U23D

It’s been kind of busy with some my going away parties.
I feel pretty sad as the departure day is getting close. Now is the time I got to do what I have wanted and enjoy the America before I leave. And complete the mission that I can’t leave behind.
The steakhouse ; Pinnacle Peak, http://www.pinnaclepeaksteakhouse.com/where I beat the 2 pounds steak. (I couldn’t even finish 1 pound steak at different place last time when I came America 5years ago, I was almost like busted.. Now I beat America!) I’ll upload the picture as soon as I get it from my friend.

U23D must have been seen while I’m here. Then I did it today.
That was incredible! The concert film was shot at South America and we need to wear the special glasses which make our eyes pretty tired, though, I am so big fan of U2 that I kept crying as same as I was at their concert in Tokyo 2years ago. The only thing I have been felt sorry is I was not able to stand up and sing along.
Bono was saying in the concert like that, ‘the difference between countries shouldn’t prevent us from making our better future.’
That’s right.

Soju

I’ve never wondered why Japanese shochu is also labeled as soju in the U.S. I didn’t care much about the issue ever, it turned out that it is necessary to know the inside track as long as there is special reason.

Here is the answer.
The liquor licensing laws in the states of California and New York classify soju in the same category as beer and wine, allowing businesses with a beer/wine license to sell it without requiring the more expensive license required for other distilled spirits. The only codicil is that the soju must be clearly labelled as such and contain less than 25% alcohol.
This has led to the appearance in the United States of many soju-based equivalents of traditional Western mixed drinks normally based on vodka or similar spirits, such as the soju martini and the soju cosmopolitan. Another consequence is that the manufacturers of similar distilled spirits from other parts of Asia, such as Japanese shochu, have begun to relabel their products as soju for sale in those regions. quoting from Wikipedia

So, that means it is better to make them labelled as Soju.

However, there are some Japanese brands represented like 'Yokaichi' labeled as shochu that has been produced by the company which gives priority to the policy than the cost even in the U.S.

Why don’t we cooperate?

I suppose it is really hard to live with people who have various backgrounds. Mostly, we benefit from co-living represented ‘room-share’ in many ways, but some of us have an exception.
For example, disaster 1, one of my friends had been living with two roommates for 2 months, one day the roommate have taken my friend’s money and ran away. He is no longer able to reach the ex-roommate. Remember, do not keep cash in the room, more importantly, do not trust anyone. Second disaster, one of my friends has been in trouble with junky roommate. I heard he had found his car broken (apparently broken by the roommate) shortly after he came back from vacation trip. Now he is filing a suit for it against him with the court. Remember, make sure whether a roommate is sane or not before starting co-living.
For me, it’s a messy kitchen.

This is the picture that had been attached on the fridge in the kitchen shared by us.
I don’t know who attached it, because almost 10 people are living in our dorm-type apartment ( Asian,Black,Latino,Russian,etc..) , we share only kitchen and bathrooms. I don’t want you to see the picture of kitchen that is not appropriate one on the web page. Just a week is enough to become messy even though a cleaner (I really feel sorry about this cleaner..I got to thank her) comes to clean up every week. Actually, I don’t care so much about kitchen because I rarely cook… But, I wonder why we can’t help each other.

Ramen-lover

I’ve been leisure a couple of days because I had finished my language school last week (still working part time 5-6days a week, though), then I happened to find an interesting article while I was reading L.A. times. That is about the “Ramen Blog” written by someone probably living in L.A. who calls himself as ‘rameniac’. http://www.rameniac.com/P1/
I’ve got interested in it and found ‘ramen Top 10’ that I couldn’t help checking it out as ‘Ramen-lover’. Nowadays, a lot of ramen restaurant chain primary established in Japan seem to competitively branch out into L.A.
‘Santouka’ appeared at the top in that ranking is also one of them.
Then, I went to ‘Little Osaka’ to check the ‘chabuya’ ranked no.9.
I skipped ‘Orochon ramen’, because I’ve already been there before, I hate to say this, it sucks. It is not worth it.
Anyways, I was completely disappointed when I found ‘chabuya’ closed today. I got to go ‘asahiya-ramen’ instead located in front of ‘chabuya’ that never seen before.
Well, honestly, that was so-so. I’m sure ‘asahiya-ramen’ is out of rank.Damn, I realized that I should have taken some pictures,…from next time, sorry.

Let’s see how far I’ve come.

I’ve decided to return Japan the end of February.
I took the TOEIC (I know it is not common in America, but to my surprise, I heard it is not even in South Korea or China) last week in order to check my improvement.
Then I’ve got the result today, the score was 820/990, not bad for me. But I still feel regret about the result, for I had difficulties in the reading part, because the test form was different than I expected, I mean all passages are like quotes from business scene, and not so easy to comprehend in limited time. If we are not familiar with this kind of stuff, it may be more difficult than the reading part of TOEFL.

I am tired.

It was the busiest ever today. The karaoke bar located at Little Tokyo where I work for was really alive with a lot of USC students today. (Have you ever heard that USC is also stand for University of Spoilt Children, that means they are rich, but ….)
Anyways, they were much more crazy than usual due to the victory of basketball game; USC beaten UCLA. http://usctrojans.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/recaps/011908aaa.html
Whenever they come to our bar, they do sake-bomb, I don’t know why, but they do, and they drink a lot. They paid more than $2,000 for drink charge in the end. I can’t believe that.
Meanwhile, I met a homeless guy on the wheelchair while I was fueling gas at the gas station on the way home. He came by me and started begging money as I had expected. Usually, I ignore and leave this kind of beggar behind, but today it was different, something has changed in my mind. I was thinking about the gap between these people, what makes them be so different? I don’t mean I blame the rich for abandoning the boor, because they probably owe their success to their efforts.
But… I somehow felt sad.All I could do was just putting $2 on his hands.

Hello, everyone!

It’s been a long time to update my Blog (I’ve already had my Japanese ver. Blog, but I am so lazy that hardly update it). Let me explain why I’ve started this English ver. Blog. Now I am looking for job in Japan, and I am going to apply the firm which is dealing ‘Import and Export business.’ English will be probably required there.
Hopefully, I want to import overseas alcohol beverage like Vodka and export Japanese sake to the world. Honestly, I am not good at typing in English, I have to get used to it.
I hope I could keep writing this Blog as long as I can.
And please be patient with my poor English writing. I would appreciate if you could leave some comments and correct my mistakes.