Chocolate. And Kitty.

It's funny how these things keep repeating themselves. To me, anyway.

I had a look around town on Saturday, checking out a Korean restaurant with a Japanese food shop - very nice selection and good prices - and dropped into the amazing chocolate shop in front of the station to drool-I mean select some gifts for clients in Tokyo.

One of the more amusing items in the shop were these solid chocolate cylinders for use with the Tete de Moine cheese slicers.

A slightly more disturbing discovery was these dress-up sticker packs - since when does Hello Kitty wear a bra?

I'm used to finding Kitty when I look for her, but I was not expecting to see her in a CD shop.

I did like this pun though. Just when you think the Swiss have no sense of humour.

Other than that, a quiet week. Accounts are done and sent to the accountant. Raining most of the day today which himself hopes will turn into snow if it lasts. Made chocolate coffee brownies, although they were seriously undercooked as I had them in a smaller pan than the recipe called for. Still edible, of course!

Say it louder - more chocolate!

Because, of course, what a deliciously chocolately moist cupcake needs is chocolate cream cheese frosting. Must stop celebrating special days with massive amounts of sugar. ^_^;

Say it with chocolate

Just made these - very nice chocolate cupcakes. I managed to misread the recipe and cooked them at the lower of the two temperatures instead of the higher, but they turned out really nicely - gooey without being too doughy, moist and rich and very chocolately indeed.

I also made some chocolate cream cheese frosting to go with them. Normally I don't modify recipes other than halving or doubling them as I have no idea what I'm doing. But when I saw how much icing sugar was involved I decided to add it until I had enough sweetness to take off some of the tang of the cream cheese and then leave it be. Gaining weight is not one of my objectives. -_-;

The invasion continues

She's even in Zurich now! Kitty-branded Mobil-style blocks seen in the large supermarket towards town.

While I was out

Just to get everything where it should be, here are some photos from my phone that I don't think I've posted up yet.

First, this was available at himself's office restaurant - edible crockery!

Amazingly, chocolate dorayaki in Spain!

Kittys are not just for Christmas. Well, maybe this one is.

A charmingly named childrens' toy shop.

And the best reason to go to Malaga - boquerones!

Just over a month to Japan!

I won't even start with the old "I'm not dead" joke.

We've been doing a lot of clearing out to make the place presentable for people coming over, to reorganise our storage space and just to figure out what's going on with all the stuff we have. We finally got all the cardboard from the move out into a recycling collection and gave up on shredding the huge stack of paper that needed it and brought it into himself's office for shredding instead. We picked up an Ikea shelving unit for free - had a little adventure getting it home on the train with a little rolling platform - and now have all the books out of the too-damp garage and cellar.

Other than that, the planning for Japan is almost complete. Waiting for a response from one guest house and then we need to get the Japan Rail passes (which we can get here in Zurich) and an official translation of himself's passport from the Swiss embassy in Tokyo so we have the option to rent a car. It's going to be expensive... so I'm determined to enjoy it!

I was at a rakugo event organised by the Zurich Japanese Society on Saturday - I didn't even know they existed until they handed out fliers for it at the Swiss Japanese Friendship Society's New Year party - but it was lots of fun and got to have another delicious bento from Washoku and some handmade Japanese sweets. They don't last, so I'm having the last one tonight, pumpkin paste in a glutinous rice wrapper. This is a photo of the bento from the Friendship Society's New Year party.

Work has been all on/all off as usual, so I'm trying to make the best of the downtime to make a start on the newsletter for my translators' group (which I foolishly offered to put together) and look into marketing myself. I don't enjoy selling myself - not sure if it's a confidence thing or just European reticence, maybe both - but I do need to generate more business.

Also been doing some baking, and really enjoying making this fool-proof recipe for blondies (no-chocolate brownies). Well, I did replace the nuts with chocolate and caramel chips. But mostly non-chocolate.

Zurich is unusually warm and flowers are starting to come up already - although there's every chance that winter will bite before spring arrives. Needless to say, the skiiers and snowboarders are despairing of the whole thing. Himself has a new board after ripping the bottom out of his old one on some rocks last year, so he's not taking it out until everything is white for a few feet down.

Round and round we go

Hello! Sorry for the long silence, lots going on but nothing really interesting.

However, I have finally got around to putting up my pictures of Ronda! Now that all the Christmas cards and New Year cards are finally out of the way...

