Bettina's Creamy Spinach Chicken Risotto

I figure since I haven't updated this cute little internet journal of mine for so long, I will have this blog that I wrote for one of my class also be published here! I am no longer traveling around the world and staying in America for goods (at least until Christmas break when I go visit family, host family and friends in Asia!) so now I am busy with school work, work (4 jobs! fun stuff!), dancing, yoga, cooking and eating!

Here we go, my cooking fun :)

On a cold, windy day, what do you want to eat for dinner? I decided to cook something filling but not

heavy like steak and comforting but not too light like soup for my fall break host. I eventually came to a conclusion that risotto will be the dish for the night. I have never had experience cooking risotto, but why not give it a try and have fun with it? Worse case scenario, I know that we always have an option to go to Wawa for some food later if I fail at creating this dish.
After my studying abroad experience in Florence, Italy and my cooking experience that I got from volunteering at Ganzo’s kitchen, I learned that cooking is an art and playing with food is part of the fun. Therefore, instead of following a receipt to guarantee a successful plate of risotto and be too conscious about the amount of spices and ingredients to use, I created my own risotto and put my favorite ingredients in it. In my risotto, I decided to put spinach for iron and calcium, chicken for protein,mushroom for vitamin D, garlic for vitamin C, onion for dietary fiber and some white wine to bring out the taste.

Ingredients (serve 7 people):
A pack of chicken breast (or eight slices of chicken breast)
A bag of spinach
Two medium-sized yellow onions
A box of sliced mushroom
A clove of garlic
Two cans of chicken broth
One chicken broth can of arborio rice
A bag of mozzarella cheese
White wine

Direction:
1. Cut the pack of chicken breast into bite-size, then season the chicken with black pepper, salt and olive oil.

2. Cut the yellow onions into small pieces and start frying them in the frying pan with olive oil on medium-low heat.

3. Once the yellow onions get soft, add the chicken in the frying pan and turn the heat on medium.

4. After the chicken turned lightly brown, add into half a bag of spinach and put the heat on low. Let the spinach cooked with the onion and chicken until it soften, turn the fire off.

5. Begin smashing the clove of garlic and cutting the sliced mushroom into smaller pieces.

6. Pour a can of chicken broth into a big pot and when it comes to boiling, pour a can of arboria rice. Stir the rice once in a while and pour the second can of chicken broth along with garlic, mushroom and spinach.

7. Once the chicken broth is being absorbed, add in the chicken, onion with some white wine. Start adding small amount of mozzarella while stirring the risotto until everything is added into the pot.

8. After turning off the fire, cover the pot and let the risotto sit for 20 minutes, so the steam will soften the rice.

Risotto is not a hard dish to cook as long as you are patient. 

Therefore, remember not to cook it when you are dying to eat because it won’t work that way!

Quality family time :) Road trip to 函館市 Hakoadate on May 13!

An amazing amazing weekend with my host family. I mean who would have guessed what I would do? I didn't even know we would go on a fun road trip to Hakodate until late Friday night. I mean they already fulfilled my wish to go to 花見 (hanami; flower viewing for the cherry blossom season) by taking me to a park where I met the vutest scottie baby puppster and got a "bloddy kiss" from him haha. We got to see all these beautiful blooming cherry blossom tree and had some delicious miso ramen!

The moment we got back into the house, they asked me if I wanted to go to Hakodate. To be honest, I was quite hesitant beacuse that would mean missing the weekend yosakoi ractice and I can't afford that while everyone else in the team practices so hard. But thanks to Jennifer and my host family who both strongly encourage me to ask the team for days off and thanks to my Japanese friend, Wakana, for her honest opinion - so off I go to Hakodate :)

But why is this trip so special that it has to be in May? First of all, my papa is in preparation to reopen his sushi restaurant in a new location instead of the busy city center - Susukino. Therefore, once June hits, he will be all busy with making sushi and will have no time to take me onto any trips. Secondly, my papa really wants me to meet his 102-year-old grandpa and his 96year-old grandma. Yup you are reading this - 102 and 96! What a life! My papa told me that you never know when they will stil be around, so let's go meet them, so we did!

