Deer

When I tried to go out, there were two deer
in front of my apt.
I thought they were only two.
But when I went out of the apt.,
I saw 13 of deer behind the apt.,
which surprised me.

Krispy creme

Look at this cute mug cup.
There is a piece of doughnut inside.
cute, isn't it?
I really like it.
When I went to Penn Station in NY,
I stopped by to get 6 of these.

happy holiday

It's been snowing around here these days.

I wish all of you a happy Christmas

and bright new year.

Thanks a lot for being with me and

sharing the time with me.

My most favourite Mao's performance

Mao Asada is now well known figure skater.
She is originally from Nagoya where is my home town.
As I wrote before, quite a lot of figure skaters are from Nagoya,
for example Midori Ito, Miki Ando, Yukari Nakano, Yoshie Onda,
Takahiko Kotsuka and so on.
A lot of people enjoy watching Mao's recent performance in international
competitions on telly.
Her recent performances are becoming more popular and seem to me
everyone have watched them.

The following is my most favourite Mao's performance so far.
I found it really decent. I like the choreography very much, too.
This was done when she was much younger and before becoming
famous like now. Have you seen this before?
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=EVxwDIW-qzs&feature=related.



My second favourite of hers is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6mwxolJ4jY&eurl=http://skating.livedoor.biz/archives/51048141.html,
which you might have seen before.
Each movement is so sophisticated and so is the costume.

歌謡曲

I don't normally listen to Japanese popular songs so often.
Only the occasion when I think I need to listen to them has
been because of my work.
But even, I occasionally feel to listen to some.



Good music is good music beyond the genre.
This is my answer of doing it.

Projection

I might be a glass half empty person at the moment.

Cool "X"

Kai is my recent favourite.
I don't hardly put it on, though.

Entrance gate of university

Palmer square and entrance gate of P- university.

poinsettia

NYC

ground zero --2--

Is it gonna be happened to "CHANGE" ?? :)

century 21

これがあのセンチュリー２１よ。リアルターじゃないよ。

Trinity church

Horn concert

went to Avery Fisher Hall in NY for NY philharmonic again.
Horn Concerto, Mozart by Philip Myers(Hn), Lorin Maazel and NY phil.
It was good.

christmas party

I was invited to a Christmas party which was held by a young couple living in
a luxurious resident in Manhattan.
I attended this party last year, too. So this is one of the events I look forward.
Their way of entertaining is nice and I enjoyed it much as well as last year.
Lots and lots of people, 40-80 I guess, from various kinds of carrier seemed
to be there.
I have my favourite dish called bacon-wrapped cheese-filled dates in the party.
I asked the hostess about the recipe and she told me.
This is it.
Bake bacon-wrapped cheese-filled dates under 350F for 20 min.
OK. I'll absolutely try it!
I like dates. I would also like to try jewel dates!
By the way, have you ever heard of "evite" which is not "invite"?
They used this online invitation system this year as well as last year. This works cool.
Have a look and try!
http://www.evite.com/

cooking school

I found a nice cooking school, and started going there.
These photos are from the last lesson.
The instructer is great.
I've heard she used to work for Le Cirque!!, which is excellent.

http://www.lecirque.com/index2.htm

Christmas banquet

I was invited to Christmas banquet and attended there, wearing Kimono.

my recent recommendations

http://gaccon.mainichi-classic.jp/movie/61th.shtml　のバイオリン部門の
松本 紘佳さんの演奏(this is edited.)。

I am really proud of these little virtuosos.

recipe-sticky rice-

I have been often asked the recipe of sticky rice, then I'll write it down here.

1 cup glutinous rice.
0.5 cup rice.

---A----
80g roasted pork2pcs. dried shiitake. 1/2 carrot.
---B---
1 cup Broth (or water which was used to moisten dried shiitake or mix of broth and the shiitake water) .
---C---
1+1/2 Tbs. of Soy sauce.
1 pinch of salt.
1 Tbs. of sake(or white wine).
1/2 Tbs. of sugar.

