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What’s the most delicious thing you’ve ever eaten?
You know what? This is probably one of the more harder questions I have ever answered in my life. How can you choose one dish or one meal to be the “most delicious”? You cannot. There is no such thing as “the most delicious thing you’ve ever eaten”. However, I will say that there have been many “most delicious food experiences” I’ve ever had. Allow me to explain below in the best way I know how…by making a list.
- level 4 spicy 豚骨ラーメン (tonkotsu ramen) from 一蘭 (Ichiran) ramen chain.
- I’ve been to Tokyo, Taipei, & Hong Kong (IMO…Tokyo locations are the absolute best)
- freshly cooked, piping hot sausage on a stick at the Shilin Night Market in Taipei, Taiwan
- double bowl of 红烧牛肉面 (braised beef noodle soup) at a 50+ year old noodle shop with my closest friends in Taipei, Taiwan (after a wedding)
- sushi soooo fresh, the fish head is still moving, at my family’s favorite restaurant in Yokohama, Japan (just outside of the train station)
- double bowl of 雪菜肉丝面 (snow cabbage beef noodle soup) with my maternal grandmother in Shanghai, China
- homemade/handmade hamburger patties made by my mom with 2 slices of melted cheddar cheese
- first time taste of lobster, 2-pound lobster on the wharf at Abalonetti’s in Monterey, California with my parents
- 9-course steamed chicken dinner at Toriyoshi restaurant with friends in Tokyo, Japan
- ice cream & corn flake parfait dessert at Toriyoshi restaurant in Tokyo, Japan
- first time taste of mille crêpe cake from Café La Voie in Tokyo, Japan
- Jian’s homemade version of a French cassoulet
- Liberty Farms™ BBQ duck at The Progress restaurant in San Francisco, California
- Liberty Farms™ smoked duck at The Morris restaurant in San Francisco, California
- buckwheat donuts at The Morris restaurant in San Francisco, California
- deluxe seafood tower at Wright Brothers restaurant in London, England
- roast beef sandwich on sliced sourdough bread with Swiss cheese, red onions, mixed greens & garlic aioli spread from my local grocery store.
I had to make a list of some of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten. I couldn’t choose only one thing. Plus, it’s hard to think about all the things one has eaten in their entire lives & choose only one specific thing to be the absolute favorite or most delicious. How does a person choose only one? More importantly, how could a person go back through the memory catalog of their life & try to remember all of the foods they have consumed in their lifetime, then decide which dish reigns supreme (not an Iron Chef pun, I swear)? I don’t want to think that hard or make some ridiculously absurd justification about one frou-frou meal I had at some fancy-schmancy restaurant somewhere exotic. So I made a list.
My food preferences are all over the place, but that’s okay. I am not really an adventurous eater, but I am still willing to try foreign foods. Jian is pushing me to try new foods, or foods I have refused to eat in the past, when we travel again to Japan later this year. We shall see. Until the next meal, cheers.
Today’s song of the day:
If you were forced to wear one outfit over and over again, what would it be?
This is as straightforward of an answer I can give you: jeans & a sweatshirt. I live in an area within California where I can pretty much wear long pants & sweatshirts/sweaters all year round. There is one small stretch at the end of summer, just before fall, where it gets almost unbearably hot. However, pretty much throughout the other parts of the year, I can wear long pants & long sleeve shirts.
My go-to outfit pretty much every day is a pair of skinny jeans & either a long-sleeve shirt, a sweatshirt, or a lightweight sweater. Since I don’t have to get dressed up to go to a corporate office, or meet anybody in a formal setting, I don’t have much need to wear business casual clothing. I have some formalwear, a few basic pieces that I can throw on for special occasions, but most of my everyday wardrobe since becoming a parent, has been taken over by comfort-wear.
I have a small selection of skinny jeans in various shades of blue that I rotate through weekly. I don’t follow the major fashion trends, & I know skinny jeans are not in style right now, but I don’t care. I’m fairly short in stature, so I feel like wearing any other style of jeans (i.e. boyfriend fit, relaxed fit, boot leg, etc.) would just make me look shorter, wider in frame, & frumpy. I am a skinny or straight leg jeans lady for life. Also, being a creature of habit, I always stay within the blue hue range. I am not comfortable venturing out to other colors in jeans.
Because of the area I live in, the weather is always temperate, so I don’t usually have to put away my autumn/winter clothes or rotate my wardrobe based on the seasons. I have a dedicated shelf in my closet just for my regular-use sweaters & sweatshirts. I rotate through these items weekly. If you were to ask me, I would say that I prefer sweatshirts over sweaters, but that’s only because sweatshirts are easy to throw in to the washing machine, whereas sweaters need to be specialty hand washed or dry cleaned. I’m not a particularly messy or sloppy person, buuuttt…I can be rough & careless at times when I do things, & that can create irreversible messes on my clothes. So, casual sweatshirts are the way to go! They keep me warm, hides my body image issues, & can withstand my day-to-day activities.
