A weekend of relaxation

After a wild Halloween and more weekend events (one of which included me dancing in a museum and the curators getting mad at me), I've decided to spend this weekend at home for a change. Most of my friends would have a hard time imagining me spending time at home instead of going out, but yes there are times when it is really nice to just not go out; in this case I had a lot of errands that needed catching up on and I figured that it would be now or never to get them done.

Stuff like cleaning the room a little, changing the battery on my scooter, hitting the hardware store to look for a can of rust remover and finding spray can of grease (interestingly) for my bicycle and such, I remind my self that there are probably a lot of small little maintenance things that I ought to be doing but just haven't really been finding the time to do recently. So sometimes, it is necessary to put time aside to get things done and time to just chill out as well too.

The last week has been marked by a string of food indulgence, as not many people might know, I live without a kitchen so I've created my own little kitchen with a table and a hot plate that lets me fry meats and make all sorts of other dishes. Having good food waiting for me at home is a great incentive to come home early; I often have a hard time staying late at work when given the choice of eating at the company cafeteria (which isn't bad, by the way) versus something home cooked.

It's been a while since I've done any real picture posting-- I still remember that I have more photos of Hakodate that I should have posted and other things that I should have done but haven't gotten around to doing yet. Slacking isn't a really good habit, but there are only so many productive hours in a day that a person has (or so I believe).

So first off, since February of this year, I bought a new cross bike and have been riding it from time to time to the beach on the weekends. Round trip of 30 km makes for great riding. The entire distance can be covered in about 1.5 hours but I like to take a breather at the beach, where I like to buy a can of orange juice and watch the beach goers play volleyball and surf over there. With autumn dawning upon us, the sun sets much earlier and the sky much clearer compared to the hazy humid sky that one would typically see.

The setting sun

The beach center

The other nice thing about autumn in Japan is that it is still relatively warm-- I can still venture out in a t-shirt on a sunny day, which makes doing exercising in warm but cool weather perfect.

I've also been doing a lot of youtube watching recently. My favorite videos to watch on youtube are of the cooking variety. I've already posted recently about one of my favorite youtube chef at foodwishes but in addition I also really enjoy watching Anthony Bourdain's series called No Reservations; a show that I highly recommend for anyone that enjoys both travel and good food. One of his shows aired way back was a "Techniques Special" from which I used as a base to replicate a beef stew.

The recipe is rather simple:

Take a hunk of shoulder cut beef, chop it up, season with salt and pepper.

Fry until brown

Add onions and cook until semi-translucent

Add some red wine.

Simmer for about 1.5 hours

Add carrots and cook until tender

Serve with a side of rice, bread or whatever you have lying around.

I did all this while cleaning the room and gave up on cleaning after the stew was ready. An incredibly easy but tasty dish. Would probably be nice to add some potatoes as well. I've got enough food in the fridge to last several days. Eating leftovers for 1 might get a little repetitious sometimes, but with enough variety it beats eating expensive take out any day.