This post is for MoOgooGuypAN and his restaurant reviews and whatnot.
Koto Restaurant & Delicatessen is located in Waipahu.
Local Directions: Behind Times Waipahu, next to the bus depot.
General Directions: 94-750 Hikimoe St., Waipahu, HI 96797. Hikimoe St. runs parallel to Farrington Hwy.
When you walk in, you'll see their Okazu-ya section. I forgot to take down their hours of operation. They serve the usual items: tempura (shrimp and vegetables), nishime, musubi, long rice, chicken, etc.
Turn to the left, and you find the restaurant seating area. It's a small place, and I have never seen more than 4 people in there. I like it being small and not so busy. I'm sure the okazu-ya sells really well in the early morning (which I won't be there for it, no matter how hungry I am).
I sat down in the corner and looked at the menu. Damn... forgot a picture of the menu. Anyway, I already knew what I was going to get, and so I ordered it: Tempura udon. I ordered a side order of tempura vegetables, because I was really hungry and wanted more tempura!
There's two pieces of shrimp tempura and three pieces of eggplant tempura. Topped off with green onions and a bit of shichimi (7 spices).
The soup was a little saltier than I would have wanted, but everything still tasted really good. It was a nice change from the constant Zippy's, Subway, Panda Express lunches I usually have during the week.
I Loathe:
- being bored and having nothing to do. I need some inspiration, and it's not hitting me yet.
- not being able to go on a trip somewhere. There's just no way we can afford to go somewhere if we're going to take a two-week vacation to Japan next April. We have to save up for it, plus make sure all bills will be covered while we are gone. At least we will be going to Maui for a weekend, which is something.
- Sick fuckers.
- Voggy weather. It comes and goes. Yesterday was nice and clear. Today isn't as clear, but Saturday was THE WORST. In fact, I have photos and video of it. Post those later.
- looking for a recipe and finding nothing that is easy to work with. I just want a sun-dried tomato marinara... anyone have a simple recipe out there? the one that popped up first asks specifically for Trader Joe's sun-dried roma tomatoes. I can't get that here.
- knowing there are lots of things I hate, but not knowing what to post. I guess I don't hate them very strongly.
- people. now there's one I can count on!
I Love:
- having friends over at my place. I cooked hamburger curry on Thursday night and invited my friends to join me. They brought salad and rice (my rice pot is small, so I didn't want to have to cook three times in order to make sure there was enough rice for everyone.
- new family members. no, I'm not talking about being pregnant (not planning on that one for a year or two or more). I'm planning on adopting a kitten. There's a foster home for kitties down the street from where I live, and there's a cute little calico there.
The foster lady calls her Boo Boo. I don't know if I will keep the name or not.
- gray weather. I don't like the voggy weather, but I like when the sun isn't out to burn me to death. it gets way too hot when the sun is out.
- having a really tasty lunch. I went to eat at Koto Restaurant in Waipahu, for some handmade udon. I'll post more about this one later.
- making shopping lists. it definitely helps me remember everything that I need to pick up. gonna need new cat items, especially.
- finding new items to purchase on eBay. My newest thing? I want to buy a Kyocera ceramic kitchen knife. I'm researching which one to get first. If I want the really nice one, I have to save up some moolah for it.
- placing an order from ThinkGeek.com, which should be arriving tomorrow. Yay fun things!
I don't understand how a person could do such a thing to their own child. What the fuck is wrong with this guy?? Humans should be beyond this sort of thing.... I just can't comprehend it.
from BBC News Online:
A 73-year-old Austrian man has confessed to imprisoning his daughter in a cellar for 24 years and fathering her seven children, police have said.
Police said Josef Fritzl also admitted burning the body of a baby that died at the house in Amstetten, Lower Austria.
Mr Fritzl has been taken to court while authorities are caring for the woman, now 42, and her six surviving children.
Photos of the man's basement show a concealed network of tiny windowless chambers which were soundproofed.
Prosecutors say Mr Fritzl is expected to be taken into protective custody after appearing before a magistrate.
The woman, Elisabeth, disappeared aged 18 on 28 August 1984 when, according to her testimony to police, her father lured her into the cellar, drugging and handcuffing her before locking her up.
She is reported to have been made to write a letter which made it look as if she had run away.
The head of the criminal affairs bureau in Lower Austria, Franz Polzer, said Mr Fritzl had admitted sexually abusing his daughter repeatedly during the time he imprisoned her.