---How to cook---
1. cover shiitake with fresh water. let stand 2 hours or until softened.
2. Wash rice under cold running water, stirring with hand. drain 4-5times -tip- the 1st rinse should be quick. Cover with fresh water. let stand 2 hours and drain.
3. chop A stir-fry A with 1 Tbs. of oil. add rice and stir-fry again for a while.
4. put 3, B and C into rice cooker to get it cook or use pan to cook.
--tip--
How to cook with pan.
Use lidhigh heat until boiled.
once it's boiled, turn to low heat and cook until rice absorb all the water.
If it's completed, turn off the heat and let stand for at least 10 minutes to steam.(do not take the rid off)

sado

Matsuo school

my most favorite shop

Rose museum

WOW! lots of celebrities.

Do you know who's who?

Rose museum --Bernstein--

I went to Rose museum which belongs to Carnegie hall.

Some people says it's small but I was quite interested and enjoyed.

opera 7 -- Tristan und Isolde

I went to MET for Tristan und Isolde. I just haven't been able to wait
for this performance. So excited.
I've planned I 've got a quite good seat for this performance.
My seat was in the personal box area in lower level
and every time I come and go, a lady staff locks the personal door.

The picture is the view from the seat.
It costed more than $100, but I think this is still far cheaper than
the one in Japan.

I remember when I was a graduate student, a professor who taught me
composition had been talking about just first ONE! bar throughout the semester......
Now I got to know why he was so excited about this master piece.

Can you believe this performance took more than five hours.
Impossible in Japan, don't you think?
The conductor was Barenboim.
It's just impossible for me to find the right word to express how
extraordinary this performance was.
I didn't feel this had been lasting more than 5 hours.
The performance was just beyond the time.
WO---W so amazing.
Opera is just awesome.
I just can't tell sooo many incredible awesome things are totally integrated as An Art right on THIS stage.
Seeing is believing.

Lincoln center

I've been here quite frequently.

The hall is just awesome.

Carnegie Hall

Thanksgiving

21. Nov.
A friend of mine invited to the fiest.
We had some traditional meal,
turkey and stuffing with crunberries and gravy sauce,
mashed potatos, pumpkin pies!
Next day, I've got some stuff for making these.
I will try to cook them on my own soon.

opera 6 --Faust--

Next day of "Queen of spade", I went for Faust.
This was one of new productions of this season and I think MET
tried to do something really new. For instance, they used a new attempt of
lighting effect on the stage. Actually, the director of lighting was Japanese lady and
I somehow expected how it was going.
Plus I was really curious how J. Levine conducts this master piece.
However, I personally was not impressed so much.
The sounds by orchestra were kind of still and didn't seem to express much
compared to the performance by Ozawa last night.
I guess other audience seemed to feel like me.
Well, we'll see how New York Times comment on it.

opera 5 --Queen of spade--

Conductor was S. Ozawa.
Honestly,,,, though I initially didn't expect much for this,,,
it's sooooo fantastic!
I've never heard MET orchestra is like this.
They did Rea--lly well.
Whole the sounds were completely attracted by Ozawa.
just amazing, just amazing.
I DO recommend you to go this performance.

fire bird by NY philharmonic

Although I think the performance went really exellent, I'm afraid I, personally, wasn't so impressed.

historical places

the photo is Princeton seminary which is rather famous. The students who want to become pastors come here from all over the world.
Princeton used be the country's capital, which I didn't know
at all, for four months. There is a battlefield as well.
The other photos are river and you can see the house for mill.
There is also Institute for Advanced Study, so
it's quite educational district around here. no industrial at all.

carnaval

lighting the Christmas tree @ Palmer square

I saw annual event of lighting the Christmas tree on Palmer Square. These three kids who were waiting for the lighting look so cute, don't they?