Two dinners. Pasta with mentaiko (明太子) roe and cream, and ochadzuke (お茶漬け), basically white rice with various toppings, wasabi and green tea. Love.

Oh my! I can not believe how quickly time passes! We are over one week into the new year already, and I never showed any pictures from the party I went to on new year’s eve!

Chu-hi on the train is always bliss.

Cheese and crackers and lovely christmas goodies…

…and I got a new ring!

I envy girls who have friends who can take pictures of them. I probably stood in the bathroom for 7 minutes trying to get a decent shot of my face.

And luckily for us, the trains were running all night to get people home.

My escapades in the kitchen continues! Above, cauliflower mash and chicken Parmesan. It is super easy to make. Boil cauliflower until it is soft, remove it from the water, and while it is still hot you puree the cauliflower together with salt, pepper and a lot of butter, and you are done! The chicken part of the dish is just as easy. Fry up lots of bell peppers (cut into squares) in a pan together with chicken, a little bit of leak and baby asparagus. I wanted a richer taste for this dish, so I fried it all up with butter instead of olive oil. Drizzle a bit of powdered Parmesan cheese over the veggies and chicken, and fry it all together in the pan for the last minute or so, and it is all done!

Mango lassi: cut up one yellow mango and puree it together with natural yogurt. Toss in a couple of chunks of mango before serving. Super yummy!

Ok, I didn’t make the sushi in the picture above. I just love taking pictures of sushi.

I thought it would be cute to use half of the bell pepper as a container for the cauliflower mash. I fried the bell-pepper-cups a bit on the frying pan before putting them on the plate.

I had to test the new lens I bought right away, I couldn’t wait! These are all taken in super-low light in Shinjuku in the evening, and I am pretty stoked, because with 800 ISO I could have shutter speeds way over 100. A little quick fix of noise in the camera raw software afterwards, and tamtam! Now I wonder why I didn’t sell the two other lenses earlier and just bought this one. That being said – it is a bit of a hassle getting used to not having the ability to zoom again, but for all the light this lens lets in it is totally worth it.

I just finished making a this for Madeleine. She is super-talented in the kitchen, so check out her blog with lots of yummy recipes.

Sushibird.com is one year old today! Happy birthday blog-baby, you’ve made it through the first year! Here are a ton of flowers to celebrate 🙂

Five best things about 2011:
1. Having the courage to start university all over again and go after the major I really wanted.
2. Finding out that hard work actually pays off, I received great grades.
3. Visiting great places, including Shanghai, an onsen in Izu and beautiful fjords in Norway.
4. Heaps and heaps of amazing sushi in Japan and great coffee in Norway.
5. Having everything at my fingertips two train stations away in Tokyo.

Five worst things about 2011:
1. I have spent at least 7 – 8 months of the year freezing. My inner thermostat was not working, and no matter what I did I could not seem to warm up.
2. A certain seminar leader for a certain university course. If you do not know the material yourself, how can you be expected to teach it to others? I hate to sound like one of those whiny students who will complain about all types of teachers – but I did my part, and I expect the other parts involved to do theirs as well.
3. A lot of friends leaving Japan around the earthquake in March, and I haven’t seen them since.
4. A painful shoulder and a painful arm after too much computer work.
5. Not being able to see the person you love the most for 4.5 months and knowing that they are all the way on the other side of the planet.

What have you learned this year?
That hard work really can pay off. That being yourself can feel damn good. I also learned to structure my work better, and I learned it is possible to get 4x as many things done if you actually structure your days better. 

Was the year like you expected it to be?
I expected the year to be super-busy, but it turned out even busier than I thought it would be. All good though, I’ve had a great ride!

What have you been watching?
Guilty pleasures, but I have watched a lot of TV-series. United States of Tara was absolutely great. Modern Family. Family guy. Judge Judy.

Who have you been hanging out with?
MrMacbookPro and big cups of coffee have acted like perfect best friends this year. Apart from that I have been hanging out with the gf, and a lot of wonderful and quite random study-buddies in Norway.

Have you gotten to know any new people this year?
Yes! So many neat university people! They are young and fun and and absolutely wonderful. Looking at them made me realize I have to give myself some time away from studying and just have fun.

What is the nicest thing you have gotten this year?
The letter that I got into university. A new Nikon lens. Airplane ticket. Wonderful magic fuzzy hugs.

What is the best thing you have read?
I think both books I read by Yoshimoto Banana were beautiful, both Kitchen and NP.

Did you do something you have never done before?
Got one year of university studies done in 4.5 months (go double load). Went to China. Made myself understood in various situations using only Japanese and not getting help from anyone. Started a blog.

What was your biggest achievement of 2011?
Getting into university and getting 3 As so far. Still waiting for two more grades, and keeping my fingers crossed. And I passed JLPT N3 last summer. Apart from tangible things – the biggest achievement was defiantly perseverance.

Best thing you bought?
A nikon lens. Plane tickets. Sushi. Coffee from Blom at least 4 times a week.

What did you spend the most money on?
Sushi and coffee and plane tickets. I don’t regret it.

What do you wish you did more of?
Blogging and Japanese. But all in all I am actually pretty god damn happy with everything I managed to get done in 2011.

Favorite video of the year?

What did you do on your birthday?
It was actually kind of a sad day. I spent the entire day memorizing the IPA-chart and studying for a linguistics exam due the next day. Oh well. It is every day which should count, not one day out of the year.

How would you describe your personal style of 2011?
Black black and black. I also stopped wearing accessories for the most part.

When I get old, I think this is a much better solution than a full garden. I should get myself one of these.

I did something yesterday I had been thinking about doing for quite a while – selling of two of my lenses, and investing in a new one. It is hard justifying spending a lot of money on camera equipment these days, but it is also hard justifying keeping lenses that does not work. So, I took a deep breath and went to the camera store, and before I knew it, two of my babies were gone, hopefully they will find better homes elsewhere, and I went on my merry way with a new lens better suited for my needs.

The lens I bought is a new 1.8 Nikkor lens, and it works wonders in low light, so now I am running out of excuses to not take pictures in dark places.

We went here the other day. Nakano is always super cute, and we found a really nice and cheap Chinese restaurant.

And then we went here:

Why can’t real bowling be more like Wii bowling? Needless to say, I lost, but had fun nonetheless. I am sure the picture below had something to do with that.