Hi again!

My oh my, it's been a while. Sorry about that...

This weekend was great! Momma and Poppa Wood came into town. I had an orchestra concert which they drove up to see on Saturday. We performed a bunch of pieces by Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet, Piano Concerto no. 2, and Intermezzo from War and Peace. The second piece was performed by a 21 year old pianist from Russia. I am so unaccomplished in my life! This guy had this nice, floofy hair that flew every time he got really into it.... But aside from that, he was a really amazing pianist. If he can play like that now, he certainly has a great future.

OH, I almost forgot!!! I have to talk about the dinner we had.

Wow. That would have been a crime!

We went to an amazing restaurant before my concert: Kaygetsu. It's a very unassuming restaurant on a corner of a strip mall on the fancier side of things, and from the outside, it certainly doesn't look like much. But on the inside, it is a fairly small place, with 4 seats at the sushi bar, and about 20 seats at tables. They have 2 fantastic menus: a kaiseki menu (which is a prix fixe tasting menu) and an a la carte menu. For five of us, we got 2 kaiseki menus and the rest a la carte. I got an incredible order of kama. This is the cheek of fish, where there is a lot of fish meat, and it's particularly delicious. They lightly fried the cheeks, but I did not get one. I did not get two. Nor three nor four... I got five pieces of kama. It was incredible! They wanted it to be like a sampler, so there was salmon, hamachi (yellowtail), and another white fish. Hamachi kama is always my favorite because it's so oily, only slightly fishy, and you don't have to work to chew it, it's so light. It goes incredibly with ponzu sauce, which is a citrusy dip, made from a fish broth, soy sauce, and lemon (or yuzu), among other ingredients.

We also got this incredible duck salad, which paired slices of seared duck with green apple. Mmmm. I love fowl.

The kaiseki menu is a work of art. Each dish they presented was so beautiful, it was hard to destroy it. But, how delicious it was made it too easy to do so!

I think there's nothing better than good Japanese food. It's really, really hard to beat. Talking about it makes me want to go back so badly (not to mention, it makes me hungry...).

Anyway, after my concert, we headed up to the city to stay at the brosky's place. By the time we got there, it was about 11:30, so we relaxed, had some hot chocolate... I was mesmerized by Cats 101 on Animal Planet, and eventually just fell asleep.

This brings me to a little side comment:

If I had cable TV, I would watch the following channels ALL DAY LONG--

Animal Planet

Food Network

The next morning, I awoke to a little delight in a paper bag landing next to my head-- my dad had got me an almond croissant, which is one of my favorite noms ever :)

After getting the family together (which always takes an eternity), we finally headed out to breakfast at this tiny tiny tiny place in SF, called Olea. It seated only about 16 people, and the 4 of us were crammed around this tiiiny table! We were all touching knees and could hardly fit all of our plates, utensils, water glasses, and coffee cups on the table top. I got a dellllicious pulled pork sandwich, which had this really zesty/tangy sauce (more vinegary than barbecue sauce) and cole slaw on a really fresh bun. I usually really don't like cole slaw, but the rest of the sandwich made it unnoticeable. Plus, it wasn't very mayonnaise-y, which I find to be the worst part about cole slaw.

Anyway, we headed back to campus, and I played my last concert for the quarter (or so I thought). I bid adieu to my parents, only to see them next week!

Now, we're in the final stretches of the quarter and, more importantly, in the final stretch BEFORE THANKSGIVING!!!!!!!!

My happiness has no bounds. I finished my last major assignment for the week, and now, I wait for Sunday.

Ryan is going to grace the Bay Area with his presence this weekend... Yay :)

OK, it's dinner time, omnomnom time.

Update (7:02pm): Check this out... Thanksgiving from the Minimalist :)

Update (8:12pm): 17 Things Worth Knowing About Your Cat (thanks Errrrica :D)