isla holbox

it's been a hectic 6 months of moving, adjusting to new jobs, meeting new people... so purpleman and i decided we needed a vacation.

isla holbox is a tiny island off the northeastern tip of the yucatan peninsula. from cancun, it's a bumpy, 3 hour car ride through the jungle of quintana roo, followed by a 20-minute ferry ride from a small town called chiquila.

holbox is still recovering from hurricane wilma, and the island is basically a sleepy fishing village anyway, so there are very few tourists --after a few days you start recognizing the same faces.

i was surprised at how good the food was everywhere. the most impressive dish was the seafood ceviche: raw lobster, shrimp, octopus and fish, all marinated in lime, with chopped cilantro, onions and tomatoes. a very simple dish, but impossible to make without fresh seafood. xaloc, the small hotel where we stayed for 6 nights, did an exquisite version of this and i suspect they added a secret twist to the standard recipe. another memorable dish was xaloc's langosta xtabentun, lobster cooked in a creamy, anisette-flavored sauce...

but having returned to chilly new york, one of the things i'm already missing is waking up to the sound of waves. starting monday, it will be back to alarm clocks and subways...

the new yorker

i haven't updated this blog as much as i'd like to since moving. besides the fact that it took us a while to get connected to the internet, i've simply been very tired. it's partly because the new job has been pretty demanding. but it's also been hard adjusting to the generally more confrontational culture that is new york. i'm finally getting used to it and even beginning to feel comfortable that people --whether it be in the office or on a train with total strangers-- say what they want.

so, purpleman and i have spent most of our weekends recovering --reading and lazing around the apartment.
but lately we've been more adventurous, sampling indian in jackson heights (below: the famous jackson diner), szechuan in chinatown, argentinian gelati in the west village...

this is home now

it's been a hectic few months, but we're finally settled in our new home here in astoria, new york. and we love it!

we considered parts of brooklyn like williamsburg and park slope, but astoria somehow felt much more comfortable. my first impression of the neighborhood was that it was tremendously diverse. riding the N train into the neighborhood, i noticed everyone was reading a newspaper in a different foreign language --some greek, some italian, others chinese or spanish. and when i got off the train, i was hit by smells wafting from the falafel and kebab stands, the din of the greek cafes and restaurants... and somehow i knew it was my neighborhood.












our new place is a humble two bedroom apartment on a quiet street near broadway station. from our dining room window, i can see the neighbor's lawn --and laundry. i actually didn't expect such a nice view of greenery in new york city! the picture on the right is our living room. these two chairs are from my apartment in japan but the kilim is from double knot, a beautiful, turkish carpet gallery in tribeca. shopping for furniture was the funnest part of the move, although arranging for their delivery was the hardest!!

some good news

just as i was starting to like the idea of being a bum in new york, i received a call saying i got a job in new york! so i am feeling tremendously happy and relieved about being able to move with purpleman without struggling for a visa or quitting work --both of which i was prepared for.

so it's been a crazy month. the excitement of hearing about purpleman's new job, the horrible job interview and agonizing wait for the result... i definitely don't want to go through it again.

now all i have to stress out over is where to live in new york. the top candidates are astoria, queens, and the area around prospect park, brooklyn.

i still can't believe it but...

purpleman and i are moving to the other big city! so here we come:

i should've posted this sooner, since we found out a few weeks ago about purpleman's new job. but it has taken a while for reality to sink in -i couldn't stop shaking with excitement when he got the call- and to overcome the initial panic of "now what am i gonna do?"

i'm still not exactly sure what i'll be doing in a few months, but i do know i'll be with purpleman, living somewhere along these lines.

some controversial reading

one of the best books i've read lately is Snow by Orhan Pamuk. i love istanbul, and even though the story is set in what i think is the northeast corner of turkey, the frequent references to places like the very european nisantasi neighborhood reminded me of my visit to that "melancholy city". pamuk recently became very controversial after he was arrested for commenting on turkey's massacre of the armenians. turkey dropped the charges (of embarassing the state) right as i finished reading this book --what a coincidence.

another controversial book i read recently is the japanese Ishi ni Oyogu Sakana (fish swimming in stone), the first novel by Yu Miri. i had read a few of her other novels and essays but i had resisted this one because i knew it was the censored version. but when i saw it at the bookshop the other day with the advertising blurb "words were buried but their spirit survived", i decided to give it a try. it was one of the most depressing books i had read in a long time. it left a nasty aftertaste, but the kind you're glad to have experienced in a sick sort of way. definitely not iyashi-kei.

onsen weekend

the best onsens are supposed to be the hardest to get to, but omaru onsen in nasu-kogen was pretty easy: just an hour on the bullet train to nasu-shiobara and another hour on a courtesy bus that took us directly to the omaru onsen ryokan.

what makes this particular onsen special is that it's actually a river. the hot spring comes bubbling up from the riverbed --they've basically blocked off parts of the river to make a few outdoor baths.

the food was pretty good too. they did a cool presentation with the sashimi. i guess this is supposed to be a kamakura, or a japanese igloo. notice the prawn chilling out next to a scallop and a mound of wasabi:

it snowed on our second day there, so we sat in a bath watching snowflakes melt amidst the steam.

something chocolatey

my sister read my to-do list for 2006 and decided she wasn't going to let me be all talk as usual: we would bake a chocolate cake.

everyone says baking is easier than it sounds, and i suppose it's true because it is mostly just measuring and mixing. the hardest part is waiting --especially when you need to let it cool but the smell is so good you just can't resist...

we followed a recipe by raymond blanc, and the result was my favorite kind of chocolate cake: very dense and not too sweet, with a generous sprinkle of walnuts. it initially seemed a bit underbaked --a little bit too moist-- but tasted perfect a day later.

new york

i just got back from a week-long business trip to new york and washington d.c.
the funnest evening in new york was a dinner at hoomoos ali in soho with two former colleagues. they left the company years ago but we've somehow managed to stay in touch. it was fun exchanging gossip and updating each other on the latest developments in our careers and relationships...

and we had a hilarious conversation about our mutual friend jeremy, which started:
(brian) "I met him in Moscow, he's now dating a fellow Brit there!"
(me) "So then she must be new, the last i heard he was dating a pole dancer!"
(karen) "I think he' still with the pole dancer, he mentioned her in a recent e-mail"
(brian) "But I just met his girlfriend a few week ago! She's a journalist!"
after 10 minutes and much confusion, we were able to piece together the full story-- he was dating an english journalist working in moscow who pole-dances for recreation! of course we might've gotten it totally wrong, in which case i suppose it would be a perfect example of how funny rumours get started.

the rest of the trip was mostly business, and quite rushed. but i did have a very long, leisurely breakfast at norma's. i took a full two hours to read the new york times and the new yorker(i know you can get it outside new york, but it's not the same) and finish my Waz-za waffle made with mangoes and blueberries. i don't think i would ever become a regular at norma's even if i did live in new york. it is quite expensive. but when you're travelling you have a better excuse to pamper yourself, right?