Waking up each day...

It's been quite a long time since I last updated.

Still have trouble sleeping occasionally, but generally have been sleeping better.
It's been rather warm on and off; some days I think: "Summer's here ne." Other days I wonder: "What happened? It's so cold again!"
It was really cold for the latter part of last week, but started getting really hot yesterday. Maybe this is when Summer is really here, I don't know, I think I actually prefer the cooler weather.

I went to a hula lesson surrounded by mostly old people, but quite enjoyed it so I signed up. Thinking about making my own pa'u dress.
Also booked myself in for a belly dance lesson, Ayaka, Marvin's girlfriend, said she'd come along too so it should be a bit of fun.

In the time that I've been in Yamanashi, I've met 2 Ayaka's and was told of one more. The first one is really nice and loves to drink; we suspect she might be an actual alcoholic. The second one is Marvin's girlfriend, I really like her; she's really nice and genuine and reminds me of Hui Shien.

Been making bread with the breadmaker but for one reason or another, the bread just doesn't rise... every time the bread just stayed flat and very dense, regardless of how much yeast I put in; I think it's time to get a new packet of yeast.

Make some very chocolatey muffin/cakes; they were meant to be gooey centred but I had them in the oven for just a tad too long and so they weren't gooey any more. The cherries in the middle were a nice addtiion though.

Tried to make corned beef (the lazy way) yesterday with a 500g block of beef. I didn't cure it in brine first just boiled it straight away in brine; it turned out overdone and dry. Since I got two blocks, I tried to just heat up the brine and then just put the second block in and left it in the pot in the thermos thing to cook slowly overnight. That didn't seem to work either. Remembering how the salted pork chunks used to turn out when I was in Australia, I think soaking the block of meat in cold brine first for a night or two should help do some magic to the texture of the meat.