Nespresso store in Omote-sando

The title says it all :)

Dinner at Roy's!

Today's dinner was at a place called Roy's in Roppongi Hills. It's a Japanese-American fusion place, and man was it delicious. Unfortunately, I forgot my phone, and so there are no pictures of this glorious dinner. However, my ever-awesome descriptions will still be there, so we're all good.

We got to the restuarant and the first thing I noticed was the view. Roy's has a fantastic view of the Tokyo skyline, especially Tokyo Tower. The orange of the tower looks beautiful against the night sky.

The second thing I noticed was the fact that the waiter poured some water into what looked like an empty bowl. But in reality, the bowl contained these rolled up towelettes that expanded when water was added, so that guests could clean their hands.

Drinks were also awesome at this place! I had my first alcoholic beverage with my parents - it was an apple Mojito and tasted just like fizzy apple juice. 

Appetizers were two different types of sushi. One of them was warm, and it tasted surprisingly good.

Main entrees for me was a tuna steak. If was delicious, but because my stomach is still a bit sore and the sauce that the steak was sitting in had wasabi in it, I traded with my brother, who had mahi mahi as his entree. That was also pretty yummy, except I only had half of it since again, stomach.

Dessert was not at Roy's, but rather, at Coldstone Creamery. That's right folks, this wonderful dinner was topped off with a Like It sized bowl of Chocolate Devotion. And it was scrumptious. 

Thai dinner

As promised, here's the blog post about the Thai dinner that we had yesterday. It was at a place called Ananda in Akasaka. The food was delicious, although I only had a little bit of everything because my stomach was still a bit sore. Here are a few pictures of what we ate!

Thai fish cakes, as an appetizer. The fish cakes were perfectly sized, and the cucumber-peanut sauce went perfectly with it. 

Thai papaya salad, otherwise known as my favorite Thai dish. This dish is the reason that we came to this restaurant in the first place. Last time my parents came here, they asked to make the salad at an authentic Thai spice level. And it was so spicy that only my mom could eat it. She said it reminded her of a Thai papaya salad that we had in Bangkok, and so she had to make me try it. Now unfortunately we couldn't have that level of spice, but it was still spicy and still delicious. I think we're planning on going again sometime in the week so that we can have just the Thai papaya salad at authentic spice level and mango sticky rice.

This was salted chili soft shell crab. I haven't really had crab much, but this was good!  It was pretty spicy, and the outside of the crab was crispy and the inside was nice and soft.

Rice in a pineapple - this was just rice with chicken and pineapple pieces in it. Nice and mild!

Thai red curry! Definitely different than the red curries that I'm used to, but equally as good. There is jasmine sticky rice on the side. 

And finally, mango sticky rice. A perfect end to a good meal. 

Japanese English

We went out to Thai food for dinner tonight, and it was delicious (more on that in a different post). What this post has to do with it is a funny sign that we saw on the way back. Japan is still a place where it is hard to get around without knowing Japanese, but there are signs in English sometimes.

Some of them are spelled correctly and are grammatically correct, but some of them are not :)

Bakery in Azabujuban!

Today we went to one of my favorite bakeries in Azabujuban. Below is a picture of some of the baked goodies that we bought!

The cones are the chocolate cones that I love so much. The chocolate donut on the top left is apparently really good, according to my brother, and so we bought one for him. And the two donuts-without-holes in the upper-middle part of the picture are red bean donuts. I'm excited to try it, since a) I like red beans and b) red beans are a popular part of Japanese cuisine. Hopefully it's good!

Shibuya round 2

We went to Shibuya today again, this time to visit two stores. Or well, one store and one mall. The store was Forever21, which I am proud to say had prices comparable to those is the states, but the store itself was a lot cleaner, a lot more organized, a lot bigger (it was 6 stories, after all) and had much more variety. 

The next place we went to was Shibuya 109, which is a 12 story building with about 8-9 shops on each floor. These shops were reminiscent of boutiques, and had every style from girly to western to goth clothing. While I didn't buy anything, the people watching was still fun.

Some of my observations:

1) Each boutique had 2-3 girls working in them. 90% of them had dyed their hair blonde or light brown, and had curled their hair at the bottom. Apparently, this is considered to be fashionable. Those who didn't had dyed their hair another color (for example, one store was pink themed. The girls had, you guessed it, pink hair).