Mr Polzer said Mr Fritzl told investigators Elisabeth had given birth to seven children, including twins in 1996, but one died shortly after being born and that he had thrown the body into an incinerator in the building.
The surviving children are now aged between five and 19 years.
The cellar rooms, covering an area of approximately 60 sq m (650 sq ft), were equipped for sleeping and cooking, and with sanitary facilities.
A reinforced concrete door was built into the wall that separated the "dungeon" from the house and electronically locked - the code known only to the suspect, who provided his captives with food and necessities, police said.
Three of the children were kept in the cellar with their mother and had never seen daylight, police told a news conference.
The other three children were adopted or fostered by the suspect, after he forced Elisabeth to write a letter saying she could not look after the baby, according to police.
His wife, Rosemarie, with whom he had seven of their own children, appears to have been unaware of the alleged crimes.
The security chief for Lower Austria, Franz Prucher, said he had been down into the cellar where it was easy to understand how the abuse was not discovered.
"The cellar is very deep," he said. "There you can cry and nobody will hear, nobody. There you can cry as loud as you can, you can hear nothing."
The alleged abuse and Mr Fritzl's apparent double life came to light when the eldest of the children in the cellar, 19-year-old Kerstin, became seriously ill earlier this month and had to be taken to hospital.
KEY FACTS IN CASE
Elisabeth reappeared at home after disappearing 24 years ago
Six children she says are hers have been found and placed in care
One of the children, aged 19, is seriously ill in hospital
Elisabeth's father Josef Fritzl, 73, has been arrested on suspicion of incest and abduction
Police say Mr Fritzl confesses to imprisoning Elisabeth and fathering her seven children
A television appeal by medical staff for the patient's mother was seen by Elisabeth on a TV set in the cellar and she urged her father to let her go to hospital.
Police arrested Mr Fritzl shortly afterwards and took all the children into care.
"If you look at him today, you would hardly believe he was capable of doing these things. This man led a double life for 24 years," said Mr Polzer.
He said it was incredible that it had been kept secret for all that time.
Both the father and Elisabeth say no one else had access to the cellar, according to police, who are appealing to anyone with information about Mr Fritzl to contact them.
Asked why the captives had not tried to escape before, Mr Polzer said one had to consider the fact that the woman was small and weak and even the eldest boy, now 18, was "a small boy, a weak boy".
"You have to put yourself into the situation of these people," he said. "They led a completely different life to ours, they do not know what we know. These children were born into the jail, they knew nothing else."
Illness
Kerstin is said to be in a coma in hospital.
The head of the intensive care unit at the Amstetten hospital, Albert Reiter, said the impact of her experiences would eventually become clearer.
"The connection between the effects of 20 years without daylight, the incest and other illnesses, we will research in the coming hours and days," he said.
The media were told the other children who had been kept in the cellar were in surprising physical health, but very pale.
The region's district governor, Hans-Heinz Lenze, said he had spoken to the five-year-old boy.
"He even told me how happy he was and how fantastic it was to ride in a real car," he said.
Help offer
Journalist Andreas Wetz, of the daily newspaper Die Presse, told the BBC the suspect's neighbours in Amstetten, a small town about 130km (80 miles) west of Vienna, were in shock at the revelations.
"The man who is said to have done this, they said he was funny, he talked to neighbours, he might be a little introverted, but they had no idea that this person could do this," he said.
The BBC's Bethany Bell says the case is reminiscent of that of Natascha Kampusch, the Austrian teenager held captive in a cellar in a house in a Vienna suburb for eight years, who ran to freedom in 2006.
While police are not connecting the two cases, many Austrians are asking how such matters went undiscovered, she says.
Miss Kampusch, now 20, has offered to help the victims. She told Austria's ORF radio: "I can imagine that it is very difficult both for the mother of the children as well as for the wife of the perpetrator to get through this."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/europe/7371043.stm
Some of us get bored everyday. we need new QotDs and new VoxHunts. Seriously, Vox... give me something to do!
Which yet-to-be-released movie are you excited to see?
I'm thinking Iron Man looks to be good. I'm trying not to get too excited about it, because comic book movies are a hit-or-miss deal. I'm a fan of Marvel Comics, so I'm definitely looking forward to it. Plus, Robert Downey Jr. is a good actor. Not too many out there, y'know?