We left the house early in the morning to start our adventure. The car ride to Hakodate is about 5 hours and to get to where papa's grandparents are will take another 3 hours. Our adventure started off speechlessly because my papa put down all the seats in the back to turn it into a huge bed where my little sister and I can just nap or do whatever like a baby playroom. So I took advantage o that and took caught up on plenty of sleep!

Something off topic, for a bathroom break, we passed by a pachinko store (a gambling device, kind of like a slot machine) to use the bathroom and I am amazed in a negative way. I walked in to just use the bathroom and walked back out with a shower of cigarettes smoke. I smelled like a stinky smoker :/ ewww

Anyway, our first stop into Hakodate was 森町 (Mori Machi) where my family took me to another park full with blooming cherry blossom trees and where we accidentally found a 桜祭り(cherry blossom festival) It was my first festival in Japan ever, so it was full of interesting discovery! I saw a lot of food stands and toy stands there which didn't surprise me that much because everyone loves eating at festival or fair! The most interesting thing is probably seeing Japanese rocking their picnic time. It was so legit since they all had a grill out with them grilling meat under the cherry blossom tree ... seriously awesome!

We moved on to a harbor area of Hakodate as the night was getting dark. It was a cute little area with shops, restaurants, and needless to say a Starbucks (oh America) I guess it is good that at least it's not a McDonald's? Hahahaha we had some icecream at a local famous burger restaurant then bought 4 焼き鳥便当　(grilled chicken on a stick rice box; a famous dish at Hakodate) with us to drive up to the mountain to see the famous Hakodate night view. To be known as the one of the top three night view places (among with Hong Kong and Naples [Napoli in Italian]), Hakodate didn't disappoint any of us of course. It was unspeakably pretty even though it was windy and cold up there. The wind didn't stop me from looking at the beautiful view. Nothing that I have seen can ever be compared to Hakodate's night view. In fact, all the night views that I have seen is uniquely beautiful in their way and attracts me differently. I just wish Pat was there to share it with me, but I can't complain much since my lovely host family was there with me.

By midnight, we finally reached papa's grandparent's house. They don't live there anymore though since they both moved into the nursery home nearby by, so we spent a night there. We got up quite early at around 7 to go into the mountain where papa's relatives owned some farm lands and plants plenty of fresh vegetables. We picked flowers, mushrooms and onions there and it was just the cutest thing ever. One day when I have my own house, I want to have my little garden too to grow my own tomatoes and flowers :)

Another cool cultural experience in this trip to visiting the Japanese graveyard. In Japan people brings flowers, small white candles with them to pay the visit. During the visit, they will clean the graveyard pouring fresh water over the graveyard and leave the flowers there.

We finally got to meet grandpa and grandma at their nursery home before their lunch time. They live in a nice artsy nursery home where a lot of activities go on with art and music. Also, they had a area of tatami (traditional Japanese floor) on their floor where their rooms are located. It was amazing to finally meet them. Grandpa is really healthy and energetic even though he is already 102. We had a little chat with him, and he was just like no other elderly - cute and funny - and super responsive. Then visited grandma who is, in comparison, not as healthy-looking and as responsive. She couldn't really open her eyes and was mourning or singing all the time. Grandpa told us that she doesn't remember a lot of things already and begins to act like a baby. Meeting the two of them makes me think a lot about life again. I think it will be the happiest thing to just grow old together with everyone that I love around me. Simple happiness.

To make a perfect ending to our road trip, we went to a mountain where the trappist is to see the famous Santa Maria, but it also turned into a fun hike! I never notice how much I love hiking, and I am thankful for my pair of Timberland haha being at that mountain is just like being in heaven. I have never been to a place like that - full with tall, healthy, green trees (unlike mountain in Texas haha so dry) and you are just part of the nature.

I am thankful to have such a great host family and I really am a lucky girl to have all these experience :)

Life as a Busy Bee!

