Sushi Station

On Saturday we went to the Sushi Station again. Finally!

Sushi Station is one of my favourite places to eat. If only the place was closer. There are actually two Sushi Station restaurants. One is in Rolling Meadows (B) which is closer, and the other one in Elgin (C) which I like much better because it is a more spacious and modern place. It takes about 40 minutes to get to the one in Rolling Meadows and 50 minutes to Elgin.
I have heard that there are some plans to open a third location south, around where I live. I hope it is true, it would be amazing!

Note to the owners: "There are many sushi eaters here too, please open one soon :-)"

 



 

from www.sushistation.us

So what is Sushi Station? It is a restaurant serving Japanese Kaiten Sushi style where the sushi is served on small plates that revolve on an enclosed conveyor belt. I absolutely love this style because I can sample many different types of sushi at once, it is very affordable, and completely different experience. The price is determined by the colour of the plates.

If you have never heard about this type of restaurant there are some videos to learn more about it on this website.


Some of my favourites are Miso soup, Spider Roll (soft shell crab), Phoenix Roll (spicy tuna), but many more.




Miso soup



Phoenix



Spider



Chicago winter

The most used sentence this winter: "I am sick of it!", of winter that is. Apparently, it has been the worst winter ever. My problem personally is not the snow, but the freezing temperatures. You just can't go out.
As for the snow, I am quite fond of it. In Europe I used to love being outside in winter. Imagine you are walking in the forest surrounded by needle trees, it is sunny and all you can hear is this winter stillness. Winter can be beautiful.






"Winter WONDER -LAND" - not Chicago

All I remember from this year winter is:
1. being freezing
2. shoveling the snow

Winter CHICAGO-LAND, - my street



The world according to Americans...

The other day I came across an interesting article which I would like to share with you by copying it here. It is written by Lynne Diligent, an American working and raising a family overseas.

Unfortunately, I must agree with her. I experience similar attitude here even today. You can see the American “We’re number one!” mentality (described below) all the time.
The maps are cartoon depicts but you would be shocked how much they actually represent the views of so many people.

I "love" to hear especially from these opinionated Americans who have never lived abroad or have never even been outside of the USA, in a better case have seen a foreign country from a cruise ship, majority of them don't speak any foreign language, but somehow they seem to know everything better.
Perhaps it is time to 'take blinders off'....at least sometimes.

________________________________________________________________________________


Why Foreigners Sometimes Think that Americans View the World as Geography Cartoons Depict
July 18, 2011

by Lynne Diligent






What Americans are first taught about the world as children. This looks like a 1970-2005 point-of-view.

These maps represent what Americans are first taught about the world as children.
For a majority of Americans (speaking as an American now overseas) these maps are maps about feelings, rather than about knowledge.
It’s true that there are some Americans who never progress beyond this viewpoint, but the majority of American adults are not quite this uneducated.  Among those who are, it comes from the “We’re number one!” mentality that pervades what children are taught about America (or at least were until recently).

This view of the world looks more like how Americans felt in the 1950s and 1960s.

No matter how knowledgeable we become, it’s true that we can look at maps like this and understand the reasons they are drawn that way immediately–from our first knowledge as children.  That’s what makes them cartoons, that some of those feelings stay with us forever,  in spite of our knowledge.

Anyone who lived through the Reagan years certainly remembers the country feeling just like this!

_________________________________________________________________________________

 

Correction

I apologize for an incorrect information in my post today "Not only today's news on shooting"
where I was talking about number of school shootings in the USA in 2013. I listed 14, but missed one page, there were actually 30 shootings in 2013. It is even more disturbing, but it is reality. Amazingly, there are still many Americans who believe there are not enough guns among the public.

Here is the list from Wikipedia:

"This is a chronological list of school shootings in the United States. It consists of incidents in which a firearm was discharged at a school infrastructure, including incidents of shootings on a school bus or near school property while school was in session. This list contains shooting incidents that occurred on the campuses of K-12 public schools and private schools, as well as colleges and universities. This list also contains incidents of where a person intentionally shot him or herself in a suicide or suicide attempt. The incidents below are classified as "school shootings"."

1. Fort Myers, Florida
2. Taft, California
3. Detroit, Michigan
4. St. Louis, Missouri
5. Hazard, Kentucky
6. Chicago, Illinois
7. Houston, Texas
8. Midland City, Alabama
9. Atlanta, Georgia
10. Orlando, Florida
11. Southgate, Michigan
12. Cambridge, Massachusetts
13. Cincinnati, Ohio
14. Santa Monica, California
15. West Palm Beach, Florida
16. Decatur, Georgia
17.S ardis, Mississippi
18. Winston-Salem, North Carolina
19. Gray, Maine
20. Lansing, Michigan
21. Pine Hills, Florida
22. Austin, Texas
23. Sparks, Nevada
24. Greensboro, North Carolina
25. Lithonia, Georgia
26. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
27. Rapid City, South Dakota
28. Winter Garden, Florida
29. Centennial, Colorado
30. Fresno, California

St. Louis, Missou

Not only today's news on shooting

As I was watching the news a while ago, breaking news appeared on my screen. Another school shooting, this time in in West Lafayette, Indiana, the next door state. It is happening right now, so I don't have many details yet.