2) Said girls also wore heels that were greater than 3 inches tall. I was wearing wedges about that tall, and after 20 minutes, my feet were screaming for rest. Working in those heels must be hell. I too my hat to all of you.

3) Said girls also wore lots of makeup, making them look almost doll like in appearance. This is a wider trend I've seen while in Tokyo - very few girls don't have layers and layers of makeup one. And it's nothing extreme, they all conform to having the "natural" makeup look.

4) If you're not thin, you will not be able to find anything to wear. For reference, I'm 5 foot 6 inches, and weigh about 110 pounds. At the Forever21 in the states, I wear a size small. In Japan? Medium to large. At Shibuya 109, I tried on a one-size-fits all dress. I couldn't fit into it. And honestly, it was depressing. I'm not used to not being able to fit into something. But that was exactly the case today. 

It makes me wonder - what about people who are actually bigger than the norm? How do they feel, especially in countries like Japan and South Korea, where conformity in appearance is key? 

This might, however, explain why plastic surgery in East Asia is as common as it is though. 

Thoughts?

Crossed 5000 views!

Thank you :) 

What was your favorite post?

Uniqlo!

Today I went to the Uniqlo in Ginza, the world's largest Uniqlo. It is (I'm not kidding) 12 stories big. The first 5 floors are for women, then the next 5 are men/kids, and the upper two are speciality floors (I think). They have every color tshirt, shirts, pants, and leggings known to mankind. It's simultaneously great and overwhelming.

Japan moment of the day - in the dressing rooms in Uniqlo, you're asked to take off your shoes. And the actual stall is raised (so you have to step up into the stall). In addition, they use a Swiffer wetjet type mop to clean up the stall once you're done. 

A great article

Written by someone who just graduated from CMU. He gives good advice regarding CMU CS by giving analogies to running. Overall, an excellent read, and I agree with most of it!

http://www.avesh.me/lessons-from-the-run/

New book!

Next book on the list - Michael Lewis' Flash Boys. It's about the high frequency trading market on Wall Street and is supposed to be a very good book. I shall let you know how it is once I finish reading it!

Food poisoning

Or at least, a mild case of it is what I have. I think it's both due to the fact that I've been eating a ton of food lately (more than I'm used to) and the sushi I ate.

Puking - it is not fun. Food does not taste better on the way up than on the way down. 

Sushi bar dinner!

So last night, my family and I went out for sushi. There are many types of sushi restaurants in Japan, ranging from ones where sushi is served via conveyor belt (you pick up the plates of sushi off of the belt, and each plate corresponds to a different price) to sushi bars that you can't sit at to actual sit down restaurants. We picked the first kind, and man, the sushi was delicious. I had scallop sushi and mashed tuna sushi and broiled salmon sushi (they use a blowtorch to cook the top of the sushi) and more sushi that I can't remember. But below are some pictures we took of last night, enjoy!

    Green tea is super popular in Japan, so they decided to create a self-serve green tea machine. Clever!

That's the conveyor belt that the sushi comes on! Also a nice picture of the chef.

 

    Scallop sushi! This was also broiled.

 

    Shrimp sushi! This came on one of the cheaper colored plates (green), while the scallop above came on a more expensive  one. One similarity though - most plates contain two pieces of the sushi. The only exceptions are pieces of sushi that are very expensive, or sushi that is something wrapped in rice which is wrapped in seaweed (the ones that are cylindrical in shape).

Also, while we're taking an explanation break, you can also ask the sushi chef to make you specific kinds of sushi, but we didn't, preferring to try our luck at the conveyor belt. Everything we ate, we liked, but towards the end of the meal the sushi chef started making the sushi that we like (salmon, tuna) and we were already full. Did that stop us from eating any more? Nope. Funny story, my mom was waiting for the tuna sushi to come, because we saw the tuna being prepared, and she just decided that we could leave and come back another time when the chef plopped the tuna sushi plates on the conveyor belt. And so of course, we split the two sushi on the plate :)

    Broiled salmon sushi!

    Mashed tuna with leeks sushi!

    The all-important tuna sushi!

