swoosh

Last saturdays

napa

I'm convinced that kimchi is the greatest ingredient there is. It taste delicious, full of fermented goodness, and is so versatile. Goes good with meat (chicken in the photo above), rice, stews, by itself as a side dish. It's almost like cheating.

Mark my words that I will be making my own once I get back.

chimeriad

 base image via.

Made another wallpaper to soothe my woe of video game deprivation. If only my credit card can arrive in the mail faster so I can buy a 3DS and start playing Fire Emblem. I mean I bought the game and paired up all the characters already ;_;

1Q84 - 1

Finally finished reading the first book of 1Q84, not sure if I have the ambition to finish the second before it's due on Saturday. The story started out slowly, but Aomame and Tengo's stories are starting to come together.

image via.

I'm quite fond of this cover design, and the quotations below:

The role of a story was, in broadest terms, to transpose a single problem, into another form. Depending on the nature and direction of the problem, a solution could be suggested in the narrative. Tengo would return to the real world with that suggestion in hand. It was like a piece of paper bearing the indecipherable text of a magic spell. At times it lacked coherence and served no immediate practical purpose. But it would contain a possibility. Someday he might be able to decipher the spell. That possibility would gently warm his heart from within.

Time itself was uniform in composition, but once consumed, it took on a deformed shape. [...] by adjusting time this way to suit their own purposes, people probably adjusted the meaning of their existences. In other words, by adding such operations to time, they were able - but just barely - to preserve their own sanity.

That's what the world is, after all: an endless battle of contrasting memories

brush

Third of the Verdant tea samples, this time it's a Yunnan white jasmine tea.
This smelled strongly of jasmine when I opened the pouch, but does not taste strongly of it. Perhaps I'm use to the style where the actual flowers are left in and brewed with the tea.

I learned that the proper way to take macro shots is not to physically position the lense as close as you can, but just crop afterwards. Also the clarity slider in ACR is amazing at sharpening.

I don't like this tea much aside from the look of the dry leafs. The first brew had a strong off-taste, almost chemical-y, while the remaining brews lost its strength fast.

buttered toast

I would be really irritated waiting for Gamestop to pick up my call if it wasn't for tea.

Today is Laoshan green, which surprised me by smelling like toasted grains when I opened the sample pack.

brown sugar

This has been a decently eventful week despite zero posts about it. I originally intended on writing a thoughtful reflection on my first month in Atlanta, but had so much trouble organizing my thoughts and so gave up.

There was:

• E3: I am so so excited for SE's Tokyo RPG Factory, but otherwise not that into the other big releases (namely remake of FFVII, but damn the graphics look good)
• Open House at work: ice sculptures, chocolate fountain, and the best pound cake I've had (the texture was perfect: not overly dense and a crisp crust). There were also a ton of leftover food for lunch.
• More tea! Got my Verdant Tea sampler, plus even more that my dad is bringing next week. Also bought a Zojirushi hot water bottle because the only hot water at work is dispensed from the same nozzle as coffee. 

Trying the Laoshan black tea:

 dry & wet leaves

The dried leaves look beautiful. 
I really did not like the first brew, and don't know enough about black tea to attribute the error to either my inexperience brewing or the tea. It was really sour and had a prominent roast taste. However the subsequent brews tasted good, very sweet with just a hint of the sourness.