What I have information on is that according to Wikipedia there were 14 school shootings in 2013, and already 5 (including this one) this year! Five! - in 3 weeks!
I wonder what is wrong with this country. There have been many heated discussions regarding gun issues but in my eyes, no matter how you look at it, something is definitely not right.

Barnes & Noble

One of my favourite stores is Barnes & Noble. Today it is the largest book retailer chain here in the US, since the closing of Borders in 2011.
Borders was and international bookseller based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Unfortunately, they applied for bankruptcy protection, and because they were not able to find an acceptable buyer they closed in September 2011. Their competitor Barnes & Noble acquired Borders' trademarks and also customer list, so when you log onto Borders' former website today you are redirected to Barnes & Noble's site.

What is making me nervous now is the information that I found last year. Barnes & Noble Inc. plans to close 30% of its stores, which is about 20 stores a year, over the next decade! The list of the stores that would be closed wasn't provided. The company has 689 retail stores and 674 college stores.
Do I have to worry now about my local Barnes & Noble?! It is so sad. Don't people read books anymore? OK, I admit I am the owner of the Amazon Kindle e-book reader as well, but I somehow still prefer books. I love books!

I sometimes visit the store in Naperville, but prefer to go to the one in Bolingbrook at The Promenade. I will write about The Promenade later.

Barnes & Noble in Bolingbrook

Barnes & Noble in Naperville

 

I visit often. They also have a Barnes & Noble Café where they offer the Starbucks beverages and a selection of the pastries and cakes. To be honest, there are no other real coffee shops, how you find them in Europe, in the suburbs. Unless you came across a Starbucks or a Caribou Coffee, you would be looking for another one for a long time.

This option is actually a perfect combination. You can have a cup of tea or coffee or whatever else

you fancy while you read a book or a magazine, and you can stay as long as you want. It is how my husband and I spend our time on a rainy day or other days quite often. And when he joins me, we almost always have a chocolate cupcake - we share it as I can't eat the whole thing. It is quite sweet, so after a few mouthfuls it doesn't taste so good anymore, plus it has 440 calories!! Otherwise I really enjoy it :-)

I like my Barnes & Noble, please don't close it!

 

It is about fork

I am one of these people watchers, so when I moved to the US I noticed one thing right away, they eat differently! At first I thought it was just that particular person's way, but no, they all eat that way. So I investigated and realized that it is the American way.
We Europeans have a different method, so called European style. The fork is held in the left hand, the knife in the right and both by thumb and forefinger, so the palm hides the handle. Once you cut a piece of food, you just put it straight to the mouth by the left hand while pointing fork down.



European style

In the American style the fork is shifted between the left and right hand.  It starts the same way, the knife is held in the right hand and the fork in the left, but once you cut food on the plate into bite-sized pieces, you put the knife down on the plate and transfer the fork from left hand to the right hand and then move food to the mouth. The fork is held almost like a spoon or worse with clenched fists.
Also, what I see all the time, whenever food is soft enough to cut with the edge of the fork it is done so. You only use knife for cutting steak etc. So what you normally see are people sitting at the tables with one hand on their laps and the other hand "forking" their food.
To be honest, to me it looks horrible, like you don't know what to do with your hands when you eat. Maybe it is because it reminds me how we teach children to eat. Their motoric skills are not yet developed for this task, so an adult usually precuts everything first and a child tries to deliver the food in the mouth with whatever way they can find.
Well, I got used to it. I mean, I got used to watching the American style, I am still feeding myself using the European way :-) It is also considered the proper style everywhere else.

American style

There are different eating techniques around the world - with hands, chopsticks and so on, and it is great. We all have traditions, I just didn't expect to find differences in this area in the US.
What is interesting, as I found out, is that the "American style" originated in Europe, brought to America by British colonists and is still used in the US today while Europeans moved on and modernized their utensils style.
Funny thing is that when you watch American movies, everybody typically uses the European style. Has the Hollywood modernized too?!

I have found the above pictures at the following website, but even there, what you normally witness in the American restaurants, is described as incorrect hence the red cross = wrong. I guess we all need to refresh our Dining Etiquette skills.

By the way, the utensils... a knife, a fork etc. are commonly called silverware in the US, but don't be surprised when you get a plastic knife and fork, ....and everything else - a plate, a cup etc. It is definitely the world of plastic here. It is more sophisticated plastic I guess, nevertheless still plastic. This is how it looks like. There are many versions...in restaurants and hotels too. It drives me crazy, I am not camping!  I suppose I could write a whole new chapter on the topic of 'American Dinning'.

How we got to Colorado

When I lived in Nebraska, one day I was thinking, "There must be something else that happened during this stay here!", so my husband and I decided to visit Colorado.

We started our trip in (A) Lincoln, Nebraska and headed towards (E) Denver, Colorado on I-80. It is about 8 hours in a car, but takes much longer because you have to make several stops, so here they are.

