceries and don't buy meat. I think even psychologically it helps and makes you feel happy that what you are eating is doing you good. Most often on the list are things like berries(especially blueberries),goji(wolf) berries, yogurt, eggs, nuts, beans(the darker the better), salmon, broccoli, sweet potatoes, oats, tea(especially green) , whole grains and even chocolate.I know the list probably has something to do with marketing strategies, but all the same it's fun to choose snacks from the list and try a few things I haven't tried before. I even found a section in said website about zakkokumai, which is rice plus any kind of grain.Premixed bags of grains are sold in stores, but I think the fun part about it is you can buy your own grains and customise you mix, for something with a more complex taste and texture instead of the usual white rice that you eat with your dishes.

Walking to and from classes more regularly nowadays allows me to indulge in one of my favourite games, which I call "Quick, male or female?". The rule of the game is to look at passersby and try to guess if they are dudes or dudettes.

scandalous. i know right.

The reason being, I think that a lot of people in SF look androgynous. And before this I thought that Asians are pretty androgynous. I dunno, maybe it's just me, but sometimes I swear I cannot tell, especially if they have long hair and are wearing a coat. Plus there are a lot of AAU students around the city, and AAU students are pretty dandy regardless of gender. It's normal to see guys wearing dress shoes and fedoras with small feathers in them, to class. Or girls with tri-coloured hair, meticulously styled and tied. (TOA students: remember those times you were so sleep deprived, you didn't even comb your hair before class? Well, this is not like it)

Also, I always mistake some people as being Chinese, when actually by their surname they are probably from one of the Latino races. Not being racist or anything, I just surprise myself sometimes.

This has all probably got something to do with human evolution and coming closer and closer to the super average human, right? Like the way they say people from mixed races and androgynous looking people have better genes...

So I'm going to leave you with a pic I found online recently, this is Andrej Pejic, a male model based in Australia, who is almost synonymous with the phrase 'androgynous model', at least by my impression anyway. Apparently he's been modeling women's clothes as well. Anisa and Yilyn, I know you love this.

Here's a pic of an experiment I did. I put twine in the oven to make them different colours. It was most effective when I put them directly on the bottom of the oven and flattened them with my baking pan, so that they could be heated up the most. Then leave them in for different amounts of time to get different colours. But what I like is how the colour got richer as the twine got tanned. My plan for using this is to try hair wrapping, whenever I'm free (maybe in 2 weeks time when my uni takes a 1 week break) Hair wrapping is when you tie small locks of hair together, although it's too bad I don't have any charm pendants to tie together.See...this is the benefit of having lala culture in Malaysia, surely can find charms easily.

~~~~~~~

In other news, I just decided to buy 2 books online, which can be found in the library, but are so hot on demand, they might as well don't have them. Also, they are useful in the long term if I want to go into organic modeling, I think.

I managed to get at least a flip through at the library though, and the books are really packed with information. Also, I learnt something about buying stuff online: you can easily find discount coupons by just googling for coupon codes. Then plan out a strategy for getting free delivery, usually you have to purchase above a certain amount to get free shipping, but in the case of Borders, they have shipping to the branch nearest to you and you can go pick it up there, which is free. The benefit is that sometimes there are better deals online not offered at the store. So in the end, I managed to get 31% and 40% off for each book, and free shipping :D

~~~~~~~

This past week has been pretty hectic, so I hope things can get resolved by next week. First of all, I had to plan my Autumn classes, which involved meeting the student advisor and animation school director a few times, with many things not going according to plan.

Then I went looking for 2 of my sculptures that had been left at the uni for firing, which for awhile seemed to have gone missing. Currently, the uni has found them again and I can get them back next week. The director of the school of sculpture was really nice about the whole thing though.

On top of that, I've been finding one of my subjects a little difficult, and have been slightly pissed off at the lecturer for giving bad comments after all my hard work, and pissed off at myself for not being able to achieve the result I want even after so much work, and expecting bad comments next week for my assignment, and seeing that my progress report for that subject is the lowest of all the subjects I've had so far. I'm hoping to use the 1 week break to improve my project though...it's just that I have 2 classes on the same day and I have to draw a line at where I cannot spend more time working on 1 assignment and go on to the next one. So my only conclusion is that I just need more practise at something I am new to. And a little less fear at someone judging my working style and focus more on the final output. As they say, in art, the end justifies the means, right?

Oh yeah, and my apartment sprung a leak from upstairs' shower area, and that small leak turned out to need quite a major renovation in my toilet. Currently there's still a hole in the toilet ceiling where they hacked to get at the pipes. The maintainance guys were very helpful about it and worked very long on that though.

See...being nice makes a difference to people's life. I think I'd be pulling out my hair if most of the uni people weren't so courteous. There have been 9 unexpectedly nice people and 2 assholes in this article, so that is how I got to know the difference. Tralalalala...