New Things

Last night Mr X and I went out to the sporting goods store and among our purchases was a new snowboarding helmet for him. He's so excited about it that he's been wearing it nearly any chance he can. Never mind that it was about 80 degrees today. Never mind that we live at the beach. He ate dinner with it on. He made the bed with it on. He chatted people up on the phone with it on. It actually won't surprise me if he wears it to bed. Or tries to... He informed me very seriously that he was 'breaking it in' - then he proceeded to run into door frames and walls to illustrate his point.

Mr X is home

It's good to have Mr X back, finally. I picked him up Saturday afternoon, at which point he'd been up for 24 hours straight. I knew that if he went home and crawled in bed to sleep like he so desperately wanted, he'd be wide awake at midnight and consequently it would take him even longer to adjust back to this time zone. So I dragged him around to say hi to people he hadn't seen for a while and on a 2 hour walk on the beach. He was a trooper - I think he lasted until about 7pm or something that night before he just crashed. He slept until 11:30am the next day. He's still not fully adjusted but he's getting there. I took some pictures of the things he brought home for me. (Nope, no wooden sandals.) Here they are:

Hi-Soft Caramels: "Hi-SOFT Milk is a caramel that was created so you can savor the creamy taste of milk. Enjoy its rich flavor and soft texture." Thanks. I will. Mmmm...the creamy taste of milk.

These (above) are more caramels. There was pretty much no English on this box so all I know about them is that they are "Morinaga's Kokutou Caramel" and they taste just like molasses.

This is the nutritional information for the caramels. Very informative...

Mr X had tried the Dars Dark Chocolate and he said it was pretty waxy. I tried a square of this kind and it's not waxy though it has a slightly different flavor than regular milk chocolate. I liked it. It's way better than Hershey's...but not better than the good stuff from Europe.

This is some energy goo/meal replacement, Japanese style. It is called "Body Keep Jelly." A mouth-watering name, don't you think? I haven't tried it yet but here's what the fine green print at the bottom says, "In today's fast paced world, many people develop bad eating habits, skipping breakfast or lunch or consuming calories beyond the expectations. This product was developed to supply energy at the time it is needed, one pack contains the calorie equivalent of 0.7 of a cup of boiled rice."

This is, I suppose, is the equivalent to a healthy candy bar or fruit leather-ish bar. It's not particularly sweet or flavorful, but it's not unpleasant either. It has a nice chewy texture and I didn't mind it at all. My niece, Hannah, seemed to particularly enjoy it.

This is lemon-lime sugar free gum and breath mints. I have yet to try them. I tried the gum and mints all over Europe and I like American style gum better. The mints? They're all very similar so I don't know.

This is like a bottle of Gatorade Propel. I especially loved the name, "Pocari Sweat." I find the idea of guzzling a big bottle of sweat highly amusing. And gross. The fine print says, "POCARI SWEAT is a healthy beverage that smoothly supplies the lost water and electrolytes during perspiration. With the appropriate density and electrolytes, close to that of human body fluid, it can be easily absorbed into the body." (Quoted exactly)

Mr X always buys me earrings from wherever he goes. I love it. I'd somehow forgotten that fact so I was really surprised when he presented me with these Jade earrings from Japan. A was thrilled with them. Isn't he sweet? Thanks Mr X!

A random picture I found...

I stumbled across this photo while cleaning up my computer the other day. It was taken almost 4 years ago. From left to right: Mr X, me, Mortimer (Mr X's older brother), Mrs Mortimer, Mr T, Mrs T. Mrs T would probably want me to note that she is about 8 months pregnant in this picture - I think she actually looks pretty tiny for a girl who's due date is imminent. My favorite thing about this photo? The utter look of disgust on Mr X's face as he 'pretends' to smack my bottom. (If you click on the image, you'll be able to see The Face with much more clarity.)

Snowboarding in Japan

Last weekend Mr X was fortunate enough to be able to go snowboarding in Japan. He had to wake up bright and early at 3:15 am to catch his bus to get to the mountain in time. The bus stopped at a decent time to let everybody get out to get some breakfast. Luckily Mr X had eaten before he left his hotel so he didn't have to brave anything shrimp or seaweed flavored. Anyway, here's the lodge at the base of the mountain. (Mr X didn't tell me what the name of the mountain was, so I can't tell you...sorry.)

Apparently the snow was really wet and slushy as you can guess from the photo below. But that's better than icy, right?

After a quick check on the snow report, Mr X headed up the lift.

If he looks confused in this picture, I imagine it's because he's still trying to figure out what the snow report said. That or ...

...maybe he's trying to figure out which run he should take.

Here are some of the views from the mountain:

On the way back to the hotel, the bus stopped again for dinner. This is what Mr X told me about dinner:

"We stopped at the travel center for dinner. I ordered this thing and well it turned out to be a giant bowl with rice, soy beans, green beans, lettuce, some fat nasty meat and a barely cooked egg to top it all off. So I ate what I could and then I went to the bakery there to top off and got a slice of pizza and a delicious looking pastry with walnuts. I took one bite of the pizza and threw that crap away. Then I sat on the bus and bit into my pastry and it was full of those damn beans."

