Otacool
Apologies for a prolonged absence, but I’m in the middle of some crazy rotations in med school. Free time is a rare luxury now for sure. It might be a few more weeks until my next post, so this is a quick update to let people know where I’m at. Plus I’ll share this neat book I just picked up.
Otacool is a DannyChoo production featuring otaku rooms from all around the world. The vast majority of the rooms are anime and figurine focused. I’m only superficially into anime and don’t like figures at all, but I always find it fascinating to see how passion in hobbies can transform our living spaces. The ultimate example of this, of course, is on the grandest scale — Akihabara in Tokyo, an entire district taken over by otaku culture. I’ve been to Akiba several times and am endlessly enchanted by that destination.
I dream of designing a gaming room when I move into my own house at some point and have been slowly collecting source material for inspiration. Although the rooms in this book are mostly opportunities to show off vast collections of manga volumes or figures rather than any serious attempt at design, they’re still neat to see. I tried taking photos of pages from the book, but it was difficult to lay the book flat for clean photos without destroying the spine. Here’s a few page examples directly from DannyChoo below.
(on a related note, this Korean Star Wars fan has done a great job of integrating his hobby into his house. Of course there are the requisite masses of merchandise scattered everywhere, but he has a couple clean, classy and stylish rooms)
Bamboodles - San Gabriel, CA
In the fiercely competitive Chinese restaurant industry of San Gabriel Valley, Los Angeles, new restaurants need a hook to entice diners. Bamboodles has among the most unique, featuring a rare traditional method of preparing noodles called jook sing mein. Rather than kneading dough by hand, the chef repeatedly bounces on a bamboo stick to evenly compress the dough. This produces noodles with a very firm and chewy consistency.
Celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations” TV show highlighted this special noodle in his Hong Kong episode. He portrayed the technique as a very rare and dying artform in a surprisingly poignant segment (starts 1:20 in this clip). My curiosity was sufficiently piqued to give this place a visit.
Season’s Beatings 4 photos
People have voiced interest in photos of the Season’s Beatings 4 tournament so I’m dedicating a post to this. Instead of uploading photos to an online gallery, I prefer posting them directly into my blog because I don’t like clicking thumbnails to see photos one by one. This means longer load times but hopefully won’t be too inconvenient. You are free to use these photos on your own site however you wish as long as my watermark is present.
Warning: 5-6 MB of photos
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Season’s Beatings 4
As I mentioned previously, Season’s Beatings 4 was my first ever tournament experience. I wasn’t expecting to play well for a variety of reasons, so I set a goal of beating just one person. There were 8 pool brackets in total with ~30 people in each. Aside from top players who were seeded so that they didn’t knock each other out early in the double-elimination tourney, the brackets were randomly generated.
Unfortunately for me, my first two matches were against good players who ended up advancing relatively far in my pool. I lost to both players and just like that, I was eliminated. Interesting aftermath: after my losses, I was rooting for both to win and go far in the pool so that I could justify my losses and not feel too badly. Funny how that works.
However, I primarily came to the tournament not to prove myself, but to watch some of the best U.S. Street Fighter 4 fighters battle it out in person. In that sense, this event was a massive success for me and I had so much fun watching the fights. The talent exhibited was breathtaking. I found myself shaking my head repeatedly, stunned by the tricks and clutch performances they delivered. The event was a showcase for the competitors to display the results of dedicated training. It’s hard not to be inspired by the pride and love these players have for their craft.
Meeting Daigo Umehara
This weekend I’ll be at Season’s Beatings 4, a large fighting game tournament that is generating a ton of buzz. Not only is there a ~250 person Street Fighter 4 tournament with some of the best players in the U.S. competing, but Justin Wong and Daigo Umehara will be playing an exhibition match, first to 10 wins. They are indisputably two of the best fighting game players in the world so the hype is through the roof.
This is my first ever tournament of any kind. While I’ve been trying to train sporadically, school prevented any serious practice. My goal is to beat just one person!
My second goal was to meet Daigo Umehara and get his signature. I wasn’t sure when he was arriving or whether he would be practicing in anything other than the exhibition match, so it was awesome that he showed up on Friday and entered the SF4 3 on 3 tournament. I approached him during a lull in the action and…
Liang’s Kitchen - San Gabriel, CA
Among the numerous Taiwanese delicacies, beef noodle soup (niu rou mien aka NRM) is one of the classics and my standard order whenever trying a new Chinese restaurant. Residents of the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles are blessed with no lack of restaurants that serve this delicious noodle dish.
Throughout my life, I’ve always had a couple go-to favorites for NRM that updated as old haunts closed and my tastes changed with time. Mandarin Noodle Deli in Temple City, CA has been a consistent top-runner for the past couple years, but a new champion has emerged. Boldly put, the beef noodle soup at Liang’s Kitchen is the best I’ve had in Southern California and would be a top contender in Taiwan.
