okonomiyaki love

we had an okonomiyaki party on friday. written お好み焼き in japanese, "okonomi" means "favorite" or "what you like", and "yaki" is "cooked" or "grilled". basically you mix whatever you want into the batter. usual ingredients are stuff like shredded cabbage, prawns, pork, eggs, cheese, whatever.

it's a pretty cheap but really yummy meal. there are expensive restaurants for okonomiyaki in japan, but that's when they use premium ingredients like kobe beef. my friends and i used to go for okonomiyaki pretty often because it's fast and fun. you just mix everything you want in a bowl, then pour the whole batter over the hot plate, turn each side to cook, and you're just about done!! then you've got to add the japanese sauce, mayonnaise, bonito flakes, and aonori.

it does get kinda heavy (can't eat too much of it) but it's yummmmm.

we had the party at yvonne and roger's house (my ex-bosses), and stayed there laughing and talking nonsense till 2am.

it was so good and i wanted to eat more but my stomach would not allow me to stuff anything else in it. dammit.


also, i've started on another still-life painting. this time, my angle was really difficult. we had to draw a pot and some watering can, and all the damned spouts and handles were pointing their asses at me!! i'm not very good at that and took some time to get things right, but i was quite proud of myself.

my teacher, raphael, says he's now teaching us the proper methods of under-painting (?), or was it monochromatic under-painting. as we start to use more oil pigments we would realise why he's making us go through his steps. well, according to him anyway. but i'm getting the hang of it (i think) and i'm having a lot of fun.

except my clothes get dirty and i get black fingernails that won't get cleaned, even if i use the olive oil brush cleaner to wash my hands. they finally come away clean after i take a bath. in the meantime i keep feeling really gross and dirty and i hope i get used to that soon! haha!


in the meantime, my bright pink highlights on my dark red hair, is slowly fading. now it's kinda-pink highlights on a WHAT-IN-THE-WORLD-COLOR-IS-THIS hair.

i found a dreadful picture of myself, back when i first got my highlights done. excuse the mess, i was sweaty after hockey training. but ugh i want that pink color back!! well truth be told, on most people, pink wouldn't last very long. most of my friends would get crazy colors like that and it wouldn't even last a week. mine has lasted a month. i think i'll hold out for a little while more and get a touch-up done. i wonder if there's anywhere that i can buy the color to diy though. does anyone know where i can buy l'oreal nuancelle?

my parents keep telling me that at the rate that i'm dying my hair (and sometimes perming), i'd be bald in no time. the thing is, i have extremely thin (considerably fewer than normal) and thin (each strand is very fine) hair. amazingly, all my coloring hasn't zapped all the life out of my hair yet. but because i have such thin hair, i'm already convinced that i'd probably go bald by the age of 35 anyway. so i might as well make full use of it now. hahaha.