I must tell you travelling that part of the Interstate 80 was probably the most boring time I have ever spent in a car. This is what you see for hours and hours...you just feel it will never end.

(B) Great Platte River Road Archway Monument - Kearney

Being on the Mormon, Oregon, California Trails, the Pony Express and the Lincoln Highway Kearney is home to several museums. One of them is Great Platte River Road Archway Monument, which spans Interstate 80. It contains exhibits that trace the history of the Great Platte River Road from the Oregon Trail days to the present.

(C) North Platte - Bailey Yard

North Platte is a railroad town and home to Union Pacific Railroad's world's largest rail yard Bailey Yard.
North Platte is served only by freight trains today, but during World War II the city was famous for the North Platte Canteen. Tens of thousands of volunteers from North Platte and surrounding towns met the troop trains passing through North Platte, offering coffee, sandwiches and hospitality.

The Golden Spike Tower and Visitor Center is an eight-story building which overlooks the railroad staging area. The tower and visitor center are open to the public year-round.

(D) Ogallala

The town's name comes from the Oglala Sioux tribe. It is also known as Nebraska's Cowboy Capital and it first gained fame as a terminus for cattle drives from Texas during 1875 to 1888. These trails are known as the Western or Great Western trails. Cattlemen met in Ogallala's hotel and saloons with Texas cattle drovers and haggled over prices to be paid for cattle which were used to stock Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, the Dakotas and Montana, and were also shipped east on Union Pacific. The business boomed during summer months. Today you can visit Ogallala's Front Street Museum depicting the era. It is open year-round at Front Street and is one of Ogallala's western and historical attractions.

http://www.ogallalafrontstreet.com/index.htm

Lake Mcconaughy is located 9 miles north of Ogallala. It is a reservoir named after Charles W. McConaughy - a grain merchant and mayor of Holdrege, Nebraska. It is a popular location for fishing, boating, water sports, camping and hunting.

I also got myself a souvenir at Ogallala. At that time we were about to relocate, and I wasn't sure whether it would be to Chicago or China. Yes, that is how crazy my life was at that time. So, I wanted to have something from Nebraska, just in case I was moving to Illinois - another US state or from the USA, in case I was moving to China. I wanted something that would represent both, and this was perfect - a photo album, but it is not your typical photo album. This one is made from a recycled car license plate made by Littlearth http://www.littlearth.com/home.html

And when it seemed that we would never leave the flatlands, here it was in front of us, out of the blue - the peaks of the Rocky Mountains. That is the moment when an entirely different adventure started...in Colorado. I will write about it later.

The life of Cardinal

The fist time I have ever seen a Cardinal was when we moved to Nebraska. I couldn't believe what I was seeing in my garden. What a beautiful bird, and he can sing. If you haven't heard this bird before, watch the video below.

You can see and hear these birds here in Chicago area as well. They are everywhere.

Usually you spot a couple. What a picture, I have never seen this before!



 

"The Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) is a North American bird in the genus Cardinalis; it is also known colloquially as the redbird or common cardinal. It can be found in southern Canada, through the eastern United States from Maine to Texas and south through Mexico. It is found in woodlands, gardens, shrub lands, and swamps.
The Northern Cardinal is a mid-sized songbird with a body length of 21 cm (8.3 in). It has a distinctive crest on the head and a mask on the face which is black in the male and gray in the female. The male is a vibrant red, while the female is a dull red-brown shade.
The Northern Cardinal is mainly granivorous, but also feeds on insects and fruit. The male behaves territorially, marking out his territory with song. During courtship, the male feeds seed to the female beak-to-beak. A clutch of three to four eggs is laid, and two to four clutches are produced each year. It was once prized as a pet, but its sale as a cage bird is now banned in the United States by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918." - Wikipedia




 Northern Cardinal in the USA

 

My husband and I are bird watching enthusiasts, so a bird feeder was the first thing added to our garden. It didn't take long for our Cardinal couple to find it, so we were really enjoying the view, and not only that. We were so lucky, and witnessed much more. There was a medium size needle tree right in front of our den window. One day I found a nest there, and this is the story:



Week one - 3 eggs

I wonder how long I have to sit here...



 Finally hatched...

We are really hungry!!!



I swear...I have no idea what happened, but it is just me now. Is anybody coming to feed me?

Father: I am really glad I have found this feeder. Mother: Stop talking and eat!

Father: That is enough, let's go. Mother: I am not flying back and forth the whole day.

What on earth...Where is he?

 

Father: I have found him!



Mother is really angry, she wants you to start flying and finally feed yourself.



Absolutely, positively NOT ready

You can't be serious. You want me to fly up there?!

Not happening.

I need to hide somewhere else...

Maybe here, one just needs to blend in


 

Baby: No! I am not going...!Father: Enough is enough, you can't hide forever


 

Who says -forever-, one more day in another bush, maybe...

And how did it end? We did see him flying. YES, we did. Actually, we saw his very first flight - around our house being followed by the mother and father. And from that day on, we were watching 3 Cardinals on our feeder.