BUT - he did say that overall he had a great time and he's really thrilled that he was able to go. He's just a little hungry after six weeks.

Since I'm all about looking good these days...

This was almost the outfit I was planning on sporting to pick Mr X up at the airport. As you can see, the "prairie look" does a fantastic job of almost entirely concealing the fact that I have breasts. So I ultimately decided that coupling that dress with my new "boy" hair cut would be a bad idea. Back to the drawing board...

(Mrs Nye, on the other hand, is quite fetching in this dress despite the fact that she thinks she looks bad in brown...and prairie dresses in general.)

On being a boy

Deciding to chop off most of my hair a mere FOUR days before Mr X's much anticipated return home has got to be one of the dumbest things I've ever done, beauty-wise. *sigh* Look at me! My sex appeal has now plummeted down to nothing (not that it was super high before but at least I didn't look like a boy). I was so sad after this, I had to self-medicate with a cheese mug. I hate my new hair. Poor Mr X - I'm so sorry - I promise I'll never cut my hair again!

Awwwww.......

I woke up on this very quiet Valentine's Day and checked my email. I was very pleasantly surprised to see that my nephews had sent me some Valentine's love. How adorable is this?



THANKS boys! (And Nicole and Gib!) You guys are so sweet! Awwwww....

More Chinatown

Here are a few more Chinatown pictures:

Dragons

Mr X visited the Chinatown area of Tokyo last weekend. From what he said, it was pretty fascinating. From the pictures he sent me, I was particularly interested by the dragons.

Food Glorious Food!

Here's a bunch more food pics from Mr X's travels. You be the judge as to which item looks the most delicious and the most disgusting.

Good Luck!

I promised you I'd get Mr X to send me his pictures with the Buddhist good luck symbol - a reverse swastika. Well, here you go. In the first picture you'll probably have to click on the picture so you can see it in a larger format. It's near the top of the structure. The second picture below gets up close and personal.

Stealing Lemons

I've been stealing lemons from around my neighborhood. You might say that's a very naughty thing to do and I should stop immediately. I disagree entirely. You see, there are people in this neighborhood that seem to think their lemon trees serve no other purpose than the simple, natural beautification of their yards. While I agree that lemon trees are indeed lovely, there certainly is more to them than their looks. I feel I'm actually doing my neighbors a favor - picking their lemons so that they don't fall off and rot, thus causing the neighbors to have to clean up the mess. (Or more appropriately, their gardeners.)

I've been amassing quite a collection of smuggled lemons so yesterday I decided the time had come to make use of them. I made myself a batch of perfectly tart and delicious freshly squeezed lemonade. It tastes just like summer. Coincidentally, it was 80 degrees so it felt like summer too.

Odds 'n Ends

I'm hoping that the shoes this man is sporting are super cheap because I think it would be a super cool souvenir if Mr X brought me back a pair. *hint hint* But if they're spendy then forget about it because I don't care that much...

The modern day rickshaw and it's VERY enthusiastic driver:

This was Mr X's lunch. I suppose it could be compared to chicken nuggets or something. It was pieces of chicken fried in some unusual spices and such. Mr X reports that it was actually quite tasty.

This was Mr X's dessert. He'd seen other people walking around eating this - little kids even. So he thought it couldn't be too bad. But he was wrong - it turned out to have a decidedly fishy taste to it. I can't imagine how disappointing it must be to be eagerly anticipating a sweet little donut-hole-looking morsel only to be shocked at the taste of dried fish.

Japanese Buddhist Temple

Mr X went to another shrine last weekend in Japan. I was trying to do some research to see what type of shrine it was and I think it was a Buddhist temple rather than a shrine. Apparently if it's Shinto then it's a shrine and if it's Buddhist then it's a temple. I believe that the Shinto religion has a lot of Buddhist influences today and I honestly don't know that much about either religion. What I have learned is that Buddhism and Shintoism are the most predominate religions in Japan. About 84-96% of those that follow a religion are Buddhists/Shintoists. But interestingly enough only about 30% of the population of Japan actually associate themselves with a religion at all.

On a lot of the buildings and statues at this shrine there were what appeared to be Nazi symbols, which surprised both Mr X and I. But I checked that out too and apparently the
swastika is a symbol of good luck for Hindus and Buddhists and these symbols are actually inverted compared to the Nazi one. I'm going to have Mr X send me one of the pictures of this "good luck" symbol so I can post it for you.

Mr X reports that there were all of these "ashtray" looking things all over the place where people were lighting and then placing sticks of incense. I read about it and "it is reputed to be a method of purifying the surroundings, bringing forth an assembly of Buddhas, Bodhisattva's, gods, demons, and the like."