Re: Apartment: Mingmei & Donna
"Jiao-zu," Donna repeated carefully. It wasn't quite right, her mouth not used to the language, but passable enough. "Hmm? Oh, yes. I used to go to Tokyo every summer for work. It was for an internal coding competition. I spent most of my time there inside, but I got to explore a few days here and there. It's beautiful." Her voice grew ever so slightly whimsical. She missed Japan more than she let herself admit. "Jiao-zu, jiao-zu," she practiced the word a few more times to commit it to memory. "What are some of the sites in China I need to visit?"
"I come from Seattle. Appreciation of Nirvana is mandatory." If that was a joke, it was not delivered as such. Donna appeared to be deathly serious, even if it was only a half-truth. However, when she continued, her features softened, the mention of her family warming her smile. "My brother is a musician, so he's helped me broaden my musical horizons. I listen to most anything now, but my heart belongs to sad and gloomy alternative." A shrug along with a resigned look over at Mingmei. "Oh, Metallica! I know I'm not supposed to say how great the Black album was, but it's my favorite. I think that makes me lose some sort of musical street cred."
She inwardly groaned when Mingmei seemed puzzled. Donna didn't mean it like that. "I had expected the pre-packaged wrappers. It's not a bad thing. It's really interesting. It's just flour and water? I figured there would be some other ingredients to the dough." A pause as she blinked a few times, "I don't know why I want to say eggs, but I feel like there should be eggs. This is why you're the one teaching me."
The veggies were laid out, and all she needed was something to cut with. Again she went digging through the drawers to pull out a chef knife with a flourish, "Soy sauce is the best." Donna worked the knife through the cabbage slowly, trying to plan a course of action to get the smallest slivers with the least amount of work. Of course, her mind wandered to the issue that had been plaguing her since she had arrived in New York. "You have one of those journals..." She was attempting to phrase it as delicately as possible, "Did you have one of those hotel dreams, too?" Her brother had been Robin, and her other brother probably dreamed he was a wave on the beach or something ridiculously zen-like like that. Maybe she should ask Leo. It would certainly keep her from overanalyzing her own crime scene, or the visitor that showed up.