Neat stuff

 

So before I get to the cute stuff, I wanted relate to you guys something that I thought was just neat.

Earlier on in the week we decided to go out to one of the local shops in town, a normal department store type of thing, just to look around for various things. However, we ended up going into the store shortly before closing time, though we didn’t quite know it at the time. Anyway, so we went through looking at some cute kids clothes and toys for awhile and then a very polite girl came up to us and made gestures while apologizing. Using our deductive reasoning and vague understanding of Japanese, we realized that she was telling us that it was closing time.

And now comes neat part!

So we haven’t been in a department store at closing time before, so when we left, it was quite a bit different than what we were used to. All of the salespeople and workers of all sorts were standing in their designated areas near the walkways and whenever someone(us or one of the other customers) walked by, they gave this huge bow and thanked us for shopping with them. Of course this was in Japanese and they had said other things than just “Arigato gozaimasu!” but you could tell it was along those lines.

For some reason it really moved me, even though i’m getting quite comfortable the japanese way of politeness. Perhaps it was in the way that they did it, and with such enthusiasm. Either way, it was something that I wish was done in the states, but sadly I don’t see it picking up there.

Anyways, onto other things! Today we ended up going to the Daei mall outside of base today and we ran into a nice little sale going on for some festive summer clothing, and of course we ended up buying some after some humming and hawing over it all :-P

picture time!

Rienna in her new clothes. The second photo is a close up of the design. Little fish!

Thian has dragon flies on his.

And me!   I have a face on mine :-)

 

 

Till next time!

Hey…this seems familiar……

 

So we decided to take a trip to Yokohama today to visit something from our pasts…

That’s right! Shakey’s pizza!!!!

We had found the restaurant months ago and we vowed that we would get back to the place before we left japan.

We both have a fondness for Shakey’s pizza since it was the place to go when you had a super duper pizza craving in our youth. However, most stores (if not all) had closed down in Washington state.So of course it was super ultra awesome to encounter a shakey’s pizza in japan of all places. To give a review, I would have to say that this Shakey’s pizza tastes exactly like it did way back when. Although i have to say that only the “Original” pizza tastes the same. The rest of the menu has been given the good ole japanese twist, which of course is good in it’s own way, but really we came for the old fashioned shakey’s more than the “zomg pizza in japan” experience.

On to the pictures!

Mer and the kids in front of the entrance.

Yes, that bottom pizza is “Tuna and Corn” pizza.

We of course had to try the Marshmallow dessert pizza

Yummmmmy!

Overall, a fantastic day trip, and a wonderful blast from the past.

I will leave you all with pictures of the kids(and my wonderful, fantastic wife)  being cute  and trying to do the peace sign to the cameras, Japanese style!

Blogging again?

 

Yeah……We’ll see how this goes again :-)

So after much prodding, poking, shoving, and eventually a kick in the pants, meredith got me to update this thing again :-P

So I will endeavor to update the blog some more.

It’s been a long time, and much has happened. We’re still here in japan, having lots of fun. We just purchased a car over here, a Nissan “Sunny”, the japanese have some cute names for cars here hehe.

Anyways, that’s all for this post, i’ll try to include more “wordy” stuff in the next one i put up. For now, be content with photos :-)

Haircute! :-P (misspelled on purpose )

 

 

Halloween!

 

Sushi kids!

 

Insert coin(s) for witty and amazing title.

 

Hello family, friends, creepy stalkers. It’s time for another blog update!

I know, I know, it has been awhile, but I assure you, nothing big has happened. No big plans, no big changes, nothing out of the ordinary.

…did i mention we gave Thian his first haircut?

anyway onto other things… wait wait wait, ok, I hear you gasping behind that monitor, and I also hear you wondering when im posting picture. Well fine here they are :-P

Before:

 

After!

That’s all for now!

oh, did I also mention we have a super typhoon coming our way? I sure do love the rain :-)

Strange, and yet so delicious

 

So being in Japan for me is like being a small kid in the candy store for the first time. You look around and all around you are strange and alluring objects. Every candy in the store surrounds and swirls around you in a maelstrom of flavor and color. The combinations are nearly endless, nary a flavor left untouched and all of it wrapped into alluring packages whose call rivals that of the Sirens in the tales of old sailors books. As such, I have found myself trying nearly everything I can get my hand on:

Bananas covered in chocolate. Rice crackers. Octopus packed into a small round breaded thing. Sushi of every kind of fish. Flavored sodas and drinks of nearly any type you can think of.

All of this and more! However, it is the latest item that recently tried to attempt to make on my own that I will talk about now:

Coffee Jello!

Meredith had found a Japanese website that was doing a recipe day or something of the like, and it featured the new jello. Instantly I was enthralled with the idea and set out to make it as quickly as possible. It didn’t take much, just some instant coffee, some non flavored jello packs and boiling water. Nothing special, just….coffee jello.

Let me tell you my friends…… it is Delicious.

Now to find the next thing in the candy store :-)

You have gained a level in, Cooking!

 

So I managed to accomplish something I’ve wanted to do for a long long time; Creating my own pretzels!

Everytime I go to the mall, the lure of Auntie Anne’s pretzels is too much and I wind up with like $20 worth of pretzels to eat / save for later. Yesterday I happened to be browsing a food recipe application on my Ipod touch, looking for something yummy to make for dinner when a shiny beacon of tastiness that is Pretzels graced my screen… I was helpless to resist.

Soon after Meredith got home we went to the store and I immediately bought up everything I needed to create the goods. All went well but then I made and error, a very serious and stupid error. In the recipe it called for 1 cup of sugar, 1 1/2 Teaspoons of salt. What I wrote down was: 1 cup of sugar,    1 1/2 salt

As you can probably guess, I put 1 1/2 CUPS of salt in. Yes I thought it was kinda weird for that much salt, but I was drunk of the promise of delicious pretzels and forged ahead thinking I was safe because I wrote the directions down. lol.

Anyway, the cooking process wasn’t so far from normal, although the dough didn’t rise as much as it should have, and it was kinda dry-ish.

Finally I got it all baked and as soon as it was out of the oven, I took a huge bite and, lo and behold, it didn’t taste that bad…… for the first second or two. Then the taste of salt flooded into my mouth and stayed there like an entrenched army. Nearly anything I tried to do could not get rid of this soft, lingering ghost of a salt taste in my mouth.

ugh.

Fast forward to today:

I tried to attempt creating my pretzels, the taste of salt finally had released it’s grip on me and I deemed it time to try again. This time I used the normal amount of salt and I have to report this: They are Delicious!

Not quite as good as Auntie Anne’s pretzels, but still pretty dang good.