Boxing Day

Everyone slept in on 26^th, Boxing Day.

We had muffins and coffee for breakfast. We were just watching TV and chatting on the sofas. Then lunch again! We had all the leftovers of Christmas dinner. My friend and I went shopping for a little bit to a plaza near the house. After we came back, we opened up another bottle of wine in the early afternoon! That was so 贅沢～。We played “Scrables” again. We just relaxed today just like New Year’s in Japan.

Oh my day didn’t finish yet. My friends called me and we went out for skating to

Nathan Phillips Square

at night. When we got there, it was kinda late, but there were so many people lining up! Good we didn’t fall. I enjoy skating since I came here. It was actually fun! I should practice more, since I am here in Toronto. We have lots of chances to skate, eh? And I had a good time with my friends, because I hadn’t seen her for a while since she had been working on her paper.

I really had a good time over the past few days. Thank you everyone! I felt like I was travelling for a long time when I got back home and went to sleep. Hope you had a nice Christmas too!

Oh I haven’t really gone shopping yet….

Christmas Day

It is Christmas Day.

My friend’s parents came over in the morning. They are so sweet. That was our first time to meet each other, but they gave me hugs and kisses!

We had muffins that they brought for breakfast. Then, speaking of Christmas, there you go, it’s time to open up Christmas presents that had been placed under the Christmas tree! The Christmas tree is called “Charlie Brown.” Well, I didn’t get them presents, only in their stockings, but my friend and her sister nicely gave me presents! Oh thanks a million! That was so sweet!!

They started opening up presents. It was fun to see what presents they got and from whom. Then we took a break. Lunch time! We had a Phyllo salad which my friends and I made last time. We also had croissant and sweet potato soup.

Then, we started working on our stockings! Oh there are so many presents from Santa Claus! They are all from my friend and her family, but it is supposed to be from Santa!

In the afternoon, my friend’s friend and her daughters came over. They are so cute. They urged me to play hide-and-seek. I was holding a 3 year old baby and walking around the house. She is such an adorable girl.

Christmas. It’s time for turkey, eh? I stuffed up the turkey with stuffing. Wow, that was my first time to make turkey! That was fun! We put it in the oven and cooked it for about four and a half hours!

My friend’s friend also came over and opened up his presents. And we played “Scrables”. He is soooo good at it! I have played it before, but it was, uh, difficult to think of longer words! But I enjoyed it.

We set up the table for dinner for 11 people. We had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, veggies and cranberries. The girls wanted to play hide-and-seek again. Then we played a card game with “ROOK,” called “Oh, heck!” Grandpy and Grandmy taught me how to play it, which was fun. Then we had sweets: English pudding which Grandma made. Because my friend’s family’s background is British and has lot of relatives in England, they have some English stuff too.

After Grandparents and the kids left, we had Ice Wine and watched “Pirates of Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.” Hmmm, I love ice wine. We were just cooking, and eating and staying in the house the whole day on Christmas! My friend was wearing PJs!

I had a nice time with them.

Christmas Eve at my friend's house

I really had a niiiiiice Christmas this year with my friend and her family and relatives!!! I appreciate them so much that they kindly invited me to their house around Christmas, and treated me like a member of their family. I can’t thank them enough. Thank you!!

I cooked 肉じゃが and ちらし寿司 on Christmas eve and brought them to my friend’s house in Scarborough. Oh there are so many people at the shopping mall where my friends picked me up. We had 肉じゃが, ちらし寿司 and beef stakes cooked with red wine for dinner. The wine was called “20 bees”. As it says, it tasted a little honey, which was good. We also had a glass of “20 bees” wine with dinner. I am glad that they liked the Japanese food.

Then we headed to their church for Christmas Eve Family Service (Ebenezer United Church). The Minister was Korean who has also lived in Hakodate, Japan, for three years. We sang various Christmas songs and read lines out loud after the Minister. Some songs are well-known in Japan too, but I didn’t know the lyrics of them… My friend introduced a Japanese student to me. He is an exchange student who is staying at her friend’s house for a year. Some of them seemed not to have met for a long time since some stopped going to church when they are teens or twenties. It’s nice to meet them again at a church like a reunion after a while.

