Creepy Pasta

Coffins used to be built with holes in them, attached to six feet of copper tubing and a bell. The tubing would allow air for victims buried under the mistaken impression they were dead. In a certain small town, Harold, the local gravedigger, upon hearing a bell one night, went to go see if it was children pretending to be spirits. Sometimes it was also the wind. This time, it wasn't either. A voice from below begged and pleaded to be unburied.

"Are you Sarah O'Bannon?" Harold asked.

"Yes!" The muffled voice asserted.

"You were born on September 17, 1827?"

"Yes!"

"The gravestone here says you died on February 20, 1857."

"No, I'm alive, it was a mistake! Dig me up, set me free!"

"Sorry about this, ma'am," Harold said, stepping on the bell to silence it and plugging up the copper tube with dirt.

"But this is August. Whatever you are down there, you sure as Hell ain't alive no more, and you ain't comin' up."

Stairs

My house is old. It’s by far the oldest house on our block. We tried to liven it up, to make it comfy, and and we did a pretty good job. We put colorful rugs on the freezing concrete, lamps in every corner. Every room was nice and modern-except the basement.

When I was a little kid, I would sprint up the stairs coming up from the basement. I don’t know what I was afraid of. Maybe a ghost, or a monster in the dark behind me, waiting for me to turn around so it can catch me and… I don’t know what it would do.

But now, as a seventeen year old boy, I’m walking up the stairs from my basement, and my childish fears, long repressed, are coming back. I tell myself to shut up, but that dark part in the back of my head tells me to run, to get out NOW. More than anything I want to rocket up those stairs as I did as a child, but I force my feet to take even, normal steps. I feel the overwhelming urge to look behind me, but I also want to win the battle of paranoia that’s going on in my brain.

So I slowly walk up the seemingly endless staircase, my palms sweating and my heart racing the entire way. But about ten steps from the top, I feel an ice cold hand close around my ankle.

This is Hawaiian Food!

For most people, when you think of Hawaiian food, they will answer, "Loco Moco!"  It is Hawaiian food, but not your traditional Hawaiian food.  I believe Loco Moco was first introduced in Hawaii around 1949.  So this dish is fairly new to Hawaii, but a local favorite.  But, I will introduce a few "real" Hawaiian dishes from a long time before the loco moco:

1.  Poi

It is a sticky paste made from crushing taro root.  It is crushed using a poi pounder while adding water until it is mushy and gooey.  This has been the staple for Hawaiians from about 200 AD to 500 AD.  It is not as common nowadays, but many still enjoy this sour tasting goop. 

2.  Lomi Lomi Salmon

Lomi means "to massage" in Hawaiian, and that is how this dish is prepared.  We take diced raw cured salmon, tomatoes, onions, and some hot peppers, and mix everything as if you were massaging it.  This dish probably started from around the 1700s, when whalers and merchants brought salted fish, tomatoes, and onions to Hawaii.

3.  Lau Lau

Lau lau means "leaf leaf" in Hawaiian and it has this name because it is wrapped in ti leaves and taro leaves.  The outer most layer is ti leaves, which you do not eat.  The next layer is taro leaves, which you can eat.  And inside you will find pork, fish, and vegetables.  It is cooked in an underground rock oven called an imu. 

4.  Kalua Pig

Kalua means "to bake in an underground oven."  Therefore, this dish is also cooked in the imu and wrapped with ti leaves to keep the meat flavor in. 

5.  Chicken Longrice

This is a combination of chicken and clear mung bean noodles called, "longrice."  It is cooked in a gingery chicken broth.  Polynesians brought chicken to Hawaii in the mid to late 1800s and Chinese laborers knew to use the chickens to make a delicious soup. 

6.  Poke

The correct pronunciation for this dish is "Pokay."  Basically, (P + Okay) by adding a "p" sound before "okay" will do the trick.  It is raw tuna cut into bite size chunks and flavored with Hawaiian salt, green and white onions, chili pepper, soy sauce, and sesame oil.  There are many different ways to make this tasty dish. 

7.  Haupia

It is a coconut pudding-like dessert.  It has a sweet coconut flavor and a smooth texture.  Traditionally it was made by mixing coconut cream with Polynesian arrowroot, then wrapping it with ti leaves, and baking it in the imu.  Now, it is made by boiling coconut milk with a bit of sugar, then adding cornstarch to thicken it, and finally putting it in the refrigerator to let it cool down. 

