Cooking : Fava bean spaghetti

En français

The other day, I went shopping to and other shop than my usual one. It's just across the street from the usual one so not much more difficult to get there. That was incredible. That was more like a market than like a shop but still you had all the products that you can find in supermarket, plus a lot of fresh vegetable, fish, meat. Anyway, I found fava bean, something I hadn't eat for years. Probably since childhood actually. So I decided to get some and to prepare myself something with them. I also go the little funny mushroom that I tested at the restaurants sometimes.

What do you need :

Spaghetti

Fava bean
Mushrooms
A tomato
5 crab sticks

Preparation :

Take the skin away from the fava beans. Cut the mushroom
Put the Fava bean and mushroom in some boiling water until the beans are cooked.
Cook the spaghetti.
Cut the tomato and crab sticks in dice.
Fry the vegetable and crab stick in a pan.
Put them on the top of the spaghetti.

いただきます !

Japan : Sakura trees are Japan soul

En français
Yesterday evening I went to the 野川 (Nogawa) river to see the Sakura trees enlighten. That was really magical. The blooming trees were pinkish and white on the dark night sky. I wouldn't have been surprised to see little fairies. My friend told me that the Sakura trees are Japan soul and he asked me what the France soul is, if that's the Eiffel Tower. I didn't really know what to answer. I never thought about it before. Maybe Japan is going to teach me new feelings. Looking at the trees probably did, that's difficult to explain.
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America : Glass museum at Navy Pier

En français
In the evening I went to a concert of Jazz where the boyfriend of my host was playing, at Navy Pier.
Then we went to the stained glass window museum. Here are some pictures of the exposition. And us playing with the mirrors.

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America : Walk in Chicago and zoo

 En français
The next morning I went to walk in an other part of Chicago and kind of scared myself with a guy following me. Then I took the train to go to a more secure part of town to the Ernest Hemingway museum. Unfortunately is was close.
In the afternoon I walked to the zoo. Chicago has a free zoo in the middle of town which was pretty cool.
That was a long and warm day and I walked a lot.

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America : China town in Chicago

En français
The next day I went to walk in China Town in the morning and I stayed there for lunch in a new Japanese restaurant which was just opening. Some people I know went there too but only saw the main street, not the mall that is a bit further away. I think that the mall was the most interesting part of it.
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April's challenges

En français
So the month of April is coming and it's going to be really really busy. I intend to participate to two contests that I will describe in this post and I also intend to continue writing my third novel "Demon and fairy".
So what are those new challenges I'm giving to myself and what are they all about ?
The first one is Script Frenzy and the second is the International L2 Reading Contest.

Script Frenzy

For Script Frenzy I will write 100 pages movie script. I already prepare my story, meaning by that I know the beginning in the end. It will be a love ghost story. We will find some of the characters present in "Demon Soul" and "Attic mirror" as some part of the story will be taking place in the usual house where the previous characters and the new one live.
I'm not planing on giving you the script in pieces. Script seems to be a lot different to write than a novel as they need a lot of formatting. I'm not really sure I will be able to cut it into scenes and to finish the story in just 100 pages. So I will probably write it all and edit it before giving you a chance to read it. How ever I will tell you how things are going regularly and if i managed to write my weekly 25 pages, something like that as well as little summary of the story.

International L2 Reading Contest

For the International L2 Reading Contest I will read as much pages in Japanese as possible. You can read in any foreign language as you want but as I'm currently living in Japan and learning Japanese, I think it's a great opportunity to improve. I don't think I will make it in the first 5 to win however as my knowledge of the Japanese writing system is not yet optimum. If everything goes as planed I should be able to finish Heisig RTK in 12 days, also I forgot all the kana I already learned and will need to go back to it. But I still can hope, I'm a polyphasic after all so it's at time like that that it can make things turn out to my advantage.

What do I intend to read ?

Harry Potter in Japanese

I have it as a printed book so that will help when I get tired for reading on screen. Also I'm way slower at reading on screen. Another advantage is that the Kanjis have furigana the first time they appear which will help me get through learning their pronunciation.

花ざかりの君たちへ (Hana Kimi)
Reading manga with a lot of picture is going to help me increasing the number of pages faster (I still need to read 10 pages of manga to have it counted as 1 page of normal text)
Also that will help me relax a little from page of text where I won't seem to be understanding anything at first.

あのときの王子くん
I will read the little prince as an audio book (audio books list). The text is written for children and then full of hiragana which worries me a little. But having the audio as well will help be go through it and learn the kanas more easily, or so I hope.


ジーキル博士とハイド氏の怪事件
I'm not too sure about that one I think I need a book with more kanji to be able to read by meaning more than by sound. It also comes from the same audio books list. So I think this one is going to be good for that, however I can still find something different in the list. Another good point about it is that I already read it in English so that will help a bit.

America : Walk in Chicago

En français

At the end of the conference, I went back to Chigaco for a week. I was staying with three different couch surfers.
I already hosted people with Sebastien but that was the first time for one of us to be hosted. I made my demands through his account as I don't have one myself.
I didn't do much on the day of going back, just tried to figure out where my first host was and we went to the restaurant with one of her friend.
The next day I took a walk in Chicago in the same area I went on my first night there and in the museum area. It was sunny and nice, that was a good change from Belfast.
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