The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it. –JohnⅠ: 5

My friend’s son drove us around the town when we were on the way home. He drove us around so that we could see various Christmas lights at houses. There is one big famous house with lots of decorations around there. A lot of people pulled over their cars along the street and were seeing the heart-warming Christmas lights on Christmas Eve.

Since we had dinner earlier in the evening, some seemed hungry again. We had crackers with cheese and spicy jelly, scotch eggs, which is a tradition in the family, cookies and rum and “egg nog”! Egg nog is alcohol, which is like Baileys or Kalua. It was like 10:00 or 11:00 pm, yo!

I’ve been to a Chinese church in Toronto, but I didn’t understand what they were saying because they we attended the Chinese mesa instead of the English mesa. I am not that religious, but I was curious what they are doing in churches, so it was nice that they brought me to their church, explaining about it to me and introduced me some of the people there.

Christmas Cooking第二弾

Ok~, I am done all the cooking!! 肉じゃがとちらし寿司を作りました♪

昨日は遅くまでクリスマスパーティで、今日も朝から起きてご飯を炊き、５人分の料理開始。

サルサ、クラシック、クリスマスソングを聴きながらクッキング☆

友達のお友達がじゃがいもの皮むきを手伝ってくれました。

Thanks!

Well, I think I should leave for my friend's house for Christmas.

これまた持っていくのが大変だね＾＾；

Merry Christmas!!

Best wishes.

different types of Christmas

Christmas.

There are usually a lot of cars on high ways from around 3:00 pm to 7:00 or so. People are going back home from work. 早いね。。。日本じゃ３時に退社とか無理でしょー。People in Japan usually work in Christmas day unless if falls on Saturday or Sunday. There are more especially on Fridays. But I found more on Thursday before Christmas holiday. People don't wanna work on Fridays? People wanna go back to their hometown for Christmas holiday. The news said there are a lot of people line up for busses and trains bound for other cities from Toronto. They are going home for Christmas holiday. They said they miss their family and boyfriends/girlfriends.

Universities also closed from Friday. They don’t even open on Fridays before long weekends. They usually have two weeks off during this time of year. Nice ne. I wanna work for university.

But a lot of Chinese immigrants don’t celebrate Christmas, therefore their family members are all apart like some are in Canada, some are in the States, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan etc. They don’t get together, do they? I guess they will get together during Chinese New Year holiday.

J-Town and Chinese theme malls

I’ve wanted to go to the Pacific Mall since I came here. Finally my friends took me there!! We had a long subway and bus ride from downtown. Firstly, we went to J-Town. They have a lot of Japanese food, books, 漫画、cosmetics and potteries. It was a little Japanese town. Customers are Japanese, other East Asians and white as well. I got some snacks for my friends for Christmas. The town is quite small compared to Korean or Chinese town because I guess the net number is small, and Japanese don’t really gather as much as Chinese.

Then we went to a bit Chinese supermarket called “T &T”. There are also some other Chinese and Taiwanese theme malls and plazas on Steeles. But this supermarket is so huge compared to other Chinese supermarkets in China town. And clean. Most of the customers are Chinese, but there are also Caucasians as well. They also have a Japanese store in the supermarket. We got a Black sticky rice roll, which I had in Taiwan!! I asked them to put salmon flake, eel, pig ears and veggies. I got a Chinese sweet, Cingseng and Sea-coconut soup, which is a package of making soup, Jasmine tea. It was sooo interesting to look around the supermarket. I got confused if I was in Canada or in Taiwan.

Then we went to our final destination, the Chinese theme mall, the Pacific Mall. The mall was a bit different from other malls. A Chinese company built the mall and there are a lot of different Chinese stores are in there. Some fashion stores actually imported clothes from China. We had lunch there. All the stores are Chinese, Hong Kong style or Taiwanese. Oh again, a lady at the store talked me in Cantonese, I don’t understand Cantonese at all…

Then we had a Cantonese style hot pot. There are Chinese theme malls, Japanese towns etc, which I found very interesting.

Brazilian & Chinese

My friend and I went to a Brazilian restaurant called 2Rio 40 degrees” on St. Clair. On the way there, we were driving around because the street was curved! But we could found a parking space near the restaurant soon. It was a kind of sport bar serving Brazilian food. We had loves of bread, a pizza, Brazilian chicken, potatoes, and rice with beans soup. The beans soup was a bit salty, but tasty.

