SMAP X SIOB

Friday was a bit of a strange day. I woke up feeling rather sad. It seemed that EVERYONE was gone. I counted in my head and concluded that over 10 people that I care about were nowhere near me and felt very alone. Damn the lot of you and your foreign-ness….even Done-bloody-gal!

I thought about writing a blog. I know I still have to finish up the kumdo and Korea reports but that was the last thing I wanted to think about. To be honest going from being interesting, attractive Siobhán that everybody in Korea wants to meet to normal Siobhán in Dublin has been a bit depressing.

With all of that swimming around in my head and unable to attend kendo training (nobody’s fault) I faced the prospect of spending the entire day sitting at home doing…nothing. Yay.

I didn’t really feel like leaving the house but I had arranged to meet Catriona and would have felt too guilty about cancelling. Some of you reading this don’t know Catriona. She’s been my friend in Trinity since day one, literally. That first dinner in the Buttery after First Year registration where we somehow managed to find each other… For the past three years we’ve stuck together. There have been times when she’s busy with TCD Publications and I’m busy with the Japanese Society or kendo. Somehow though, we keep coming back together. It’s good to have a friend like that, especially on a day like that.

This post is for Catriona: thank you for cheering me up!

The plan for the day was to make sushi, using some of the ingredients from my glorious win in the Toru Cup *cue Motson-style smug celebration* but it took us along time to get there. When I arrived at Catriona’s, Amy (who was in Helsinki at the kendo champs) was there too. What followed was a loooooooong session discussing boys, bitches and boys, broken down into the following statistics based on the 3 participants in the conversation:

*66% are in love

*33% are loved

*66% have a job

*33% can do their job

*100% are a bit weird at times

*66% are weird in a good way

*33% are racist

*66% spend too much time giving each other sly looks

*100% are gossips

*33% relied on 33% to keep themselves sane while talking to 33%

*Possibly 66% but definitely 33% went too far

Once all that important business was out of the way, it was time to make dinner. As I had brought most of the ingredients, we went to Tesco to buy the bare essentials: vegetables, canned fruit and Yakult (my favourite and recommended by Shinji-kun at the Embassy). Unfortunately, when we returned to the flat, we realised that I had forgotten to bring the lovely sushi rice – d’oh! Amy agreed to go and get some. After all, the whole point of a group dinner is that everybody contributes, right? The instructions were: white rice, long grain if normal isn’t available. We were presented with Basmati. Oh well. Time to experiment… And time to take photos!

 -> Catriona and Amy prepare for some Sushi action!

-> Meanwhile, I get stuck into the Yakult…Yoisho!

Of course, there would be no point in attempting any kind of Japanese cooking without the guidance of Japan’s most famous top-class chefs…

->Yoisho!

->Amy had to leave early. Fortunately, I had another Yakult and Pineapple Hichew

 -> Yakult #3

-> Basmati…

-> Add vinegar powder to rice. Make sure you focus on the camera rather than the food, thus making a big mess Siobhán-style

-> Stirring requires deep concentration

-> おいしい!!!!

-> Catriona liked my bamboo. First step of kendo conversion complete!

Hmmm…It’s now Sunday and yesterday has become two days ago…but I’ll carry on…

-> More Yakult….yoisho!

-> The TCD Japanese Society and SMAP: Where would we be without them?!?!

Next, we decided to create a little atmosphere with candles. I, unfortunately, looked like a weird vampire thing (Kaname-sama!):

 

Things were going swimmingly when all of a sudden it hit me – the whole thing was a complete farce! If we were trying to create a Japanese meal with a traditional atmosphere, what on earth were we doing sitting at the table?!?! We quickly shed our shoes and relocated to the floor. It was a bit like being back in Korea!

Of course, no Japanese meal is complete without a traditional Siobhán kabuki dance (if you didn’t know, I’m a kabuki expert. I’ve been to a Miyavi concert.) Soon, everybody got involved!

For more photos of SMAP X SIOB, see Facebook (hopefully).

For now, I’ll leave you with pleasant thoughts of sushi and SMAP: a guaranteed two positives. One to cancel the negative and the other, just to have a positive (a prize if you get that reference.)

Love,

Siobhán xxx