it's been about 2 months since the last post and since then, i've flown to texas and georgia and got to visit family and friends in houston, fort worth, san antonio, and valdosta. a week after, we trekked with our japanese friends to Youkkai to Nagashima SpaLand and to Mie prefecture to go to Ise Shrine and Nabana no Sato Illumination. it was quite an extensive trip with lots of flying and drive, but it was well worth it to see everyone...and have everyone see me with my little belly bump!
we got to eat tons of food in texas: pappadeaux's, pappasito's, no hamburger palace (*sniff*), but givral hoang's vietnamese sandwiches, bubble tea, and tons of home-cooked meals at my mom and dad's (bun thit nuong, bun bo hue, goi cuon, banh xeo, uuuugggghhh)
here's jeremy attempt to make his own goi cuon (spring rolls)...he got better the more he practiced. =P
i'll eventually do a massive photo dump on facebook, since i'd like to keep this blog strictly food and crafts. i'm still working on finishing the rest of tameco's basket liners, slowly but surely, i'll be done in a week or so. i didn't realize it was so much work...or time to devote. i'm so tired these days, it's really hard for jeremy to drag me out of bed. i haven't made anything for myself yet, but i have some ideas floating around for a quilt for the little one.
i finally finalized the guest list for the baby shower and i started a registry on babies'r'us ( i know...how generic ) this week, but i seriously don't know where to start. it feels weird to invite people to a party to celebrate the birth of a baby and then to ask for gifts. if i was the prepared parent i should be, i should have all this baby crap already...or be able to finance it. in any case, we can afford it all, but the ladies really really want to throw me a shower...they've been waiting for the day i got pregnant for YEARS. horrible memories of them dragging me to the office ladies room and making me tinkle on stick cloud my brain.
while out in mie prefecture, out by Ise shrine, we got to partake in Akafuku mochi, which has been in business for over 300 years. i wish i took a photo of my mochi, but i guess i'll dig one up online. we also got to have this awesome sweet potato ice cream at Akage Yokocho:
i finally found a place that sold ice cream mochi by the singles and not surprisingly, i love it. Chateraise down the street on the east side carries about 6-8 different flavors and i got to try the matcha green tea and the adzuki bean one. deliciously sinful: pounded rice cake on the outside, green tea and vanilla ice cream on the inside. *drools*
on the holiday on the 18th, me, fer, and his friend lorna wandered over to ozaku to find the columbian restaurant...which i did eventually find after hungrily searching for half an hour, only to find that it was closed. =(
so we went to a lawson to get a snack to tide us over. while searching for something to nosh on (settled on salmon onigiri ), i saw a can of asahi adzuki bean hot soup. i didn't buy it but i've been searching for it ever since. today, while walking in the base exchange, i checked out the DyDo machine and they had something similar below, so you know i had to buy it on my way out and sample it. sweet and tasty, reminding me of the adzuki bean soup jeremy had at Akafuku Mochi.
after grabbing a billion groceries at the commissary, i went home to tidy up my craft room and try this recipe for baked potato soup that jeremy has been begging me to make. it turned out quite good and i replaced the chicken broth with chicken boullion cubes and added a dollop of sour cream to the soup when serving. it's really a nice comfort food to have on a cold day and jeremy loves it, which means, i can keep making it and enjoying it versus getting the salty one at the chili's *yuck*
ok, i'm gonna head back to my room and keep working on the basket liners! see you in a few weeks!