I had laser corrective surgery for my eyes back in October. Photorefractive Keratectomy (PRK) to be precise. I had horrible eyesight, and I also had a scar on the surface of my right eye, so I couldn't qualify for the less painful, quick-healing LASIK surgery. My eyes hurt for about a month after the surgery... but I got through it.
Since then, my eyesight has improved drastically. sometimes I complain about my left eye, because it doesn't seem to focus right... it still has a bit of astigmatism in it. when I use both eyes, I can see pretty clearly.
The doctor says I have 20/25 vision. 3 months ago, he quoted 20/30 vision and I have a pair of glasses to help correct that for night time driving. I haven't changed the prescription, since it would be a very very small change.
This is (I think that's what the doc said?) what my eyesight was like right before the surgery. I had to spend 3 months NOT wearing contact lenses, to let my eyes go back to their natural shape without them... so that was 3 months of annoying glasses, knowing that my eyes would start to get worse.
This is the prescription for my glasses NOW. See the difference? How much it changed? I'm not familiar with how to read the prescription, but I believe OD is for the right eye and OS is the left? and the CYL is for the astigmatism? I could be completely off on this, but I'm going to ask someone to verify for me. If I'm wrong, I will correct it.
I loathe:
- playing the same songs over and over again. I play gagaku, ancient Japanese court music. Our group, The Hawai'i Gagaku Society, performs several times a year around O'ahu, sometimes on outer islands and other countries (not too often). This year is our 40th Anniversary, and we have a concert coming up August 30, 2008. I was hoping we would play something different this time... no. it's the same thing again. and again. and again. the same songs. I'm tired of it. I feel like it's such a waste to go to rehearsal because I already know how to play the songs and it just doesn't feel challenging at all. boring. bored. need new material.
- constant headaches.
- waking up in the A.M. still waiting for a nice night time job that pays well.
- debt.
- losing the cord that connects my iPod to my computer. I can't update my playlists or add new music. sucks... and I don't want to buy a new one.
- flaky people who post about wanting to give away their kittens. I had tried contacting this one lady in Ma'ili for a kitten. when I talk to her, she sounds enthusiastic and everything. Then I'm left waiting for her phone call to schedule a time to meet up. As much as I would like to get a part-siamese kitty, I don't think I can put up with this lady anymore. THEN... another lady tells me to come by on Saturday afternoon. I call and tell her I can't make it... but then come to find out someone had adopted the kitty I was gonna go see... on Saturday MORNING. I WAS AVAILABLE SATURDAY MORNING! damn it.
I love:
- Photography! I went with friends, including bi11jon, around the island and played tourist again.
There are a lot of photos from it, but a lot of mine are still on film, undeveloped. I will post more later... if they turn out nice.
- shave ice on a hot, sunny day.
- playing tabletop shuffleboard with friends. We're making it a monthly thing at Murphy's Bar & Grill.
- cooking dinner with Mike. we made fried chicken strips on Sunday night.
same batter recipe as the pork chops.
- setting up at least one meeting to see some kittens. There's a foster home down the street from where I live, and I talked with the lady there. She said I can stop by sometime this week to look at them (though they are a little young still). another lady called me back and said she will check her work schedule and see if she can stop by with the kitty later in the week.
- cloudy days. I prefer to have no sunlight, thanks. I burn too easily.
- rediscovering music. I went through my iTunes library and made a playlist of songs I know I like, but haven't listened to them in a while.
Have you ever experienced road rage?
Submitted by Question of the Day.
I go through it almost daily. When I drive is when I swear the most. Drivers here just seriously piss me off.
As for people raging against me? Nothing serious. There was once in a parking lot, I was waiting for a stall to free up, and had my indicator TURNED ON, and some lady claimed she was there first, when she wasn't. I had turned on my indicator the second I saw the guy jump into his car. The lady was yelling at us from her car. Once I stepped out of the car (this was when I had blue hair), she didn't seem as daring to yell at us. Maybe I'm scary. OoOoOooooOOOOoooo... (pretend that sounds like ghostly wails)
What would you like to do more of?
I'm with IrishLuckyLass on this one... I want to travel. I want to see the world, and take photos of it! Australia, New Zealand, Asia, Europe, Africa.... everything, everywhere! I see pictures of these places, but I want to take my own.
My own stupidity caused the debt I have, and so it's my own fault we can't travel. We make good money, and if it were not for my debt, we'd probably be looking into buying a house (or at least a townhouse), especially with the market going the way it's going right now. But oh well... suffer the consequences.
