Double Woot! Control and Future Planning!

[JupiterStar]

Feeling quite good about myself right now  Last night, we went to a ladies' hangout dinner thing, because it's surprisingly hard to make friends in big foreign cities and yay, new people! The dinner was at a Mexican place, which worried me a bit, and when I got there, realized it was AUTHENTIC HISPANIC FOOD IN JAPAN OMG, my self-control went a big wonky. But I managed! I split my frijolitos with Purplebug instead of eating it all myself, I ordered arroz con leche instead of one of the cakey deserts, and I was prepared to split my quesadilla but it turned out to be a nice, manageable size without a ton of stuff on it so I could load it up myself as I saw fit. I even stuck to just one small rosa de jamaica instead of getting margaritas or sangria or anything like that. It was a huge meal but in the end, after factoring in all the walking I did, I ended up only going 38 calories over my daily goal, and kept my macros fairly well-balanced, too! And all without feeling like the "diet" person in the group or wishing I had ordered more

 

Also, since I have today off, I took some time to do some vacation planning for the summer, before things sell out. It looks like the big hiking trip to Yakushima is finally going to happen! I have a couple of places to stay in mind, I've checked dates, ferry times, etc., looked at flights down to Kagoshima and back, and it all looks very, very doable, so once I hear back on price quotes from a couple of minshukus, we are set to book! And it looks like it will be cheaper to just head to Awajioshima and ferry north at the start, which means we can also add a couple of days of beach time to that on some tiny little islands that we need bikes to get around and have lots of snorkeling spots, cave grottos, and more to explore. Healthy vacation planning and Epic Quest goals in one shot, yay!

[Wobbegong]

Sounds awesome!! Whereabouts in Japan are you? I've heard horror stories about finding good Mexican food over there, you must've felt very lucky!

[JupiterStar]

2 minutes ago, Wobbegong said:

Sounds awesome!! Whereabouts in Japan are you? I've heard horror stories about finding good Mexican food over there, you must've felt very lucky!

 Currently in Osaka, but we've only been in the city for a year. Before that, we were in Okayama, in a pretty rural countryside town, and finding any decent non-Japanese or Indian food was pretty tricky, even burgers and pasta! There's a lot more variety in Osaka and plenty of Hispanic restaurants but most of them are kind of subpar for the price (like, using the same weirdly hard sour cream that you can buy in the stores, plain Doritos instead of tortilla chips, things like that). This place was amazing! And weirdly enough, right by the only decent Persian restaurant I've come across in the entire country, and the amazing sliders and burgers place we used to go to every weekend when we first moved here. Guess we found the good foreign food neighborhood!

[Wobbegong]

I guess you did! 

 

Osaka is a big foodie town from what I understand (going back to a time when merchants weren't allowed to spend money on fancy clothes or houses so they spent it on... food). But it's awesome to hear you found such a good place!

 

I lived near Kyoto (actually in Nagaokakyo, but studying in Kyoto) for about a month on study abroad so I didn't have time to get tired of Japanese and Indian but I agree... why is Indian literally the only foreign food exception? So much good Indian everywhere you go. 

[JupiterStar]

Oh, Osaka is definitely a big foodie town, it just depends on what you want! Sadly, while there are tons of Hispanic and Middle-Eastern restaurants, unless you want Pakistani food, you're a bit out of luck for decent quality. But we found some that ARE quality, now, yay! It's just like being back at my grandparents' house, except with more Japanese people and less feeding too many pistachios and tortillas to the children.

[Guzzi]

OMG!  I love Mexican food (and Indian food too) and there is literally nowhere that serves it on our island (there's 3 Indian takeaways but they're anything but authentic).  I have serious food envy.  

[JupiterStar]

15 hours ago, Guzzi said:

OMG!  I love Mexican food (and Indian food too) and there is literally nowhere that serves it on our island (there's 3 Indian takeaways but they're anything but authentic).  I have serious food envy.  

 

Just wait til it comes coupled with the inability to find bread that isn't boring white bread or any decent cheese whatsoever  (Nah, but usually I love it here. Just sometimes the lack of comfort food makes me want to throw things.)

[Wobbegong]

3 hours ago, JupiterStar said:

 

Just wait til it comes coupled with the inability to find bread that isn't boring white bread or any decent cheese whatsoever  (Nah, but usually I love it here. Just sometimes the lack of comfort food makes me want to throw things.)

 

When I was living with my host mother one day I came home and she said, "You're American, so you like pizza. Someone gave this to me and I don't like pizza. You will eat these for breakfast until they are gone." 

It was a box of six pre-made "pizzas": large slices of sweet white bread with a smear of tomato paste and an artistic arrangement of toppings: a sprinkle of cheese here, a pepperoni there, some corn (???). I went ahead and ate it without complaint but... really?

[JupiterStar]

Oh god, yes, and then there are the weird pizza bread things that are basically naan with tomato sauce and a sprinkle of cheese...*sobs* Thank god we live by Slices (aka the bar and grill of amazingness with proper North American-style pizza, wraps, poutine, smores, Reese's milkshakes, etc.) now and used to live by Pizza King (aka the best pizza in the country) before, otherwise we might die from lack of cheese.