Ciao tutti! Come stai? Sorry that I haven't been updating you all recently about what is going on. Like really sorry that I disappear for like almost forever lol

I was expecting myself to have quite a bit of free time to update my blog before since it was Golden Week  two weeks before. So what is the "Golden Week"! April 29 is Showa Day, the birthday of a former Emperor Showa; May 3 is Constitutional Day; May 4 is Greenery Day which is dedicated to environment and nature; May 5 is Children's Day (well if you have a boy in the house, then you will celebrate it!) Well basically yosakoi takes over my life now! So when people do a play or in the musical, they have a week called the "hell week" before the shows start, and here I have a "hell month" before the Yosakoi festival (Yosakoi ソーラン祭り) at the beginning of June! Thanks to everyone in the yosakoi team, even though practice is hard, but the fun part definitely overcomes the hard stuff!

http://www.yosakoi-soran.jp/

I haven't been getting much rest indeed since who knows when because my life is basically yosakoi now :) The very last weekend of April, the yosakoi team had practice in the morning on campus first then we went to our sponsor's (a seafood provider) factory to practice our dance outdoor. However, Saturday was not the most intense practice out of the practices that we had that weekend. Dancing for almost 8 hours is already not a big deal since it is quite common for Yosakoi. Of course we will get some 2-minute water break in between but all these dance practices compare to what I have ever done is just so different. I think dancing outdoor, despite how the weather is, is probably the most intense part of dance practice. No matter how cold it is or if it is raining or super windy, we will still practice our dance outdoor. However, it totally makes sense since the festival is going to take place outdoor at the Odori Park in the city center. It is one of the biggest festival in Sapporo and the whole Odori Park area will be closed down for the event for about 5 days. No matter how the weather is, the festival will still go on, so us dancers will dance in all conditions and perform our best for our audience.

In fact, I went to a dance camp with the team to a place called "Kiroro." Nonetheless, I didn't notice that Kiroro is actually a mountain, so I was definitely not dressed very appropriately - it was a bit cold to dance outdoor! There was even snow up on the mountain. I need to say - definitely an experience and knock on wood for not getting sick! It was a fun trip over all because it was definitely bonding time with everyone in the team and we even went to osen (hot spring) together!!

During the Golden Week vacation, I got to go to 苫小牧 (Tomakomai) with my host family to visit papa's sister on Thursday. The city is famous for factories lol and lakes with swans! However, the weather was horrible over Golden Week, so we didn't spend much time outdoor at all. The car ride from Sapporo to Tomakomai is about 2 hours, so I got to catch up on some sleep on my way there. However, I didn't sleep much over the weekend because I got tricked to go out on Thursday night to Susukinow with a group of liars (still love you guys though, but if you are reading this, you know I am talking about you! lol) It was a fun night since we just chilled and played pool at a bar called B Bar; however, I was so tired that I just fell asleep in the bar for a good while before I could catch the first train home at 6. Then I got up after a couple hours of sleep and went hang out with my yosakoi team since we had our bowling day (it was supposed to be 花見(hanami, flower watching), but it was raining, so we called it off and turn it into a bowling competition)! Bowling was definitely fun, but I was just exhausted lol I guess I tried my best to function with a couple hours of sleep? haha Saturday and Sunday was mainly practice with yosakoi.

Okay - here is my little make-up update for you all! I promise more to come about my insane weekend this past weekend soon ;) Sorry again and good night!!

Meeting stranger through music (三味線 Shamisen)

Ciao tutti! How's your day? Today has been an awesome day for me :):) Nice weather, new friend, music and sushi! I mean life is just good with all that you know?

I am quite tired today because of yosakoi last night (no big deal because it's fun tired!). We had a meeting until almost 10 about our dance team and then I went out for dinner with my teammates last night. Everyone is just the nicest and the cutest when they would ask my silly little questions then all giggle together. Even though I am still not 100% with my Japanese, I already feel like part of something here!

Today is indeed the warmest and the nicest day ever since I have been here! 21 degree celsius and super sunny. It really can't be any perfecter to have such a graceful day! I even got to lay out for a little to sunbath on campus after my class but of course I got plenty of weird stares because people in Japan don't normally do that! That as if laying down and sunbathing I guess? haha

On my way walking home from the subway station, I started hearing music coming from somewhere - a park next to the apartment that I live in now. I approached to the musician and just stopped and listen to her playing her shamisen. Shamisen is a traditional Japanese instrument with 3 strings. While she had a little break between playing songs, I decided to introduce myself and asked to take a picture of her :) And there we go, we became friends! Ms. Ami is a young looking lady. I said this is because she looks like she is in her early 30s, but she is indeed already 41! Also, she did yosakoi for 9 years, so we both got excited when I told her that I am now doing yosakoi in Hokkaido.

