Eat Your Vegetables!

There you have it. The Vegetable Sisters teach us about vegetables and recommended daily servings in Japanese.

Pretty self-explanatory, really… but I'd be happy to answer any further questions.

Ian Flies a Spaceship

Right. So, before we left these folks (see below), we made one last great, North American road trip to the surprisingly futuristic town of Seattle.

Luke, Tara, Ian, and Ali take a ride on the wild side with Vancouver's public transportation.

Not seen here, Meaghan (photographer) and Kevin (who met up with us later). This was the night before we left for SEATTLE.

Seattle, unbeknownst to most, is a city obsessed with space exploration. They even have their own super-powered, space invader repulser laser cannon known as the "Space Needle."

However, of much greater interest to me, was this super futuristic space ship docking bay (which incidentally doubles as a music museum and experiment lab, as well as a science fiction museum). Within these walls was some of the most incredible space technology, as well as a really cool music recording section where you could take mini lessons on guitar, piano, drums, and vocals, or record yourself in the free-style jam studio. We do have video of our 'family band jam session,' which I might share with you after I review the recording quality.

Yes, here it is. Captain Ian standing proudly with a frakin' viper from the Battlestar Galactica.

I was allowed to take it out for a test flight, however this video footage was lost in the ensuing crash landing. Still, one of the highlights of any trip I've taken thus far!

And that's a rap!

With that, it was time to fly (sadly not via viper) across the Pacific, and to continue our adventures in Japan.

Japanese Sandwiches

Japanese sandwiches are, for the most part, hugely disappointing. For the usual reasons (hunger, and it was lunch time) I bought a sandwich this afternoon. It was a typical "mix-sando" featuring 3 half sandwich triangles: egg, ham, and tuna. the bread was approximately 7mm in width, plain white, with the crust sliced off. Leaving 3 perfectly triangular little pieces in the triangular package. Between each 2 pieces was roughly 1 teaspoon of sandwich filling. The tuna sandwich actually had a single green leaf on it… this went beyond the standard. Greens, as we know them in the west, are hard to come by in Japan.

Bread and cheese. Those are two things you'll miss if you live in Japan. You will, however, enjoy a great variety of noodle and rice dishes. Salad, however, is almost exclusively a pitiful looking mixture of sliced cabbage, corn, and mayonnaise. Oh, also mayonnaise is on everything. At least, far more things than you ever imagined putting mayonnaise on. On the upside, Japanese mayonnaise is much better than the western variety. Who woulda thought that mayonnaise was a Japanese specialty? Now if only they could learn how to make a sandwich...