Now these are just a few dishes that I have shared with you.  There are many more dishes, so when you go to Hawaii, give these dishes a try!

The window

I was in my bedroom, doing the typical at-home teenager thing: staying up late, digging around the depths of the internet, and generally not paying attention to anything other than what was on my monitor. It was the early morning, around 2 o’clock, and everyone in my house was asleep but me. The room was nice and warm despite it being the dead of winter, since we had the windows replaced last week. We had been losing heat, especially in my bedroom, through some old storm windows, but the bitter cold was now kept outside.

I don’t remember what I was doing; I think in the terror that consumed me I must have forgotten. I heard a noise at my window. Not the sound of a bug flying into it, or the shrubs brushing against it. No, this was an odd noise, a thumping sound, something I had never heard before. I didn’t think anything of it initially. Whether that was because I genuinely believed it was nothing or because I didn’t want to find out what it was, I can’t say, but I sat there for a moment and just listened to it. It was distinctly rhythmic. Thump, thump, thump. It only lasted fifteen seconds or so, and then stopped. I shuddered, but shrugged it off and, after spending another hour or two browsing and consciously not looking toward the window, turned my computer off and fell into an uneasy but uneventful sleep.

This morning, after the sun had been up for a few hours and the things that go bump in the night were doing whatever they do during the daylight hours, I walked to my window and spent a few minutes trying to replicate the sound I had heard. I tapped the window, bumped it with some soft objects, even locked and unlocked it, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what had made the sound. Nothing I did was even close. I figured that the event had been a fluke, and the day was normal until this evening.

My dad arrived home from work at the usual time and decided that the house was too stuffy, so he came into my room and went to open the window (we’re in Texas, so winter evenings are sometimes very comfortable, as was the case today). Never in my life before that moment have I genuinely wished to be deaf.

My dad forgot to unlock the window before trying to open it, and when he pulled up, it produced the same noise I heard last night.

My window only has handles on the inside.

Spam Musubi!!!

Growing up in Hawaii, SPAM was like our soul food.  You can go to a supermarket or a convenience store or even a gas station, and find a spam musubi.  For mainlanders, spam is seen as something unhealthy, cheap, gross, and a type of inferior food (poor people's food).  But for people in Hawaii, it is a big part of our culture.

The one thing you should remember when eating spam is to make sure you do NOT eat it straight out of the can.  Just like steak, if you cook it, the fat give flavor to the meat.  Most people marinate spam in soy sauce and sugar, but some just cook it straight.  I also recommend buying the low salt/sodium version of spam.  The regular one is too salty.  Here is a video of how to make a spam musubi, the super simple way:

Subway breakfast

This morning I had to wake up very early to go the consulate. It is kind of far from Settsu Tonda and I have to go all the way to Demachiyanagi in Kyoto. After talking papers, and ID stuff I stopped by Subway. I really love the sandwiches over there! They are simple, you can enjoy the taste of vegetables without any amount of despicable mayonnaise or ketchup and have cheese instead...Is there more to say!!!??? Anyway, I had no idea they have morning sets. I tried this one with chicken and it was delicious!!! Tiiiiiiiiny though! Could have eaten 2 honestly but I stopped by the bakery an hour before....hehehehe!!!

Youkai Watch

Kids have been going crazy for the new TV cartoon Youkai Watch, and the creators are hoping it will become a global phenomenon like Pokemon or Dragon Ball. Well I don't think it will happen, mostly for linguistic and cultural reasons. I have watched a few episodes (if you know me you know I like Japanese mythology and my girlfriend thinks the various incarnations of the main character Jibanyan are super kawaii) but I didn't think much of it, as it is clearly an extended toy commercial designed to get kids to annoy their parents to by them the stupid watch toy. (Why are the spirits controlled by a watch of all things? Why not just a book of names or something like Natsume Yujincho? That would make a lot more sense, anyway...) Unlike Pokemon or Dragon Ball, which were set in fantasy worlds, Youkai watch is clearly set in Japan and the youkai are uniquely Japanese with strong ties to Japanese history and culture. This will be a big problem for kids from other countries who have no idea what mythological stories are being referred to in the cartoon. It wont make much sense to foreign kids. For example, on of the youkai was "hikkikoumori" a combination of  hikkikomori and koumori. How will this me translated into English? "Stays in his room all the time bat"?!?! That doesn't make any sense in English, kids won't get it.