After her little practice, she also invited me to go to a day care home with her to listen to this team of people playing shamisen and taiko for the elderly in the community. It was the cutest thing ever and going to the day care home makes me miss volunteering at Masonic Village, a similar place nearby my college. The worker there introduced me to the old people which made me kind of nervous, but then everyone was so nice there and asked me a lot of questions about my home stay here now.

At night, my super sushi chef papa made us lots of sushi for dinner! I mean I do think I am one of the luckiest girl in the world with such a loving host family and for having a cool papa like him! :) We also had dessert tonight as I bought different types of strawberry cake home! What a good day, right?

I hope yours is as happy as mine, tutti! Ciao!

Finally a cell phone!

Ciao tutti! How was everyone's weekend? My weekend was a little wild, which I will share with you in a little! Before that, I got a big news - finally have a cell phone to use in Nippon!! :)

Even though it took a while for everyone in the BCA program to get the phone, thanks to all the hard work that everyone has been putting in towards this achievement! Japan has an interesting cell phone plan and system. It is definitely not cheap to make phone calls, but thanks to the invention of unlimited texting messaging! Well maybe I should say S! Mail because in Japan people don't text but have a mail address and "email" each other! Anyway, enough of my phone haha let's get started on sharing my weekend, share we?

On Saturday, I got up at 7 and went to Riho's primary school open house, and it was the cutest scene ever! When you walked into the school, you have to first take off your shoes before entering the actual building. Riho's classroom was on the 4th floor - a classroom with 30 kids and a teacher! During our visit, the teacher was teaching everyone kanji (chinese character) and everyone in class was reacting pretty energetically. I did wonder if it is because all the parents were there to give the unspoken support!

Then from 10 to 4, I went back on campus for my Yosakoi dance practice! I know ... long but super fun! I already love everyone that I met on the team. Most people did seem a bit shy at first, but now I am able to make a lot of new friends. So the only challenge now is to put everyone's faces with a name ;)

After getting home, I was soon falling into my afternoon nap, and thank god I took a nap or else I wouldn't be able to stay up until 7:30 the next morning. That's right, you heard me! I got home at around 6:40 and was up until 7:30 in the morning. Here is my story to share - so on a fun Saturday night as a college student, I went out to hang out with everyone to meet new friend, chill and drink. So why go home in the morning? The Japanese public transportation indeed closes quite early. The bus stops running at around 9:30 pm and the subway stops running at around midnight, so if you go out to hang out for the night then you normally stay up the entire night unless you want to be nice to the taxi driver and pay them a very nice amount of money to get home! lol but no not me - I am a mean person as you all know ;)

The night was quite fun indeed not because of the places that we went to, but just because I was with a fun group of people! After going to 飲み放題 (drink all you can), we went to a club called "Booty" (What a name, right? Baha) Booty is just a super smoky and can-be-creepy places with plenty of creepers. According to my British friend's Oxford guidebook, it is also known for foreigners to pick up Japanese girls, so of course with my Asian look, I already had the disadvantage of being creep on. Anyway, I was fine (you all may not know me, but my self-defense teacher called me the tiny dangerous one) and my guy friends were there to help me. It was a fun night for the most of it, so I guess can't complain much ;) Oh and I "picked up" a Japanese girl too. I met this "sexy mess" when I was outside of the club getting some fresh air, then she pulled me back into the club and on stage to start dancing. That's right - she needs to learn how to get herself together - no kidding.

On my train ride home with Ki and Chris, I ran into Jennifer who went off with another group in the middle of the night! Well it was more like ... she heard me laughing in the subway from 4 carts away then found me lol but totally love all these seeing people around! Such a weekend!

Anyway, time to get some rest!! Ciao!

Back into the House!

Ciao tutti :) Come stai? I had another exhausting day today, but of course exhausting in a good way! I was supposed to move back to the Nishino house yesterday, instead I moved back today because I knew I would be way too tired to move home after yosakoi practice that ends at 9:30. Plus homework, I don't think it would be smart for me to move haha

Anyway, I moved back to the house today. The moving process was a bit long and tiring. The subway ride from school to home is normally pretty short, but today with all my heavy luggage, it felt like I had ages to go home.