前から友達に聞いてて行ってみたかったブラジリアンレストランに行きました。途中道が曲がってて、ぐるぐる回ってました。ちょうどレストラントの近くにパーキングを見つけました。レストランというか、スポーツバーでした。パン、ピザ、ブラジリアンチキン、ポテト、豆スープとライスを頂きました。ビーンズはちょっと塩辛かったけど、おいしかった。

Then my friend took me to another Chinese tae house up north. We usually take a highway to up north, but drove along

Yonge Street

up there this time. I’d never driven from downtown to Steeles on Yonge, so it was very interesting to me.

Yonge Street

are narrow and crowded in downtown, where my school is located around and I often walk along up to Bloor. But around Eglington, there are taller buildings, where I heard there are a lot of language schools and Japanese and Korean students are living. The street is getting wider. As we drove up, there are quite a lot of stores along the street. And then it gets less stores and spacious. Then again there are mores stores up there. But

Yonge Street

is quite long from south to north, but quite different.

友達は別のティーハウスに連れて行ってくれました。北に行くときはたいていハイウェイを使うのですが、今回は大きな通りであるヤングストリートに沿って運転していきました。　今までダウンタウンから北までヤングストリートを通ったことがなかったので、とてもおもしろかった。私の大学があるダウンタウン辺りのヤングストリートは狭くて、お店がいっぱいで、busyだけど、北のほうに上がっていくにつれて、道も広くなって、雰囲気も違いました。Eglingtonのあたりは、高いビルがあり、語学学校がたくさんあり、日本人や韓国人学生が多く住んでいるそうです。また北に行くと、何もなかったり、spaciousで、またSteelsのあたりに行くと、新しい韓国街がありました。

We passed the movie theatre, Silver City on

Yonge Street

. My friend took me to a New Oriental Teahouse called “go for tea” in Thornhill. It was a bit different from the one we went last time. The atmosphere was more casual. I had a mixed fruit bubble tea. We left there like past 11:00 pm, but there were quite a lot of people still waiting to be seated.

“Go for tea”というNew Oriental Teahouseに連れていってくれました。この間行ったティーハウスと違った雰囲気でした。やっぱり大好きなミックスフルーツのバブルティーを頂きました♪あたたかいバブルティはこっちきて初めてだったけど、寒いトロントではとってもグッドです☆　夜の１１時過ぎてたけど、まだたくさんの人が待ってまして。

I wrote once that my Caucasian friend always takes me to places where majority of the customers are Caucasians; on the other hand, my Taiwanese Canadian friend takes me to Chinese tea houses. He is more open to other places too though. At the tea house, as I expected, the majority of the customers were Chinese including Chinese from main land, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The waitress talked to me in Chinese. I wish I could understand Chinese, but unfortunately I only can recognize a few words…And it should be noted that those Chinese cafes and tea houses are usually located up north, where a lot of Asians reside.

この間も書いたけど、コケイジャンの友達が連れていってくれる場所は、どちらかというと、白人が多い場所です。台湾系カナダ人の友達は中国系のティーハウスに連れていってくれます。ブラジルや日本や他の場所にも行くけどね。ティーハウスでは、ウェイトレスが私にも中国語で話してきました。彼らは中国語と英語を使います。中国語わかれば。。。単語くらいしかわかりません・・・。これらのティーハウスは、たいていダウンタウンじゃなくて、北のほうにあります。そこにはたくさんのアジア系移民が住んでいるので。

Thank you for taking me to different places!! I had a lot of fun and found it very interesting!! And I love bubble tea!!

Christmas Cooking

Phyllo. I didn’t know this at all before, but my friend once made salad in a Phyllo, which was sooo tasty! Her friend came over and taught us how to make them! It was so much fun to make Phyllo together!!

First, cut three layers of Phyllo in a circle, put a clearified butter onto the plate, which is something like Taco salad. Place a layer of Phyllo on it and put a thin layer of butter again. Repeat this three times. Then put it in the warm heated oven for about 5 minutes. And remove it out of the oven and cool it down. And done! Very easy, and very fun!

