It snowed here on Wednesday. I looked out the window and it was actually snowing!
Getting snow here is like getting snow where I live in Texas. It doesn't happen often. Of course a day after I left Texas last month they got like 10 inches or something like that! Yesterday was a beautiful day. When I saw Koichi off to work in the morning I couldn't believe how beautiful Sakurajima (the volcano) was.
You can barely see some snow still left behind from the day before as well as a little smoke coming out of the top.
When I left the apartment around 11am to go to lunch with friends, this is what it looked like. It's amazing that no matter how many times I walk out and see this magnificent creature I never get tired of it and it somehow always looks different!
Of course today the temperature is in the 60s...because that's what you expect two days after getting snow, right? Just another way Kagoshima weather reminds me of Texas!
In other news with me, I'm totally wrapped up in cooking lately. Here are a few things I've made this week:
Pork and asparagus sauteed with kimchi and cherry tomatoes sauteed lightly in sesame oil and covered with a soy sauce and ginger mixture.
Beef, tofu and lotus root saute with spinach seasoned with soy sauce and lemon juice and topped with sesame seeds.
Tuna and avocado marinated in an olive oil, soy sauce and lemon juice mixture on top of rice with salad.
I'm trying to eat healthier so I've been incorporating tofu into a lot of dishes this week. It helps that Koichi really likes tofu and informed me last week he'd be fine eating some sort of tofu everyday. It's easy to use because I can just add it to a saute or cut it up and throw it in the miso soup or just serve it with soy sauce. I have a cookbook I bought last year that's supposed to help people with "metabolic syndrome" or "metabo-" as they call it here. It's just a way to say overweight! Anyway, in the back of the book it lists common foods and their caloric content. I was pretty shocked to learn that a small bowl of rice, about 150 grams, has 252 calories! I usually only eat one bowl, but Koichi usually has 2 or 3! So I've started using my scale in the kitchen to weigh my portions out. I've also decided to try to eat more fish. I want to use fish at least twice a week and this week I was successful with salmon on Monday and tuna on Thursday! Thanks to my 1.6 liter water pitcher that I fill up every morning, I'm also getting in my full water intake!! And, on top of everything else, while I didn't get outside to walk this week, I did get my Wii Fit out and did a little working out on it yesterday and the day before and I fully intend to do so again today! I know I need to get outside and do some real cardio, but I figure moving with Wii Fit is better than nothing, right?
Last but not least on my end, I've decided to start knitting. I discovered that when I'm home all the time I tend to snack a bit too much. I've decided to combat that problem a number of ways. 1) Try harder about tracking what I eat. If I have to write it all down I find that I tend to eat less!
2) Don't keep snack-y foods around the house. Potato chips are my weakness and if there's a bag here I'll eat the entire thing! Luckily the bags of chips here are smaller than in the US, but still 400+ calories in a snack is not good. 3) I've decided to teach myself to knit. I got my books and yarn out earlier this week and this morning I finished my first practice swatch! It's definitely good for keeping my hands busy because unless you're very talented, I don't think anyone could manage to hold two needles, yarn and find a way to stuff food into their mouth.
My first swatch! Today I was able to bind it off and get it off the needle. Just need to get a yarn needle today so I can work away my ends and it'll be done! My first project to challenge is a scarf...even though winter is over!
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