It's so good to be home to see everyone :) I miss the crazy laugh that Riho has and my host parents' cooking! They are both awesome cook :) We had chirashi sushi for dinner tonight! Yum! To be honest, I wasn't a 100% about moving out of Kirari. I love my host family, but now I grow to love living in Kirari too. Even though I only stayed there for a short period, I enjoyed living there with everyone so much! It's a different experience than living in a dorm. On the third floor, there are a lot of korean students and 3 guys from England. So most of the time, I speak English with the boys then Japanese with my korean friends there. I can tell that it is a different bonding there that I had with everyone who is super nice to me. I guess it is different too because now that I move out, there is no way of me being there anymore. The school doesn't allow anyone on the third floor, but only people who lives there. No visitors allowed :( I guess I will just see all my friends in class! Meh! I had so much fun cooking dinner for everyone and learning the Ukulele + playing it every night. It's definitely part of my best memory here.

Another interesting thing of the day is the TV shows that I watch with my host family! We were watching a game show on TV that asks two teams of artists/singers to guess different things. The first game was to guess whether this person is a guy or a girl (very interesting, surprising and partially scary HA), then it was to guess this two little twins who is doing the actual action (for example, who is actually eating the cake / who is petting a dog), the last one was guessing which Korean girls actually got plastic surgery. Everything was just so interesting lol I am amazed by their TV shows I guess hahaha

Anyway, I will get a chance to go to Riho's primary school tomorrow to observe her class! So let's see how a Japanese classroom is tomorrow! Nighty night :)

Decided: I am doing よさこい Yosakoi :)

Ciao tutti! Sorry that I haven't been keeping you all posted. Life has been pretty crazy lately. I wonder when is it not crazy for me haha anyway, I am currently staying in the international dorm - Kirari because my host family has some personal business to deal with and can't have me for a couple days. Kirari is indeed pretty fun. I do miss living in a dorm with other people in the States, so it has been fun living with other students again! I moved in here on Sunday with nothing knowing what exactly to expect. In fact, it was an interesting move-in because the international office here kind of forgot about my move-in and didn't inform the intense Japanese security guy, so I was given a challenge - explain myself in Japanese to the old man. Everything worked out fine, but it was just a big challenge I guess haha The floor that I am on mainly hosts students from Korea and England. I am also thankful that some people in my Japanese class actually lives on my floor - Momo, Ki, Chris and Xay.

So why is my life so crazy? First of all, I finally talked to my host family about doing yosakoi and they all encouraged me to do it since it is once-a-life-time experience. They said we can just hang out  a lot in June if I am going to be busy to death in May. Plus, I can possibly learn how to do yosakoi in Japan only, so I think I am in for this!

My weekend had an awesome start too. On Friday, I went to the Hokkaido museum of modern art with Jennifer, Silda, Jae and Matt where we all got a chance to meet the artist, Ten-ei Abe, who is currently having his exhibition there. With my love to art and art museum, I was so thankful for my luck and was way too excited to meet this gentleman who created tons of art work with a taste of Hokkaido. Then we all ended our night with going to 飲み放題(drink all you can).

Saturday was the day for host family parties. We all went to 小樽 Otaru for a nice lunch in a hotel. It was fun for most of it, but I felt it a bit disappointing then we only got an hour to sightsee around the city. Plus, the bus ride there is already an hour, so two hours of traveling and only an hour of sightseeing doesn't make too much sense to me. Anyway, it was a nice time to go out with my host family and get to meet other host family :) Plus, I got to go up to もいわ山 Mt. Moiwa, the highest mountain in Sapporo, with my host family to finally see the beautiful night view of Sapporo. I wanted to cry when I was up there because I am just amazed by how pretty the night view look.

I can't imagine when I get to go to 函館 Hakodate and get to see the night view there. Interesting enough, I got to see a Japanese all male A Capella group performing up on the mountain, which makes me really miss Phalanx, the all male A Capella group from school.

Okay. After 3 hours of dancing and just played a bit of football (I mean soccer) with the boys, I think it's time for bed :) Oyasumi!