Crafty and Christmassy

Took a day out from work - the stuff I'm still doing that seems to fill all my non-traditional working hours and eat into my sleep - yesterday, to find a bead shop that I'd seen while wandering around with my first (and possibly only) guest (apart from himself). It's called "Docombi" and is in the Galerias Goya in Malaga.


It was pretty good! Nothing terribly expensive, a nice range of Swarovski crystal, Czech glass and Delicas, as well as some really nice and unusual glass, resin and shell pieces. I went quite mad and got several of everything I like and some things that I'd never wear myself but think would make a cool set of earrings. The shop was manned by two blokes, but seemed to have a healthy stream of customers and despite being crammed and having lots of stock on the floor was actually quite interesting. And my madness only cost me 40 Euro, so I can't complain.


The Galerias Goya has loads of very nice small alternative shops and looks like a great place if you're stuck for a present. Half of them were closed with no idea of opening hours, as is par for the course here. Here was a knitting/handicrafts store in the basement.


And all the Christmas lights are up! Not on yet, but there.

Dunkin'... what?

It was Dunkin' Donuts in Japan, but seems to be Dunkin' Coffee here. The coffee is terrible, but the donut holes come in a cardboard bus!

Admit it

This is what you always wanted for Christmas.

Photos from Granada!

It only took me three weeks to get these up... I took way too many photos, and culled almost half!

But here is the beauty of the Alhambra and the Nasrid Palaces, and the Generalife and its gardens.

Damn you, Ikea!

I went to Ikea in Malaga for some bed sheets, and only bed sheets. Knowing you have to carry everything back at the end of the contract is a great motivator.

But no, Ikea had to have this ridiculously cute fabric fruit basket. And I spent several minutes fruitlessly (haha) searching the huge bin for the vegetable basket. Twice. I appear to be a sucker for fabric mushrooms, carrots and cabbage.

While I went there looking for an inexpensive and serviceable fitted sheet and duvet cover set (not that you need a duvet here, it's 16 C today), I ended up getting the Beata Orkide set - one of the more expensive ones but I love it and will take it back home and use it there.

Interpretation at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal

A series of fascinating posts on interpretation at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal on the Unprofessional Translation blog: Bilingualism and the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, Bilingualism and the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal (2) and Bilingualism and the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal - Conclusion.

The saga ends!

After five months of frantic phone calls, scrambling to get documentation, personally going in to Kantonal authorities to get paperwork and generally struggling with the system - I have my Auslanderausweis!

It's a good thing I had already decided to go back to Zurich this weekend - there was a letter waiting for me from the Adliswil town hall asking me to come in with my passport and a photo. I handed them over to the lovely Ms Angst and two minutes later after stamping the photo into the card and getting me to sign it, I had my 5 year residency permit! (Good thing they didn't give me the 6-month one, otherwise I'd have had to apply for the next one while I was picking up this one.)

It's now scanned and sent to various people who need it, like my health insurer and bank. It kind of has the wrong address - c\o himself - but it's good enough for a celebration!

Hi there, Sexi

I'm a sucker for a bad joke. The beautiful town of Almunecar, known as Sexi to the Phoenecians and (even better) Firmium Julium Sexi to the Romans, is an easy day out and was a great place to stop off on the way to see Matt and family halfway between Malaga and Almeria!

And I finally have the photos up as well! I'm very behind on both blogging and photos but will try to get caught up soon. I just need to stop working, having a life, or sleeping.

Hola!

As they say. Between work, commuting and keeping up with Japan Society commitments, I haven't been doing much. But there is a Bank holiday tomorrow and I'm away at the weekend!

In the meantime, more Random Malaga.

Hasta la vista

Just a quick note to say that I am still alive! We had an enforced day off yesterday due to a general strike (no transport to/from the office) so I spent it catching up with some of the mountain of Japan Society work I need to get done. I think my head is above water now.

Malaga has both a Dunnes Stores and a Sanrio shop. It's like an omen.

Photos from Malaga!

I did go for a wander around town last Saturday, so here are some photos of Malaga!

Paris!

A bit later than planned, here are the photos of our trip to Paris!

Hola!

I have arrived safely in Malaga! Currently in a temporary serviced apartment, probably until the end of the week, and then will move to a normal flat.

It's a change to go from having very little to write about (other than immigration procedure and cake) to having so much going on that I'd need another one of me to write about it (and preferably help the first me clear the backlog). But I will try to get caught up soon on all the news and photos. I'm looking at this weekend, if I don't spend it traisping around Malaga!