We cooked this for Christmas lunch, but we also had salad with Phyllo after that. I have to find a mold!!

ファイロ。ファイロで作った食べられるお皿（タコサラダの入れ物みたい）とサラダのコンビネーションはとってもデリシャス♪バター風味のパリパリのうすいファイロと、イタリアンドレッシングで和えたサラダとアーモンドチップ。このコンビネーションがなんともいえません♪

今回は、お友達がインストラクターとして来てくれました☆そしてファイロの作り方を伝授していただきました♪みんなで作るのって楽しい♪最初は難しかったけど、だんだんと作るうちに慣れてきたし、手早く作れるようになりました。

オーブンに入れてるの忘れて話に夢中になってたり、楽しく作ることができました。これも、わざわざ材料と型を持ってきてくれた友達のお陰です♪

その後、みんなでファイロサラダとトルティーア＆サーモンのサンドイッチでランチ。

While two of us were making Phyllo, one of my friends tried “experiment” of making Bakarova (Greek sweets) with the leftovers of the Phyllo. She put pecans and brown sugar. Ohhh that was soo sweet!! She also put strawberry jams into it. She made them for the first time, but they were nice!

Oh my goodness, the table was so messy with the small pieces of Phyllo! We cleaned it up and start making chocolates and marshmallows. We’ve also never made this either. We melted chocolates first, then we stuck marshmallows into sticks and decorated them with chocolates and dusted them with chopped pecans, chocolates and smarties.

They are also for Christmas, but I wrapped up one and brought it back for my friend.

残ったファイロで、『実験』をしました。バカロバというお菓子を作ってみました。レシピなし（笑）いちごジャムも入れたり。くるみとブラウンシュガーで甘かったけど、なかなかいけました♪

それから、マシュマロにチョコレートをコーティング。スティックにマシュマローを刺してチョコレートをコーティングし、チョコチップ、くるみ、スマーティをトッピング。Oh looked soo good, でもクリスマス用です。

another trip to Korea

Oh I had a really good broiled salmo for lunch today!! サーモンおいしいね、やっぱり♪That was better than Teriyaki Salmon at a Japanese food restaurant. Then my friend took me to "J-Town" where I have wanted to go!! I thought it was like a small Korean town or China town because it's called "Japan town." But there is only one small supermarket up there. But they have more varieties than at Korean supermarket in Korean town. Very なつかしい！They have Japanese food, snacks, and everything! They have a small stand where we can have たこ焼き　and うどん and stuff.

There seem to be a lot of Japanese food restaurants onwed by japanese abour 10 years ago in downtown because japanese food was popular that time. But I heard that a lot of Japanese restaurants closed and moved out to suburbs. Of course there are quite a lot of Japanese food restaurants here, but mostly they are owned by chinese or Koreans and food are Canadianized. Or there are some Japanese restaurants, but expensive.

Then I was shopping. Some of my friends and I were gonna go for a drink tonight because we were supposed to be done all the papers until now, but oh I found out some of them haven't finished the last paper yet!! The deadline have passed already! Anyways, I told them good luck, and I went to have korean food with one of them.

Actually he took me to another Korean food restaurant in Korean town. It's Soon Tofu Restaurant. Most of the signs and menues were in Korean, so I coulnd't even understand them. We had "soon tofu" which he recommended. Soon! Oh soon. Ok. I don't think it means "soon." I had a dimpuling and beef soup served with rice with beans. They cooked rice and soup with some kind of pottery, that way it helps the food keep warm and make the rice crispy. Then he poured hot water to the pottery where some rice were left over. So then the rice observed water and got soft. And you can eat it too. It didn't really taste though. maybe we could put some Kimchi or umeboshi. But I really like the soon tofu, the soup!! And it's very reasonable!

Then again we went to have some desserts.♪We have tea and cakes.

Salmon and Korean food on a day! How happy I am!

recipe

ミンチ肉、買ってきてそのまま冷凍庫へ。。。

やっと作りました♪ミートローフ♪♪♪

Hmmm, yum!!

I got minced meat when I went grocery shopping last time to cook a meat loaf. But unfortunately it was freezed for a while...

Finally I got a chance to cook a meat loaf!! yumyum!!