A Day of Kim Being Out and About

I had an eye appointment first thing in the morning and figured I'd run some errands and do some Christmas shopping on my way back home.

First stop: Hard-Off.
(Off-House is really the floor I wanted, but the other one is so much more entertaining to say.)

While I was waiting for the store to open, I went to 7-11 for breakfast nibblies (yes, they have those here, and their pre-made food options are pretty impressive). I could have gone for something more Japanese, but I opted for a tamago sando (egg sandwich), a medium-to-hard boiled egg sliced on sandwich bread, and what I'm pretty sure was a blueberry yogurt smoothie. There wasn't a good place to sit down, so I walked to a park/playground area to sit on a bench. At the entrance was this:



Next stop worth mentioning: Don Quixote! Or, as I affectionately call it, Crazy Stuff Store. It's a many-storied building of sensory overload and narrow aisles, but they have some fun and/or quirky stuff. Like a row of vending machines. Including this one:
Those are dog wigs. DOG. WIGS.
Because tiny dogs want to feel pretty too...I guess.
I showed this picture to the Other and he asked why I didn't get one. Guess what went on my To Do list?
Poor cats...


Oh, and then I saw this:
I really don't know what to say about it.


Oh, and this was really exciting for me. This is my favorite wine (primary ingredients are fruit, sugar, alcohol, and happiness...at least, that's probably what the label would say if I could read it), and so far I've only tried the Chinese Hawthorne, Lychee, and Honey Apricot...now I find out there are three more flavors - Lemon, Green Apple, and Blueberry. Color me pleased.

That's all for now. In case I have nothing of value to say between now and then, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

A Peek Into Our Lives: Blind Wine Tasting Party

We threw a foppish, pretentious party. Party dresses and suits and everything. We even went as pretentious as we could with the food — shrimp cocktail, caviar (bleugh), individually wrapped chocolates, bite-sized quiche, lots of cheeses...




We're so classy that we chilled bottles of wine and sparkling cider in both a broken styrofoam cooler and the crock pot. Only the best for our guests!
We didn't wrap those, but we did make a few people sample them because they are my favorite wines ever.

We didn't come up with the blind tasting concept, but it's pretty brilliant. The idea is for everyone to bring an inexpensive bottle of wine (or sparkling cider, for the non-alcohol-drinkers), and all bottles are wrapped up to be anonymous and re-labeled R1, R2, W1, W2, N1, N2, etc. Well, I would have named them in that order, but the husband subscribed to a more free-form version in which he used the right letter, but then just randomly chose a number he was certain was bigger than the last one. So we ended up with R1, R2, R3, R22, R47, and R99. The Ws didn't fare much better.

You'll never guess what kind of wine this is!


This served a dual purpose: one, it's what we kept the prizes in so the cats wouldn't eat the ribbons before the party. Anyone with cats can tell you that ribbons are among the tastiest items ever manufactured. Two, if someone didn't dress up, we were going to give them a fashionable accessory.


We also had comment cards for people to share any opinions they had and a rating on a scale of 0-5. (In one version the scale was from "Made of Nightmares" to "Dreams Come True" and in another, "Mad Dog" to "Distilled Happiness") Toward the end of the night, the Other tallied up the ratings and selected the favorites in each category and we handed out prizes to whomever brought those favorites.


Then we had some prizes for comments themselves.
• Most Pretentious went to the person who left a comment of "Lovely full flavor with an oh-so-unfortunate aftertaste" and rated it a 3.85. Mostly because of the numerical rating. 3.85? That's pretty darn specific.
• Most Blue Collar went to the person that said, "It'll get you drunk," signed it as Sam Jackson and added, "P.S. Still drinking it."
• Most Amusing went to the guy who's comment had no words, just a sad face.

I didn't manage to take any picture of the party itself, but it was a success. We had a great mix of social circles, military and civilian, workmate and internet-met friend. Everyone met someone new, and almost all the bottled wine was consumed. We still have both boxes (one red, one zin), but that will disappear in good time. Anyone who comes over is welcome to help...

Feeling Adventurous? Order a Japanese Pizza!

