Korra!

Legend of Korra is amazing.
For those who don't know, it's a somewhat continuation of Avatar: The Last Airbender.
For those who don't know what that is, then nevermind. Don't read this. You likely won't understand it. D;


A water tribe girl named Korra is the new avatar!
And etc. Not gonna bother summarizing because if you're still reading this you should know what I'm talking about!


I say somewhat continuation because it's not the lives of our original gang. It's 70 years later, like 2 generations after. Aang's son Tenzin already has kiddies of his own! Jinora (eldest), Ikki (second girl), and Meelo (son). Jinora's my favorite of the three. I like mellow characters. ~ Though Meelo is a hoot.

From left to right: Jinora, Ikki, Meelo (the... kid biting his dad's head), Tenzin, Pama

The hour episode thing premiered this morning~! I've already seen it online though, since the creators put it up. But I watched it again because I wanted it ~HD~. It was as great as it was the first time, though I think I was gonna cry when *SPOILERS* Korra finally mastered ~being the leaf~ during the probending match. XD;

Amon and his henchies scare me, but they're supposed to. They are the bad guys after all. Though, I sense a more serious stuff with them. Like in ATLA, the bad guys were the firenation, and they weren't all that scary. They were just intimidating and fierce and such. But in LOK, the anti-bending guys seem......... really seriously scary. o__o; Hopefully younger viewers won't be scared. Derp. I might be. HRGH.

MAKO AND BOLIIIIN are great. I love them already. Amazing bending bros. Mako is my favorite because again, mellow characters, but Bolin is such a cutie!

Bolin, she can totally see/hear you, you know. Whispering ain't gonna change a thing.

MAKO APPRECIATION

Why am I always so drawn to firebenders when fire terrifies me?!

I am really hoping for some history on what happened with our original gang, though. I love them all too much to be forever wondering.

MORE SPOILERS --
Katara obviously married Aang and they had 3 kids. Eldest (Kya) is a waterbender, youngest is an airbender (Tenzin). The middle child (Bumi) apparently is a nonbender, but I always thought he was a waterbender too. So far, Tenzin is the only one of Aang/Katara's children to have shown up in the series. He is quite a prominent character too as he has to be Korra's airbending master.

Sokka is gone, as Katara says in episode 1. :( Sads everywhere. Katara also says "many" of her friends are gone, not all, which gives some hope that we may see others from the first series.

Suki was Sokka's lady. I wonder if they had a bunch of kids. Seems like the type of couple that would. XD For some reason, I have this feeling if anyone else is alive, it'll be Suki? I don't know why. It's just my feeling lol.

The great and mighty Toph has a confirmed daughter, Lin Bei Fong, who is head of the police force in Republic City. There is a statue of Toph there. Whether or not Toph is gone as well is unknown. (But seriously, she was the YOUNGEST. It makes the most sense for her to be alive!)

Also my sister thinks Lin Bei Fong also looks like Jet, so we're like lol THAT'S WEIRD. But if I recall, Jet died in the Earth book I think. So no possible father for Lin yet. It's not like Katara would let Jet near Toph anyway. XD

Azula's fate is unknown?? Was she imprisoned or what. I don't remember.

Zuko was firelord obvs, with Mai as his lady. Whether they had kids or not is still unknown. Mai seems sorta like the type who wouldn't want kids.

Ty Lee joined the Kyoshi Warriors in the Earth Kingdom... I want to know what happened to her the most, since she is/was my favorite character from ATLA! ;3; Especially in new Korra clips, some of the anti-benders are shown using Ty Lee's chi-blocking-bending-disabling style. Except of course, Ty Lee did it better & faster. She could disable bending in like 1 hit, and these anti-benders look like they're taking a couple hits to do it.

We'll see.

ALSO I AM. TOTALLY BUMMED KORRA EPISODES COME OUT ON SATURDAY MORNINGS, MAN.

THAT'S WHEN I GO TO CHURCH MOST DAYS.

LIFE'S NOT FAIR. :(

I have a headache now aghghhhh goodbye---------

P.S. For anyone interested, you can see a bunch of clips and extras here: http://korranation.tumblr.com/

the japanese and their oddfangled snacks

oh wait wait I thought of another thing to write about.
so as all of you /should/ know, being in Mrs. Musick's class, the Japanese class is selling Japanese snacks to raise money. Right, right.

To some of you, the current snacks may be weird, and to others, that stuff may be completely normal.
I mean, Ramune. A neat bottle sealed by a glass marble. People seem to be disappointed when they find out you can't take the marble out, though. (Unless you break it!) But I like seeing people amazed by what the marble does and stuff.

Pocky. Mrs. Musick says chocolate-covered pretzels sticks, but I just call them biscuits because they're not salty. (Which is good, because I don't like salt + chocolate. I don't even like pretzels.) Not too odd looking since they do look like chocolate pretzels, they just look oddly skinny compared to those. And if you happen to let it melt, you have to eat it in a huge blob. I am speaking from experience.

Safe to say, those two snacks are on the normal side of the Japanese snack spectrum!
There are weirder things out there in Nihon.

Let's show you what you're missing out on, hm?
In no particular weirdness order.
First up!!

Green tea chocolate sticks. To most Westerners, any sort of snack that has tea in it is already odd. In the Asian world, green tea anything is kind of super common. I've never tasted this, but I have tasted other green tea products (ice cream!). Mostly it just tastes like green tea. I don't like green tea myself unless there's a bunch of sugar, so I normally describe the taste as usually "plant". I wonder if the chocolate would change anything, though?

Next!
Pancake-flavored Kit Kat bars.

For some reason unknown to me, Kit Kat has become weirdly popular in Japan. They have all sorts of weird flavors. America, we have like, 2, I think? White chocolate and milk chocolate. Japan has things varying from Green tea (told you they make green tea everything in Asia), cheesecake, and Sakura/cherry blossoms (yes, flower-flavored kit kat).  I would want to try them all, but the more limited/rare flavors are expensive.

つぎ！(next!)

Tomato Chocolate. I don't even. Apparently Meiji is trying to get children to like the flavors of vegetables. Good luck with that!

つぎいいいい (nextttttttttttttt)

Yeah, what it looks like. Rose-flavored gum. The Japanese make several flower-flavored things...

P.S. My sister bought some Sakura bubblegum at the airport in Japan. It tastes exactly how it's labeled. Like flowers! XD Weird experience, but I didn't hate it. Seems like a flavor that could get addicting after a while. Weh, I want some now.

I think I will end it here. But I'll leave you with a list of other Japanese treats I've heard of but am too lazy to find pictures of:

1. Any kind of seafood? Name it, and they'll likely have an ice cream flavor of it. I've seen Sardine ice cream, octopus and squid ice cream... yeah. Kinda. Blegh.
2. Soy sauce flavored pretzels. Sounds salty.
3. Sakura green tea. Wow, that's like super Japanese.
4. Chocolate ramen. But isn't really ramen. false advertising! shame, I would have wanted to try it, too.

Oh look, a list of different kit kat flavors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit_kat#Varieties
Check out how many are from Japan, woah. Aloe vera? Bubblegum? There are Calpis and Ramune too, lol. (Calpis is another Japanese drink.)