So there you have it. I’m a sweatshirt & jeans kind of lady. I don’t have to take too much time in the mornings to choose an outfit. I can grab & go, & with a little child that takes for-ev-er to get ready in the mornings, it’s always easiest to have something simple to throw on & not have to think too much about it. Of course, I wouldn’t be my usual OCD self if I didn’t add on that my everyday clothing must be clean & wrinkle-free. I may be a basic dresser, but I will never compromise on cleanliness & neatness/tidiness. That is all. Cheers.
Today’s song of the day:
Recently I have found myself drawn to background noise videos on YouTube. Sometimes I will listen to Lo-Fi beats or soft café jazz music. Other times I will play a stream of sounds from a busy coffee shop. Even more recently, however, I have been very much enjoying city street background noise, especially the ones with light rain. I will put on a long-stream video & let it play in the background while I’m puttering around the house doing chores, or while I’m click-clack typing away on my computer. I know ambient static noise has become quite popular these days (i.e. white noise, brown noise, pink noise, etc.), but I have really found these everyday background sounds to be the most soothing/calming for me personally.
I live in a very stereotypical, quiet American suburban neighborhood. Sometimes I can catch the sounds of a delivery truck or a neighbor speeding up our hilled street, or the sounds of a lawn getting mowed. If I am in my backyard, looking out past the wooded area behind my house’s property line, I can not only see the freeway overpass, but I can hear the distant noise of the cars & motorcycles whizzing by. Every once-in-a-while, an airplane from the nearby airport can be somewhat heard flying over our neighborhood.
I would love to be able to crack open a window in the house & listen to all the sounds coming from outside, but I can’t for various reasons. For one, my mom dislikes anyone opening a window unless someone is cooking & it’s making the whole house smell. Secondly, she has a fear that someone will forget to shut the window at night & a random intruder will sneak in to burglarize our house. On top of that, my mom has removed all the screens on all the windows for easier window washing. So now we can’t find half the screens for all of the windows, which means bugs can get inside if we open a window…& not just one or two, but an annoying amount of bugs. Plus, we don’t get much ambient outdoor noise except for my next-door neighbor’s super irritating dogs barking at everything. (She has 4 fur balls.)
That’s when I discovered this completely new-to-me rabbit hole on YouTube of random background sounds. I have been listening to the Café Music BGM channel & the Chillhop Music channel on YouTube for the past couple of years already, but I have never thought of putting on ambient noise before now. This latest idea originated from something completely inane that I have already been doing for years, but never gave it much importance. It’s one of life’s small, yet impactful, pleasures that really brings me comfort & joy…listening to the sounds coming from an open window. Yes, it really is that simple, generic, & kind of dumb action that we take for granted every single day.
I started consciously & actively doing this from the time Jian & I started traveling together. Whenever we stay in a hotel somewhere, if there is an openable window, I’m going to open it. I love letting the everyday sounds from the outside waft in to our room while we’re settling in & unpacking our suitcases, or open the window when we wake up in the morning to circulate the air in the room. Obviously, due to hotel regulations, the windows do not open wide enough to get a full breeze circulating around the room, but at least we can feel a modest flow of air.
When we take breaks in our hotel room, I like to crack open the window & listen to the sounds coming from outside, rather than always have the TV on in the background. Some of my fondest memories are of the times when I’d accompany Jian on one of his work trips, & I’d be on my own for most of the day while he was working. I’d explore the city on my own for a while. Then, I’d grab an afternoon coffee & snack, head back to the hotel, & just listen to the sounds from an open window while putting my feet up on the chair & taking a relaxing break.
Jian is not too keen on my penchant for window-opening. He likes to colorfully express his fear of pervy voyeurs peering into our room, especially while we’re getting dressed or getting ready to take a shower. It doesn’t matter if the hotel room is on the 3rd floor, 20th floor, or 50th floor, or even if the windows are shaded. He believes there’s always someone out there trying to sneak a peak at us, either partially or fully in our birthday suits, perhaps with an HD resolution, military-grade, telescopic lens. Much to his chagrin though, I still enjoy cracking open that window, however much the hotel regulations allow. As long as we can hear the sounds from outside filtering in to our room, or we can feel a slight breeze, that makes me feel content.
Seeking these kinds of little pleasures in life is what truly lifts my spirits. It gets me in a good mood & puts a smile on my face. Like Gen Z aptly puts it, it’s giving chill vibes AF. I’m in my “vacation mom” era. Ahem, I’m only kidding. I don’t talk like that in my everyday life, let alone write it out. Let’s forget all that nonsense & just enjoy the ambient tunes of idle café chatter & cars passing by some nondescript city street, pretend we are people-watching as we sip our iced lattés at the sidewalk table under the awning. It’s getting closer to happy hour, & the sky is no longer a vibrant blue. Shades of pink & orange are starting to streak across the skyline. The 21 and over spot next door just put out their $1 dollar oysters sign. I’m about to reheat some leftovers for tonight’s dinner. Until the next cup, cheers!
Rabbits & Foxes 
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