It was bound to happen sooner or later. We felt adventurous and opted to try a snow crab and lobster pizza. I mean, we had some crazy choices, but most of them don't fit into a pescatarian diet.

I had mixed feelings. These feelings are kind of summed up in my reaction to the disclaimer at the end of the description: Beware of some shells and soft bones when you eat this pizza.

I find it both amusing and horrifying.




My other half said the crab was quality, but I can't tell. Neither of us were particularly thrilled about the pizza/shellfish combination, to be honest, but we both decided it had been worth trying.

Crooked Head, on the other hand, was all about it.

Okay, so that was his reaction to the chicken wings the husband got as an appetizer, but he was just as thrilled to eat crab meat.

We might order it again, but only if we have visitors that want the seafood pizza experience.

That said, we might try a different kind next time. Something with a basil sauce, perhaps.

Halloween Part 2 of 2: Kawasaki City

We set out in the early afternoon for Kawasaki City, bucket of candy in the husband's hand. We didn't even make it a block before we ran into trick-or-treating kids...although I think most ToTing is done at retail stores instead of homes here. I saw a few kids with parents that had a map of the local area, presumably with stores highlighted that were giving out candy.

It took us a lot longer than we expected to get to the train, because small children are incredibly indecisive when it comes to choosing the Perfect Piece of Candy. We also couldn't answer when they held up a piece and asked what it was. How do you say "lollipop" in Japanese? Or describe what a Bit-o-Honey is? After a while he switched to just handing a single piece to each child, that made things go faster.

And the train station was the central location.


Once we got to this intersection, it was almost over. We almost got stuck there for the day because so many kids wanted candy and/or a photo with one or both of us. By the time we broke free and got to the turnstile, the candy bucket was down by about 25% and we had gained a piece of fruit.


We didn't see anybody else in costume on the train to Kawasaki, the husband speculated it was because most Tokyo people went to Roppongi (where we were Thursday night), while more people from the Yokohama/Yokosuka (Yokohama had a theme park and a giant Ferris wheel that we visited earlier in the year, Yokosuka is a large Navy base relatively nearby) area went to Kawasaki. It makes sense.

I partly went with the American way of taking pictures (just photographing the other person or people) and partly with the Japanese way of doing it (jump in and make yourself a group photo).

I can't identify her character, but I bet she's spot on.

Heh...Japanese man taking my picture while I'm taking someone else's picture...at some points, I probably could have picked a spot and just posed for an hour. It was a little like being at Dragon Con with all the people watching and constant picture taking. But in the streets and covering ten city blocks.

These guys were cute! Someone is crouched down inside, so they got the whole wobbly outline effect going on.

I have no explanation for this.

The parade is starting! Here comes the first float.

Unfortunately, we didn't get a good spot for parade viewing. That, combined with the overcast day, made it kind of hard to get clear photos, so bear with me. I see Waldo, Frank from Donnie Darko, the Queen of Hearts, and Edward Scissorhands...

...the flower garden from Alice in Wonderland...

...a couple Mad Hatters, a March Hare, Alice, some zombie prisoners (maybe?)...

...are they Russian nesting dolls? Those three, in front of the skeleton ninja Mexican wrestlers, behind Sailor Moon and the White Rabbit in hot pants.





I almost got a decent photo of the Sun King and Moon Queen, but she turned her head a second too soon.

A fair amount of foreigners were in the parade, although these were the only ones I saw in historical garb.

I wish this had come out better, Woody and the Aliens were pretty neat.

This has to be a reference to some legend that I'm not aware of. The one in black looks like a character in Spirited Away, but I feel like I'm missing a larger story.

Don't let this picture fool you -- if we'd had a phone-number-getting contest, I would have won by a mile.


Sidebar: The illusion of the cat mouth gets distorted if I smile, but looking through these pictures I wish I'd grinned a little more, because I don't feel nearly as serious as I look. Maybe next year.



These chicks were pretty awesome, and they had a few drinks with us when we ran into them at a pub later (one of them is dating one of the guys that works there). They spoke just a little more English than I do Japanese, so communicating was awkward at best, but I made a good effort. They met me at least halfway with English words when I got stuck. I wish I could have done better, but I think we all had a pretty good time.

