The Imperial Palace

Last weekend Mr X visited the well known Imperial Palace in Japan. It is the main residence of the emperor of Japan. If you'd like to know more, click here. Here are some pictures for you:

Japanese Deliciousness

All right people, you wanted more food pictures so here you go. I'd give you more details on what exactly some of this stuff is, but I have no clue. Like this one - it's obviously some sort of octopus or something, but what's that red sauce it's in?

I have no idea what this guy is cooking up but I'm guessing the chances that it's some sort of tasty delight are pretty slim.

This picture? The market? Oh yeah, I could probably browse around in this type of place for hours. They would probably be annoyed at me because I would be poking and pointing at everything, repeatedly saying things like, "Oooohhh!" and "Disgusting!" and "Whoa, what is that?" and "Yum..."

Mr X braved the street food below, whatever it is, and he reports that he couldn't even get any of it down...he knew if it tried he would have thrown up right there in front of the vendor. So he slyly regurgitated it back into his hand and walked away...

I'm not sure what this particular dinner was, but here's one of Mr X's dinner BEFORE he ate it. Nice, huh?

(Thanks for all the food pics Mr X!)

Muscle Milk

There is a man at my work who spends every single lunch hour in the employee lounge at one of the four internet browsing terminals (because we're not allowed to browse the internet at our desk computers on company time, of course) eating his lunch. Every day it's the same lunch: Muscle Milk.

His meal of choice is the one on the bottom left pictured above. Or at least something very similar. I kid you not, I have NEVER seen him consume anything but this. I suppose he's fit and trim looking. I wonder if he's actually healthy though...I mean what about his fiber intake? It seems like such a depressing way to go through life...subsisting on muscle milk when there are things like COOKIES and CHOCOLATE and CHEESE out there. I certainly wouldn't (and couldn't) do it. I enjoy food way too much.

Mr X: International Wedding Crasher?

It appears that last weekend Mr X spent his leisure time crashing a Japanese wedding. I guess he was just at the right place at the right time. He went to check out a local shrine and a wedding happened to be taking place. These are the pictures he sent back:

(As you can see with the picture above, Mr X got up close to the action.)

(Now we will be able to cherish this family photo for years to come. Maybe I'll put it in with our own wedding pictures just to make things interesting.)

A few more pictures of Japan

I can't forget these pictures from Mr X.

I'd asked Mr X to take pictures of anything he ate for me because I'm so curious about foreign cuisine in general. Well, the first time Mr X ate out he forgot to take a picture of his food until after he'd already eaten it. Apparently this used to be a pile of noodle-y something-or-other.

Here's a pictures of some Yen. One of the coins has a hole through the middle of it. The Frisk is a tin of mints that are reminiscent of Altoids. The green packet is simply "Super Refreshing Green Candy." And the Dars is Japanese dark chocolate. Mr X reports that it's a bit waxy and not nearly as tasty as German or Swiss chocolate. But he's kind of spoiled in that aspect, I think...

Stinkiness Revisited

So remember how I posted last week sometime about how I was eating kippered snacks? Well, I’m usually pretty careful about throwing away the packaging in such a way as to prevent rank smells from permeating the apartment. So I put the container inside a zip lock bag, sealing it tightly and throw it into the rubbish can. Then I promptly take out the trash. Well this go around I spilled the tiniest amount of stinky fish goo on the counter and rather than use a paper towel, which is what a should have done, I used a dish rag to clean it up. Then I threw the dish rag into the dirty clothes bin and there it sat for several days while dirty clothes accumulated on top of it. Well, today at the office I changed into my workout clothes and took my sweat-towel and hit the gym. When I began sweating, I wiped my brow with my little towel and discovered that once the towel got damp, it stunk to high heaven of fish-stank. I also noticed that as my shirt and pants became moistened with my perspiration, they too smelled fishy. Then as I was showering I was dismayed to learn that my big towel had a decidedly fishy smell to it as well. I tried to drip dry as best I could. Luckily the clothes I wore to work today were not washed with the kippered snack towel. So tonight I’m going to have to go home and put all those freshly washed clothes back into the washing machine with lots of extra detergent and hope for the best. Good thing I hadn’t put them away yet so it’ll be easy to gather all of the nasally offensive articles together. I hate stinky things. No more kippered snacks for me.

Floamies

I've been meaning to post pictures of these for a while now. Every year for Christmas my mom gets me a toy. Even at 30. I think it's cute of her - maybe she's making sure I have something to keep me young at heart at least one day out of the year. (Because we all know that I'm so mature the rest of the days of the year. Ha!) Anyway, since Mr X is my other half, my mom also gives him a toy now too. Sometimes I have no clue where on earth she finds these toys because usually they are like nothing I've ever seen before.

Allow me to introduce you 2008's toy find - The Floamie:

You have to assemble the Floamie's body and then you get to put the goopy colors all over the body shell. (I don't know how else to describe it, I'm sorry.) Mr X's Floamie was some sort of rocket-warrior-man.
Mine was some sort of pink girly martian or something. And yes, I had some extra "floam" so I gave her a set of double d's. They proved to be too large and they ended up slowly oozing down the front of her until they actually hit the floor. So I ultimately ended up performing a mastectomy on her. She's happier these days as a result.

Anyway, thanks mom! It was a fun little activity.

More Japan tidbits...

Here are some of the sign Mr X has to decipher whenever he goes anywhere. I like how the kids in the signs in Japan have enormous heads.

This is a Japanese vending machine. It looks very exciting. I don't know if Mr X actually bought anything from it or not. Hopefully he did because how can you pass that up?