    Final plate count! Although some of my plates definitely ended up in different stacks. Now, how did the restaurant determine how much the bill was. You could count the plates, but considering we had 22, that would have taken forever. So what they did is they had someone come with an electronic-paddle type thing, and he basically waved it over the top of the pile, and then down the side of the pile (I assume that he was somehow scanning the plates, and the different colors that the machine scanned corresponded to the different prices). Once he finished scanning all four stacks, he gave us a receipt, which we then paid at the front of the restaurant. I thought this was pretty neat! And it also shows some of the technological advancements in Japan that the US doesn't have (although I'm not sure if any restaurant would ever need something like this).

All in all, a fantastic dinner!

A quick note on the name change

As many of you probably noticed, the name of this blog changed! This wasn't something that I had been thinking about doing, but I was scrolling through the blogger site when I realized that the old title had very little (if anything) to do with the content that was posted on the blog. Yes, I am a brown girl, and yes, I was talking about my life, but it wasn't all about computer science. And so I changed it to something a bit more indicative of what this blog is actually about. 

The only downside? The blog title will only be accurate for a decade ;) 

A day in Shibuya!

Today, my family I spent the day at Shibuya, a part of Tokyo that's known for it's shops and it's vibrant nightlife. 

This is the iced chocolate shake, dark, from the Lindt store. It was absolutely delicious, although a bit too sweet. You could also buy Lindt chocolate here, by buying the individual chocolates or then mixing and matching them.

This is a farmer's market that we stopped at! My parents bought some freshly squeezed orange juice and some garlic paste. My dad also had a cup of sangria ;) 

Definitely one of the cooler things I've seen in Japan! This is commonly put outside of smaller restaurants. Before entering the restaurant, you order the food you want by pressing a button that corresponds to that food item. Once you insert enough money to pay for the item, you get a receipt, which you then take inside and hand to the cooks, who then proceed to actually make the food. 

It was a long and tiring day, but it's not done yet! Tonight's dinner will be at a sushi bar, which serves sushi by using a conveyor belt. 

Visit to a temple!

    

    

    

     

The last picture was of a wedding that we saw while at the temple!

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

I just finished reading this book, and I'm sorry to say that it left a bitter taste in my mouth. For those of you who don't know this book, it's about a wife who goes missing on her fifth wedding anniversary, and all clues point towards her husband having done it. The book alternates points of view between the husband and the wife, which also happen at different times (some happen in the past, while others are in the present day).

I think part of the reason I was unhappy who the book was because it had a very binary way of looking at marriage. Either marriage was the absolutely over-the-top romantic thing, or it was horrible, terrible, and both parties were unhappy. And that's very rarely what any relationship (and I'm guessing marriage, although I've

never been married before) is like. There are ups and there are downs, there is good and bad, but sometimes there is just neutral. Where things are neither good nor bad, but just are. Where people float along life, content. But there is none of that in this book, which was infuriating after a while.

Another thing - I found myself reading this book just to get done with it, not because I actually liked it. And that's never something you say about a good book. I think this was because I didn't actually like any of the characters. I initially liked the wife and hated the husband,but then about halfway through, I hated the wife and the husband, and that's how I felt when I finished. I didn't care about any of the characters, which means I didn't actually care about what happened to them in the book, so I was just reading the book to finish it.

And finally, the ending. It was the worst ending that could have been chosen. I understand that the number of options for endings for this book were probably limited, but Gillian, you picked the worst one. Honestly, after finishing the book, I kicked myself for having wasted that much time reading this book, because there was no way it could have been worse.

Apparently, this book is becoming a movie, and apparently they're changing the ending. Will I watch it? Absolutely not. I'm done wasting time on this author and this book. 

More pictures of food!

This is a chocolate cone, and it's super common to find in bakeries in Tokyo. It used to be one of my favorite foods the last time I lived in Japan, and it is most definitely one of my favorite foods now. There is only one way to eat this cone (in my opinion) and that is - backwards! If you start at the tip of the cone, then as you continue eating you get a bit more chocolate in every bite, until it's overflowing at the end, and it's simply delicious! 

Apologies for the lack of posting

But now that I'm finally home, I can start posting again!

First post from home is a picture of only the most delicious dessert ever. It's flan with a caramel sauce on the bottom, and it's got the perfect consistency and amount of sweetness. It is absolutely my favorite, and I wish you could get it stateside!

