chinese bean soup and five coloured beans

This is the photo of "o shiru ko". I made it on 3rd of February, which is called "Setsu bun"
in Japanese.
I really don't wanna forget our traditional custom even
when I'm in a different country.

There are not so many Japanese foods available
around here. It's ok. I could manage with
the situation for daily life.
However, when you try something traditional,
it needs to use some special ingredients, doesn't it?
So in such an occasion, I try to think about the best
menu with stuff I can get here.

When I was in London, I had some nice friends from Hong Kong.
They told me lots of things about their culture.
Chinese oshiruko is one of them.
What they were doing was they put some coconut milk with bean soup.
It was my first time to have that sort of oshiruko. It's not so
sticky and tastes very nice.
I occasionary make this chinese bean soup.
You should try!

squirrels

I was successful to take some pictures of squirrels!

Look at that!

When I was in London as a grad student,

I often saw squirrels around the college

and dorm where I was living.

I guess the squirrels in US look quite different from the one I saw in London.

They look far bigger than UK's and they don't seem

to be scared anything even for human beings,

which is interesting.

Squirrels in UK, as far as I know, were so careful

that they wouldn't turn up in front of us.

So it was extremely hard to take a look for them.

They cutely eat acorns and things but

once they feel someone/things are there, they run away

incredibly quickly or they try to pretend like still statues,

which is quite funny.

They are so lovely to me, but lots of friends in UK

don't feel like me to them.

Because they are harmful for lots of bulbs.

People in UK hate the animals' digging up

their well kept beautiful gardens.

On the contrary to UK's, squirrels in US wouldn't,

I guess, seem to hibernate at all.

I'm really curious about this trait.

Does anyone know much about it?

Birds

Hi there! how are u?

Today, I'm gonna show you a photo of animals which

are living around here.

The city where I live has full of nature and is called

"garden state", meanwhile there are lots of malls.

Every morning I hear birds are singing, which is quite

different from the one in Japan. The twitter sounds like, say,

a kind of sea gulls' rather than sparrow's, which is interesting.

It makes me wake up every morning.

The other day, I saw a couple of birds are

flying around my balcony and two of them

are sitting and playing well on the bar there.

I think they should be a brace.

It's always hard for me to take a good picture of

creatures living near my house.

They are soooo quick.

I was finally succesful to take a perfect shot of them.

What I've done is to approach the window with

the stealthy foot steps and bated breath.

Then I did it! from inside the house.

Right after that, one of them had flied away,

then the other had jumped off to chase her.

There is nothing better other than that

super duper timing!

with the stealthy footstepscatlike

anderson cooper 360

Hi there! Are you allright?
I hope everything has been going fine to everyone.
Thank you for reading this blog today.

Have you seen CNN?
You can watch it on even Japanese satellite telly,
can't you?

There is a programme called "Anderson Cooper 360",
which is my most favourite.
It starts at night in US, so you can watch it around the midday
in Japan.
I don't normally watch telly much, but "AC360"!!!!!!
The reason why I would do is I'm just crazy about
Anderson Cooper at the moment! so coool, isn't he?
He looks mature but still 40 yrs.

He is brave enough to go to dangerous areas for
TV interview.
So when he is away from the programme,
it just makes me worry if he is allright.
Oh please do NOT go away, An-chan☆

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsiQfYotgq8

Hi there! It's already started March, hasn't it? Gosh, time goes so quickly, doesn't it?

Have you seen the TV programme called Food channel?

I sometimes watch it, which is fun.

We can watch cooking programmes all day long on that channel.

Food channel has a lot of hosts/ celebrity chefs.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/hosts_celebrity_chefs/0,1974,FOOD_9889,00.html

I like Giada's programme the best.

Her featuring cuisine is Itarian.

She is so cute!

I've heared her grandfather is quite famous actor.

That's why....

Check it out, when you have an opportunity!