This probably would make any American feel like home...until you walked inside of it. I guess it's packed full of gourmet Japanese food and it's not 'fast' junkie food either....

Mr X bought this from the 7-11. He's had these in the states before (I have too) and he thought they were just decent here. But this one that he got at the Japan 7-11, he says, tops them all. He thought it was delicious. I forget what they are actually called...pork dumplings? I have no idea.

Views of Japan

This past weekend Mr X ventured out and about in Japan to enjoy the countryside....I mean city. I guess there isn't much in the way of countryside where he went. Unfortunately he didn't quite make it to the Sumo match but he's hoping to try for that again this weekend. So here are some of his pictures of Japan so far:

Mr X says that the crosswalks are like nothing he's seen before - they are massive and throngs of people are always storming across them when they are on "go."

Ah yes, the karaoke bar -this one is huge! And no, Mr X didn't sing any karaoke, in case you were wondering.

Here's a an area that looks a little more cozy and less 'modern'...I like these pictures best.

Mr X's Japanese Ride

This is Mr X's first car in Japan. It's a Nissan March. It came equipped with a nice GPS...which was basically useless to Mr X since he can neither understand nor read Japanese. See how the driver's wheel is on the 'wrong' side of the car? Mr X reports that took some getting used to. He was also running around Japan accidentally turning his windshield wipers on every time he meant to turn on the blinkers. Luckily the gas and brake pedals are in the same order as they are here so he wasn't stepping on the gas when he meant to hit the brakes. That could have been a problem. But all in all, Mr X says he's getting used to driving on the other side of the road with everything opposite.



He had to turn this car in yesterday for a new one. Now he's the proud renter of a Honda hybrid car of some sorts.

In other news - rumor has it that Mr X is headed to watch a real live Sumo Wrestling match Saturday. (Since Saturday for him is pretty much Friday for us...I guess he's going today.) I'm excited to hear about that experience. Hopefully he'll take some pictures.

What's in a name?

Yesterday as I passed two coworkers in the hallway (neither of whom I know), one of them cheerfully blurted out “Hi Char!”

Two things:

1) I’ve never spoken to this coworker before in my life (at least I don’t think I have) so how does he know who I am?
2) Who does he think he is, calling me ‘Char’?

Lately I’ve also been receiving emails from coworkers that have been starting out with “Hi Char…”

I guess I don’t mind quite so much in the instances where I know and work with those coworkers every day. I suppose I can tolerate that. Barely. Usually the only people that are allowed to call me ‘Char’ are my family members and friends. Close friends. You know who you are. (Even Mr X sticks to my full name.) But really not even many of the close friends I’ve made post-college have attempted to address me that way….so it’s strange to suddenly hear my coworkers using it after all these years of being addressed simply as ‘Charlotte.’

But strangers or near-strangers? They better stick with 'Charlotte' or else....or else nothing really - I'd curse their names behind their backs but I don't know what their names are. Maybe I'll just have to shake my fist at them....menacingly.

Some like it hot!

It's been nearly a week of disturbingly warm weather here. I don't mean to complain about it because I love the warm weather, it's just that it somehow seems wrong for it to be 80 degrees all week in the middle of January. It was 78 degrees on Saturday, 82 on Sunday, Monday was 86, yesterday was 80 and today it's at least 75. In fact, the next seven days are supposed to be in the mid-to-high 70's. Doesn't that seem strange? I know I've been gone for a while but I thought typical winter weather in SD was supposed to be in the 60's. Well I should probably take advantage of the beautiful weather and go sunbathe on the beach or something. Except I don't sunbathe...at least not without some good sunblock on. Pasty is the new tan, in case you haven't heard...at least that's what I keep telling myself.

How's the weather where you live?

(I realize my life must be boring if all I have to blog about is the weather. Bear with me, I'm waiting for fantastic pictures of Mr X's adventures abroad so we can all live vicariously through him.)

My Stinky Breath

Why is my breath so stinky, you ask? Well, I just indulged myself by eating a tin of Kippered Snacks. Delicious, I tell you, delicious! If you've never tried them, do yourself a favor and give 'em a go. They're protein packed and they've got some good Omega-3 Fatty Acids. And everybody loves Omegas, right? I know, I know...you think I'm disgusting right now for downing kippered snacks, but seriously, have you really ever tried them? What's the grossest thing you eat and enjoy?

Random Things

1) While driving today I saw a giant SUV with a license plate that read "Namaste 2" and I thought that it was strange to see that on a gas-guzzling car like that. I would imagine that someone that is so into yoga that they would personalize their license plate with "Namaste" would be very into all things "green." But I suppose that's just me generalizing.

2) I found a cockroach in my apartment yesterday and now I am consumed with thoughts of those creepy crawly creatures. I made multiple attempts to kill it but because it totally grosses me out to hear the crunch when I smash bugs I am loathe to do it....and therefore I'm not aggressive enough. But finally I managed to kill it. I used one of Mr X's shoes because the idea of having cockroach guts on the bottom of one of MY shoes makes me never want to wear them again. They become contaminated. (Sorry Mr X!)

3) I walked by a girl in her twenties this weekend at the beach who had this perfect little figure - she was a beautiful girl. But her nose was completely bandaged up, probably due to a very recent nose job...and then I just felt sorry for her.

4) I miss Mr X. Due to the time difference in his location to mine, talking on the phone is just not feasible on a daily basis. I didn't think it would bother me so much to not hear his voice every day because we could just send crazy amounts of emails to each other. But now I'm rethinking that because I'm completely convinced now that his voice is the best sound on earth.