This is absolute bullshit

Arguments like, "Oh, she was dressed provocatively", or "oh, she was asking for it", are ABSOLUTE BS. Are you telling me you have no self-control whatsoever? That you can't control your desires because you're an animal?

My other favorite part of articles like these? When these men are asked how their mother and sisters should respond to this kind of thing, they frown and talk about how their family is devout and the women are dressed modestly. And then they turn around and harass a girl who is is in a burqa.

There are many choice words that I would like to tell men like this, but I will say none of them.

Because I know how to control myself.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/sheerafrenkel/egyptian-men-say-new-law-to-ban-sexual-harassment-wont-make

In light of #BringBackOurGirls

Here's a fantastic organization working towards helping girls and making sure they get an education.

http://girlrising.com/


Girl rising also had a documentary that they aired on CNN a few years ago. I wanted to watch it, but unfortunately, someone else needed the TV about halfway through the documentary. From the half that I saw, however, I really liked it. It opened my eyes to exactly how fortunate I was that my parents could afford to send me to elementary school without worrying about the extra costs, or about my safety, or any of the other things that girls in the documentary had to worry about.


Take a read!

Live Below the Line

Live Below the Line is an organization that aims to raise awareness for people who are living in extreme poverty, which is defined as living under $1.50 a day.

One of the things that people can get involved is by taking the Live Below the Line challenge, which is to use $1.50 a day for 5 days for all of your food. 

I was looking at the cookbook that they release for the challenge, and it *almost* seems doable. Would you do it?

What do you think?

The link published below is about the owner and founder of Saravana Bhavan, which is an Indian Vegetarian restaurant that was started in India, but has spread globally to cities around the world. It serves fantastic South Indian food, and the article talks about how the owner got started in the restaurant business and challenges and successes that he has had, both personally and professionally.

Read the article - http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/11/magazine/masala-dosa-to-die-for.html?hp&_r=2 , and let me know what you think of him. On one hand, he sounds like the perfect entrepreneur, the quintessential rags to riches story. On the other hand, he seems crazy, making arbitrary decisions and trying to flex his power ad use his wealth to get him whatever he wants.

What do you think?

Brown CS Girl

Finals Week

Hi everyone!

Due to the arrival of finals, I will probably not be able to post very much. Instead, I will be studying :(

AirBnb offices!

There has been a lot of controversy surrounding AirBnb recently, and so while looking up information about them, I came across this article.

This is gorgeous! What's your favorite part about this office?

AirBnb Office Space

What an interesting concept!

Would you buy salads out of a vending machine?  I definitely would, especially if I was traveling. It's very easy to eat junk food because it is ubiquitous, but if these vending machines were placed right next to a McDonald's, I would choose it instead.

What about you?

Vending Machines for Salads?

What a great quote!

The capacity to be alone is the capacity to love. It may look paradoxical to you, but it is not. It is an existential truth: only those people who are capable of being alone, are capable of love, of sharing, of going into the deepest core of the other person—without possessing the other, without depending on the other, without reducing the other to a thing, and without becoming addicted to the other. They allow the other absolute freedom, because they know that if the other leaves, they will be as happy as they are now. Their happiness cannot be taken by the other, because it is not given by the other. –Osho

An unfortunate article

I came across this article as I was scrolling through my newsfeed, and after reading it, I'm worried about the future of minorities in higher education. This, coupled with the fact that over 55 universities are being investigated for Title IX violations (CMU included), doesn't bode well for women and minorities.

Why is there still favoritism toward white males?



http://www.policymic.com/articles/88731/wharton-study-shows-the-shocking-result-when-women-and-minorities-email-their-professors?utm_source=policymicFB&utm_medium=main&utm_campaign=social

A fantastic infographic about AirBnb!

AirBnb has recently been in the news for both good and bad things (for good - see the NYTimes Magazine article from last week, for bad-look at the protests in SF). The infographic below shows how the company got started!

A super cool blog

Talking about breaking stereotypes! These apply mainly to Indian people, and stereotypes associated with them, but I really like the way this was done.


http://blog.trulymadly.com/breaking-stereotypes/

A Brown CS Girl

What keeps me up at night

Last day of classes....

....and first all-nighter being pulled.

Happy Last Day of Classes everyone!

CS joke number 1

Gotta love that Boolean logic!

Definitely in the right major,

A Brown CS girl