Food Erasers And Lovely Friends

My Son has a whole gamut of plastic sushi erasers bought while we were in Japan; in Kappbashi to be exact. Don't they just look absolutely delicious? My son likes to play "restaurant" with those erasers and coerced Mommy and Daddy to play along with him.

He was absolutely chuffed when he got some addition to his collection by the Anna from Budget  Trouble  when the lovely lady came to Malaysia for a warm Christmas R&R.

I love my blogging friends. They sure are one generous bunch. I've gotten many souvenirs either sent by them or passed to me if we have the chance to meet. It's always a great surprise opening my mailbox and see the treasures I might find in there from one of them; sometimes completely out of the blue. Not to mention those who open their homes to us whenever we were in their part of town.

I am taking this opportunity to say thank you so much to my blogging friends and visitors for all those great comments, lovely souvenirs and kind gestures you all have accorded to me and my family. We are blessed.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Not too sure whether this qualify for an entry for  Budget Trouble : Show Me Japan but what the heck!

Orchard Visit : Yummy Grapes

Going to a fruit orchard was an excellent outing for us and we went to an orchard that has a number of different fruit trrees planted. Read also our post : Day 4 in Japan - Fruit picking in Akita.

I love  the fragrant smell the grapes emit not to mention the delicious tatse of the grapes we picked too. And those sweet smell lingered in our room and in the fridge because it took days for us to finish all the grapes we brought back! Not to mention the delicious taste too. Those grapes were absolutely yummy!

Grapes, grapes, grapes everywhere.

Which one to pick? Decision, decisions.

Me, with our first bunch of grapes. There were many more to follow afterwards. *^-^*

The orchard can even pack the grapes you bought in boxes, for souvenirs or you can opt for the packing to avoid the grapes from being squashed.

Wordless Wednesday #3

I'm running so late today!!

Tampa Bay Hotel 1920's postcard
(now the University of Tampa)

Join me for Wordless Wednesday

ALL WEEK LONG

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Wednesday Blog Hops and Events

Celebrating Christmas 2010 & Sketching Travel Plans for the New Year 2011

the altar of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church with elegant Christmas decor

a cute little manger with a cute little angel

Happy Holidays! We had a White Thanksgiving this year but Christmas was quite colorful! We transferred to the Travel Inn RV Resort in Elma, Washington (also about 2 hours south of Seattle but closer to Olympia, the state capital).  It specializes in planned activities. Tuesday nights are always poker nights. Then a Soup Nite, a Wii Night, and a Waffles Morning are all planned for the next days leading up to the breaking of 2011!

the celebrated choir and Fr. Jack singing classic Christmas carols

Bill beaming with his gift!

But we spent Christmas Eve with my granddaughter Krishna and her boyfriend Randy and his sister Diana. The following day we had lunch with Father Jack after mass at the Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in West Seattle and in the evening we had dinner with our good old friends Benjie and Fides before they left for the Philippines. Then on the 29^th I will meet my former ‘Estrogen’ Book Club pals for dinner.

the noche buena, a Filipino tradition after midnight mass!

New Year’s Eve will be even more colorful!  The ushering of the new will be accompanied by the roll of a thousand drums and the sparkle of a million fireworks!  Floating excitedly in our minds are thoughts of the next phase of our travels? First, we will be in Asia, specifically the Philippines, where my youngest daughter lives. Also we need to attend to some unfinished business regarding our properties there.

TRAVEL PLANS FOR 2011

Hopefully, we will be able to visit the famed powder beach in Boracay, the best dive spots in the world in Palawan, and the chocolate hills of sandy Bohol. Maybe we will even have the time for the most perfect cone of Mayon Volcano. We went to Baguio and Tagaytay the last time we were there. Then, we may even be able to visit the neighboring countries of Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore!

Travellerspoint Travel Community

Above is a link to the map of our Phase 1 travels, almost 25,000 miles! When we come back in Spring, we shall resume our cruising in our RV headed to the southeast through the Glacier National Park in Montana, Mount Rushmore and the badlands in South Dakota, where Bill bought the home in which all 3 children were born in Nebraska, reunions with former colleagues and somerelatives in Chicago, Illinois, the sights in Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Indiana, Kentucky, Georgia, and then to another Florida winter!!! The link to this new map is below!

Travellerspoint Travel Community

TRAVEL PLANS FOR 2011 AND BEYOND

We need to cover about 23 more states in the next 18 months after we get back from the Philippines, about as many as we covered in the past 18 months before we stayed awhile for the 2010 Holiday Season in Washington. The plan is to cover 10 states in 2011, and the rest in 2012, including four more provinces of eastern Canada and of course, the clustered New England states.

By the time we finish this next half of RVing in North America in 2012, we would have completed 45 American states, 6 Canadian provinces, and, of course, the 6 Mexican states we did in the first half. Then we feel we would be ready for RVing in Europe!!! From research we have done, there are 10,000 campgrounds in Europe and that the best way to cover more of Europe is through these backdoors.

Who knows? Maybe we will even be able to cruise Australia and New Zealand in an RV! Our bucket list may be unbelievably long and we may be growing in years but our spirit is strong! After all, we dedicated this blog to the Z Generation, the ageless and ultimate generation that blooms in the lifestyle of cruising. Maybe I can even publish a book about the happenings behind the scenes!  

Next Thought: Wonderings on Wanderings! 

Food We Ate : Food From Depachika

Sometimes, when we are too lazy or too tired to go out for dinner after a long day sightseeing, we opted to bring back food and eat in the comfort of our hotel room. Usually, instead of buying food at a restaurant to-go, we would just head to the nearest supa or depachika for our dinner.

What's depachika? A depachika is the basement floor of a Japanese department store. Depachika is short for "depaato-chika shokuhin uriba" which means department store basement food-selling place. You can find various type of booths selling groceries, delicatessen foods, liquors, deserts and sweets at these depachika, and food stuff to buy as omiyage too. Depachika at major department stores such as Mitsukoshi, Matsuzakaya and Matsuya located in major areas of Tokyo, like Shibuya, Shinjuku, Ginza, Ueno, Ikebukuro and Asakusa are a sight to behold. Do visit one these department stores if you are in Japan. Sure beats buying a burger from McD and eat it in your room.

Those bento meals sold at Jusco here in KL, pale in comparison to what is offered at a Japanese depachika.

I got this idea about writing this post on depachika, and then I realised one thing. I never tried taking photo while browsing in a supermarket or department store! I should do it next time, I guess. But in the meantime, no photos of the basement floor!

Anyway, we've gotten pretty nice dinner  bought at either depachika or supa. I remember fondly of a nice paella I bought from Queen's Isetan in Kinshicho and how we spent a lot of money going crazy buying way too much food at Seibu/Tobu. Or the time we literally had a free lunch just by sampling food items at Isetan in Kyoto.

Here's Raimie enjoying his dinner bought from Ito Yokado. We got it  at almost closing time, and got a pretty nice discounts for our dinner. Thrifty people like us won't say no to discounts!

Department stores in Japan do close early so our discounted dinner was bought not that late at night.We sure wouldn't want to let Raimie suffer hunger!