Mewsyngs of an Upstart Feline Miscreant

I pressured Dracosphynx into driving us down to FanimeCon, and had a pretty decent time, and picked up some very nice art. Now I'm ensconced back home for the rest of the holiday weekend, my "get out and be social" duty fulfilled!

( Cut for images! )

Every now and then I get an urge to try making Japanese cuisine. This time it's the Oyakodon - literally the 'parent and child bowl', so named because it features a chicken and egg together.

Well, this isn't really an oyakodon; practically speaking it's just inspired by the concept. I don't know anything about making Japanese dashi, but I do know how to make a chicken stirfry!

( Cut for image! )

The other weekend, dracosphynx mentioned wanting to go to an interesting Japanese restaurant up in my area. Not having gotten out in a while, I importuned him to let me come along, and he was kind enough to oblige. So...

( Cut for images )

Is it that time of the year already? Yes, and past by two weeks-- well, better than two months of photos languishing in my phone before I get around to posting them. :)

kagetsume was out in the area and by happy chance, there was a Cherry Blossom festival going on in Japantown, SF, on that weekend. He was quite interested so he willingly drove me up there on that Saturday. Good for me, since I hate driving past my 'leash range', especially up in San Francisco.

( Cut for images! )

Oh yeah, I guess I should give a rundown of FanimeCon, the Memorial Day con that dracosphynx and I went to on Saturday. (Sunday was tugrik's excellent barbecue)

Overall, it was pretty good. The con is *HUGE*. The artist's alley alone could have eaten two of Further Confusion's dealer rooms and had room for dessert. The dealer's room was bigger, but didn't seem that packed since they had wider-spaced aisles and bigger dealers' booths... Largely necessary because the dealers each had huge arrays of merchandise.

( Cut for images! )

So, Further Confusion happened. A month later, I finally get around to blogging it.

( Cut for images! )

As you might recall from my last entry, we had just spent a few hours wandering around various exhibits in the California Academy of Sciences. Next up was the Interval, a teahouse where dracosphynx has a bag of 25-year-old vintage Pu-erh tea held for him by the proprietors.

They had an orrery out front that has been designed with mechanical gears to compute the relative placement of the planets. Interesting, but I admit one drawback is that it moves very, very slowly so you'd have to be watching quite a while to note any movement from the gears.

( Cut for images! )

This isn't actually as easy as you might think.

It all began with the Cherry Blossom Festival of 2013 when I became aware of the mysteries and wonders of Japanese paper dolls. Take a look at the link, tell me you wouldn't be interested in being able to make your own!

This year, I inquired whether they knew of any paper doll classes down here, but on being informed they were pretty much the only one around, I decided to try the workshop. So, roll forward a few weeks to May 19th, I gathered what little courage I possessed and essayed the 50-minutes or so drive to San Francisco. (Aiee!) This is quite a bit out of my comfort range; I'm not normally comfy driving any further than 20 minutes or so, but Japantown in San Francisco is not near the BART stations, unfortunately.

I got there quite early, allowing for me to try and find some lunch and maybe browse a bit. Some browsing did reveal ramen places (and sushi, but I'm not much for sushi, something about raw fish makes me reluctant to put it in my mouth) but I suspected it might be a bit heavy food. I got an egg muffin sammich from a local cafe instead. I also failed to find a paper dolls book in Books Nikaku. It really is an esoteric topic!

( Cut for pictures! )

This happened a few weeks ago! It is reasonably well documented here in dracosphynx's journal, but I took a few pictures, so...

( Cut for images! )