November 30th, 2005

I thought you guys might be interested to know what I eat for lunch and
different things in Japan. So I have been taking pictures for
about two weeks of most of my lunches. I forget a lot and others
are not photo worthy, but here are just some of the things I eat and
make myself.





This is Chicken Katsu and white rice with shouyuu (soy sauce). I
bought the chicken precooked at the Hok but I made the rice
myself. I love our rice maker. Its quick and painless to
make rice. Mom, you should be jealous! Anyways, this is a
very tasty meal, but I dont get to eat it much because I cant seem to
find the chicken katsu anymore. Poo.



This is exactly what it looks like. Its a sandwhich I bought from
the Hok. They never just have ham sandwhiches, there is always a
variety. This is half ham and half egg salad. I usually dont eat
the egg salad. Chris eats mine if he's home otherwise I just toss
it (such waste!). The thing beside it is called Jyagariko and
they are the best snack food in the world. Im addicted! I
will explain more about them later.



This is a hotdog on a stick thing. Chris really likes it, I dont
because it has mayonaise under the cheese and it get warm and gross
when you heat it up in the microwave. Bleh. Plus the stick
is really thick and I always end up biting down on it really hard.



Mmm...this is ebi furai or Fried Shrimp. There is also goma
dressing in the little bowl. In the rice bowl is white rice,
topped with a sunny side up fried egg. I made the egg myself but
the rice and the shrimp I got from the Hok premade. The
goma dressing is very tasty. I cant describe the taste
adequately, but its very good on shirmp.



This is something Chris likes to eat. Its a biifu
kuroketto. Basically its beef and potato on a bun. The
other things are hashbrowns with the crazy japanese cheese
slices. Japanese cheese is just sad. Worse than american
cheese (I like american cheese, but this is just tastless).



This is actually one of my favorite things to eat. Its a loaf of
bread that has cheddar cheese and cubed cheese melted in the
middle. Its sooo good. Very tasty bread and the cheese is
very good too. Just yummy. Looks terrible though.





And now we get to the Jyagariko. Potato sticks! Even
better, these are salad jyagriko (the others are cheese). The
salad are my absolute favorite though. They have bits of carrot
and celery in them. They are also really salty and just
tasty. We actually took these in Osaka so thats why there is the
gross bedspread.



This I bought today. Yes, they are wine kitkats. So
yummy! It has white chocolate on the outside and red wine cream
in the middle. Tasty, tasty! Who woulda thunk I would like
wine flavored anything? They have crazy kitkat flavors
here. Green Tea, Wine, Strawberry, Maple Syrup, Noir (dark
chocolate, hee!), White Chocolate and Yogurt, and just regular
Chocolate. I havent tried many of the different flavored ones
though.





This is the singing vending machine I told Laura B. about once.
THat
screen in the middle plays a song whenever you buy a drink from the
machines. Its kinda funny because it plays a song by a group
called Benny K who Chris really doesnt like that much. But
everytime we get a drink, he has to hear it (mainly because I giggle
and dance around in fron of the machine. All the drinks with a
red tag under them are hot drinks. So the vending machines always
serve both hot and cold drinks. Chris likes the Milk Tea and I
like the cocoa. I really like the warm can because its getting
very cold here and the cans help to warm your hands along with having a
nice toasty drink inside.



This is the cocoa I usually get from the vending machine. It is
tasty and helps warm me all the way down. Coca cola makes
EVERYTHING here. Its crazy. Almost everything I drink is
Japan is produced by coke. This cocoa, coke, fanta, Qoo (which is
fruit juice, tastes like tang) and even the water we buy is coke!
Its crazy. Coke has really over taken Japan.



Thats all for the food, here are just some random pictures I've taken during the time I was taking the food pictures.



This is my new baby. Its a nintendo DS and its in pink! How
cute. I only have one game for it right now. Mario gets
kidnapped and its up to Princess Peach to save him! Its so
cute. Really fun. Ive already beaten it and am about to
beat it again. I think I need more games.



This is a really cute picture we took last Sunday. It makes me
happy. We went with Jason (the Taisha ALT/JET) to see Harry
Potter. Jason is a big movie nut and insists that we go to Yonago
to see movies. So we rode with him for an hour and a half and
went to this big place. It has a theatre with 6 screens
(movix), a game arcade (behind chris's head), a bowling alley, and an
American style restaurant called Tomato and Onion (far left, you can
see the end of the sign). Its a really nice place and I like
going there. I just wish it was closer! Movie Theatres are
no where near as common in Japan AND it costs 1800 yen per person to
see a movie. Very expensive (although the snacks arent that bad
at all). We have to choose wisely what movies we want to
see. Heh, this picture still makes me giggle. Chris and
Jason are so silly!



And thats all my pictures. Soon, I will take pictures of our
apartment because we are going to be moving a lot of stuff
around. Its going to look a LOT different when we move out the
sofa and bed. Im excited about that. I HATE our
couch. It sucks!!



I finally got my visa on Monday, btw. It was another long trip to
Hiroshima. 3.5 hours there, 2 hours to get the visa and eat a
quick dinner, 3.5 hours home. Long day! But I have my visa
and a working permit. I will probably start working in
January. I talked to Chris's supervisor and she thinks she knows
a good job for me, but I will know more in a few weeks I think.
But, that does mean that I have officially immigrated to Japan!
Hooray! I can stay until November 28th, 2008! Not that I
want to stay that long, but I CAN! Heh. Its funn because I can
stay several months after chris has to leave because of the way our
visas are. Weird.



Well, I think thats all the news I have now. Go watch Harry
Potter, its good if a little rushed. If you read the books, well,
they have to cut out a LOT due to time constraints but its a absolutely
gorgeous movie AND a lot of fun. Go see it! Now Im going to
go eat some more wine kitkats. Yum!