We saw that a second part of the parade was coming through, so we tried to cross the street to get a better view, but got stuck two people away of the intersection. This gave us a better vantage point than we had the first time. Not great, but with the camera as far over my head as I could get it, it was a step in the right direction.

Hey, it's Lady Gaga and Beyonce!





I'm sure there are a lot of neat costumes in this picture, but I can't seem to take my attention away from the blue wolf cowboy.

The pitchfork platoon!


Soon after that last photo, people were allowed to cross the street. We didn't actually make it across the street so much as got swept up with a bunch of other people (both in and out of costume) as the tail end of the parade. That segment, anyway...when we got to the main plaza, all forward motion came to a grinding halt because people on the sidelines were flagging down people in the parade for group photos...

I was no exception. The next day my thighs were angry with me, and I think it's because of this - too many people for a straight lineup in a photo, so I crouched down to make myself a head height shorter. And waiting for each girl's phone to get its turn at being the camera, plus my own camera, plus cameras of whoever had walked up and joined the photographer semicircle.


The main plaza, at La Cittadella. All pumpkiny for the occasion.

Oh, you know how we were now part of the parade? I looked behind me to see this gaining on us. Parade Part Three! We moved along as much as we could, but I think that part also got absorbed into the main plaza photo-taking extravaganza after a while.

These girls were something else...the only people that day to get a stranger to take a group photo then tell her it wasn't good enough and to do it again. Seriously, though, if Vampire Snow White told me to take another photo, I'd do what she said.


I don't know what this is about, but I'm intrigued.

Pumpkins! All kind and manner of pumpkin head witches!


Alice in Wonderland was a pretty dominant theme, I notice.

After a while, I made it a point to try to get a picture with other cat people. Quite frankly this one was a little frightening.





We missed the costume contest (too many people, we couldn't have gotten in to see it even if we tried), and we met some Americans living at the Navy base relatively nearby who had just arrived a week ago and went to a bar to hang out for a while. (This was when those Japanese girls I noted earlier met up with us.)

After a while we headed over to see where the Rocky Horror Picture Show was going to be screening. I managed to ask at the regular movie theater if we were at the right place and it wasn't, but I almost understood the directions the ticket teller gave us. We found a queue, figured we were in the right place and got in line. From how fast the roped area filled up, we got there at just the right time.





Hey, it's Hit Girl!

This guy was in front of us in line.
I'm sure their costumes are from something, but I don't know what.



Inside the theater...the view of the crowd from the front must have been pretty bizarre.

I didn't get that photo, but here's one of polar bears.

And one of a guy wearing an ad for the DVD on the back of his head.
RHPS in Japan is about the same as it is in the US...the cast messes with the audience a bit, they act out most of the scenes on stage in front of the movie, and someone leads the audience participation shoutbacks. Someday I might even understand what they were saying. Regardless, it was a good time and a great thing to do on Halloween.

After RHPS, there were fewer costumed people on the street (it was, after all, 10:30pm on a Sunday) and more people that had clearly been drinking. Right around here, we ran out of candy before a group of girls said the magic Trick or Treat words. They were in luck...we'd gotten tiny bags of candy from the fast food restaurant where we'd just eaten dinner, enough for one piece for each of them. My Other made the executive decision to stop at a conbini (convenience store) and get more candy in case someone else asked.

Random discovery down the street...the Disney villians!

We went back to the pub from earlier for one more drink before heading home, and when I stepped into the room and it was like I was Norm on Cheers. Everybody lit up with smiles, and a couple girls got photos with me while we were waiting for our drinks from the bar. I also met a lovely woman who might do a language exchange with me and a couple other foreigners from Yokosuka in costume.

We almost gave out the last few pieces of candy on the way home, our final count was about eight pieces. Not bad, really.

Crooked helped wash off all the makeup. Mostly by supervising, then licking the sink.

All in all, in spite of head colds, I think this Halloween was a rousing success. I hope yours was awesome, too!