daily slice-of-life photo blog of a Gen-X dad
It’s time to start the weekend! 😆 To celebrate, we shared a delicious beer that we’ve been saving for a while now. It really hit the spot after a long, busy week. And to make the evening even better, we had a feast of yakisoba and okonomiyaki: one of my all-time favorite foods.
I hope you had a nice Friday!
またね～
こんばんは。How’s it going?
As you can see from the photo above, dinner was provided by In-n-Out. But even though I was the one who picked up the food, I skipped buying anything for myself. I had lunch at work and kind of felt like that was enough for the day. It’s funny, but on our China trip, we had so much food available, that it made me realize (or reinforce my realization) that I don’t really need to eat as much as I am accustomed to.
A few years back, I fasted for 3 or 4 days which changed my perception about food, and how much we really need. And that feeling of being hungry is not a bad feeling. I actually like having that hunger! Anyways, on the China trip I decided to eat mostly new-to-me and local foods, but not have too much, and generally try to skip or limit the foods that I’m familiar with, for instance, eggs, sausages, and bread. Instead, I had noodles, dim sum, rice porridge, pickled veggies, etc. It felt great!
So tonight I skipped the Double-double and just had my multi-vitamin. 😀
またね～
こんばんは。How’s it going?
This morning I slept in until 11 am to get some extra energy. I was wondering if it is best to force yourself out of jetlag by adhering to normal hours, or if that will weaken your immune system. I guess it’s a tradeoff… but I really needed to get a few extra hours of sleep.
Anyways, when I woke up the kids said they were hungry so I mentioned that I had brought back some patties from my mom’s house and they were all for having a couple for lunch. The patties go so fast here at our house that I should probably hide a couple in the back of the freezer for myself. 😆
In the evening we had some old and new friends over for dinner, and we decided to make tacos, with beer-battered shrimp and cabbage as the main filling. I also made a large batch of carnitas in our Instant Pot for tonight and tomorrow’s dinner. Our friends prepared a delicious cactus salsa which went perfectly with the tortilla chips, but also on the tacos. And of course, I had to make some margaritas for sipping. 🍹 Finally, we had a huge assortment of desserts to enjoy with coffee before calling it a night. Very fun to hang out with old friends and make some new ones as well!
こんばんは。How’s it going?
Today I returned to work, although as luck would have it, Wednesdays are the day I usually can work from home! Yay! And I really needed it because I was so sleepy, I nodded off a couple times during the day. But overall I did ok fighting the jetlag. However, the creative part of my brain was not operating at high capacity so I busied myself with planning and reviewing other designs.
But enough of that. I rarely mention work on my blog and I don’t intend to start now. 😆
Tonight’s dinner was a simple but delicious chicken and rice meal, with three different types of sauces: sweet chili, soy/oyster, and soy/sesame/cilantro. They were all tasty. 😋
I hope you had a great day!
おやすみ！
こんばんは。How’s it going?
Today our tour took us to the Badaling section of the Great Wall. 30 years ago when I visited, I believe we came to the same section, but we started at the main parking area. This time our tour group took the tram up to the top, and from there we were able to hike along the wall. We first completed the easy section to the end, then turned around and went for a bit on the hard section. It was significantly more difficult because of the steepness of some of the sections, but my brothers and I did well.
It was pretty amazing to be up on the Great Wall even if it is a big tourist destination.
I thought these instructions at the front of the escalator were pretty funny.
And I always enjoy looking at the ice cream freezers when they have a photo of a beautiful woman on it!
After our visit to the Great Wall, we went to the Jade factory/market and received some “education” on the tradition of Chinese jade, the meaning behind it, the types of stone, and the quality differences. After the short lesson, we were provided with a pretty huge lunch with plenty of beer, wine, and a super-potent liquor. I sure this was in order to loosen up everyone’s purse strings before shopping in the jade market. 😆
After that, we checked out the park at the entrance to the Ming Tombs, then drove through the 2008 Olympic area and saw the “Bird’s Nest” stadium, and the “Water Cube” from the bus, before returning back to the hotel.
Since we had a couple hours before dinner I did a little shopping at my favorite two stores: Uniqlo and Muji. I didn’t buy anything, but I always enjoy browsing those two!
And to conclude the day, we went to a restaurant for Peking Duck, where we stuffed ourselves and drank a bit too much! The food was yummy and the company was hilarious. It was a good time, for sure!
I hope you had a great day! Tomorrow there’s a morning tour and then we fly to Xi’an for the next leg of our journey, so I need to rest.
おやすみ
