Summer Days!!

Actually it's spring...or will be in a day or two, I forget. Probably because it hit nearly 80 here today, so I could care less what the calendar says. Right now outside I can hear kids playing and smell the smoke from the bbq a couple of complexes over. It's been a bit of a challenging week, so it was nice to have a good, fulfilling day.

My hamstring is not doing so great. I went to the sports medicine doc on campus and had him look at it again. He doesn't think it's completely torn, but it was torn pretty good and now I've got tendinitis/tendinosis just above the back of my knee, and the tendons keep snapping over each other. So for the time being, running is out of the question, meaning my ability to run the Boston Marathon is in question. We probably won't know for a few more weeks...like just a few weeks before Boston. So now I'm in physical therapy. I'm allowed to cycle though, which is nice, and swim too. And since the weather is awesome right now, the pool is much more inviting than it was a week ago.

This morning I set out for a bike ride by myself, without the guidance of the local bike club. I mapped a route out on mapmyride.com, made a mental note of the streets and tried to burn a picture of the map in my mind. Off I went. It was amusing. I pretty much did not know where I was. I kept looking for clues, but I was on a bike path for a good section of the route, so there weren't any street names to go by. I had a nice ride anyway, and even stopped by the local velodrome to check out the riders.

When I made it home, 30 miles later, I did my physical therapy exercises, stretched, rolled out my muscles with a foam roller and a rolling pin (PT's orders), iced and sat down to study. Several hours in I was bogged down and my mind was goo. I thought about the ramen noodle place the guys told me about on my last club ride. I had to go try it out.

This is the top rated place in San Jose on yelp.com. It's in a Japanese market in the food court. I learned about authentic ramen from the movie "Ramen Girl" with Brittany Murphy. It was a cute movie but it was also very informative about authentic ramen. And now I'm in a city where I can explore such things! I was a bit confused about what to order, so I ordered a combo. Most of it was written in Japanese with English translations below. I'm pretty sure I ordered a salt flavor regular size ramen and a bowl of rice with salmon and roe on top. I realize salt-flavor ramen sounds a little strange, but it was also the most popular.

One thing I learned from "Ramen Girl" was that the broth of the ramen is the most important part, and it will make or break your ramen. I've never had real ramen before so I was surprised with the richness of the broth. It was so good! It also had strips of pork in it, noodles, either a mushroom or seaweed (I don't know?) some other weird thing, green onions, a little red berry and a hard boiled egg. The rice with salmon and roe is self-explanatory I think.

While I ate, I looked around and watched the people. There was a Japanese book store in the corner, another ramen place, a sweets shop and a few more side booths, all inside a market. Like a super-market. Looking over at the sweets shop I saw the word "Mochi Cream". I wondered if it was mochi ice cream.

After I finished my ramen and rice, I wandered over to check out the mochi place. Holy moley Mochi Heaven!!! They even had mochi donuts!

Mochi is basically a doughy substance made from sticky rice pounded into a powder/dough. One delicacy made from it is mochi ice cream, where the dough is wrapped around a ball of ice cream, holding it together. Effectively finger food. Well the only times I have ever had it, I had 3-4 choices. As you can see here, there were way more than that. I stared, awestruck into the glass display, reading every flavor. Several times people asked if I was ready to order and I was so overwhelmed. See, there was a sign on the glass saying that these were made to be eaten the day of purchase. I have never eaten more than two mochi at once as they are rather rich. But I wanted to try all the flavors. I settled on 3 and also picked up a dark chocolate green tea bar. As I checked out, the lady asked if it was my first time here and I told her it was. She gave me a sample of some cream filled wafer thing that was completely delicious.

As I drove home, I felt giddy and relaxed. The warm, sunny days always make me happy, but I had a belly full of ramen, my mochi was thawing beside me (it's supposed to) and I was almost home. As I pulled into the cul-de-sac in front of my apartment, there were a group of people a few complexes down, barbecuing. It made me smile, it felt so much like summer.

I'm pretty sure I was not supposed to eat all three mochi in one sitting as I could feel the sugar rush getting to me, but they were so good, and I couldn't let them go bad. The flavors I had were: Sakura (you got me), Raspberry Mille-feuille, and Chocolate Mint. They were incredible. I will definitely be returning for more ramen and new flavors of mochi. Thankfully I have no idea how many calories were in any of it, so that means they'll burn off really quick. Anyway, I plan on doing a ride with the club tomorrow that looks like it'll be a good workout.