Osaka, Kobe, Taipei!

We've been packing a lot into our days in Japan so I'm just going to give a rundown of everything we've been doing instead of trying to remember each day.

Things we're seeing

This is Meriken Park in Kobe. Kobe might be my favorite city in all of Japan. This park is huge, on the water, has a lot of shopping malls and very pretty. We ate pretty good Indian food here and walked around!

We went to a Hanshin Tigers baseball game! Everyone in my family and in Japan seemed really nervous about us doing this? My grandfather has been a fan for practically forever and has never actually been to a game. Despite the HUGE crowds at the game everyone insisted that no one goes to see the Hanshin Tigers.

We had a great time. The woman next to us lent us balloons so we could participate in the 7th inning stretch activities and the end of game celebration. The couple on the other side of us explained to us who the players were and who was a closer and stuff. It was very nice of all of them. And the Tigers won! They beat the Giants, their biggest rivals! Wooooo!

We went to the Osaka Castle. It was hot as hell that day. Which explains Zack's sweatspot. But, when we went inside the castle, it was air conditioned! So much for keeping things traditional...

Right before we went to the Castle we went to Osaka Kaiyukan Aquarium. It was maybe the most crowded place I've ever been. In retrospect, we probably picked the worst day ever to go--it was the Sunday of a long weekend, so no duh there were a ton of people there! We saw some cool stuff, but kind of agreed that people never enjoy your pictures of aquariums. It never looks that cool in pictures. 

We were going to go to the Umeda Sky building after the Osaka Castle since we were in Osaka that day, but it was way too freaking hot, so we went home. In the end if was the right decision because we were able to go back a few days later and see it. 

So here's some crap. The Sky Building is this huge sky scraper and you're supposed to go up to see the "Floating Garden" as the sign above indicates. BUT when you get there this is all you see:

THERE ARE NO FLOWERS OR NATURE IN THE FLOATING GARDEN. Granted, I did think that we got a particularly bad day because it was raining pretty steadily and was super gray out. But for real. This is not a garden. AND they don't let you carry umbrellas up at the top because they're afraid it will blow away. So you just have to walk around in the rain if it's raining. What crap.

This is in Taiwan. Zack is afraid I won't differentiate enough between Taiwan and Japan. This is the Chiang Kai-Sheck Memorial. Chiang Kai-Sheck is a former Taiwanese president. His memorial included a lot of anti-Japanese propaganda inside. That was kind of cool to look at, but I don't really know enough about Taiwanese or Japanese history to get the significance of their words and descriptions.

It's very pretty, but we also went there in the rain, so I don't think we got the optimal experience. I was also very nervous I was going to slip and re-shatter a kneecap. Also I was a little crabby because we woke up at 4:45am, took a train, a bus, a plane, and another bus before we actually got to Taiwan.

This is the inside of that memorial. Very beautiful! 

This is what you see if you stand of the steps of the memorial and look out. Yes, I did use a filter. 

This is the 228 Peace Park. On 2/28/1947 there was a huge antigovernment uprising that resulted in many deaths, a lot of destruction and the beginning of 50 years of martial law. Taiwan has a very interesting history and we saw a lot of  propaganda and there is certainly a lot of contentious point in history. I don't pretend to know much about it, but if you need someone to go more in depth, tweet at @Zackymatthews.

This is the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial. He was Taiwan's first president and is like the father of the nation. We spent extra time in his memorial because he was a cool guy, but also because it was pouring outside and big dumb Bert didn't bring his umbrella.

Also there was a mini sculpture exhibit inside and a bunch of dancers outside. So we chilled there.

After it stopped raining we met Zack's friend Gino at a night market! Taiwan is famous for night markets. It's like if a farmers market, flea market, and a carnival all met up and joined forces every night. Lots of food, games, and trinkets for sale everywhere. 

This is a wind damper at the 101. I didn't know what one was until I went to the 101. I still don't super get what it does, other than help buildings not collapse during earthquakes, but you should know, this is a huge wind damper. So I've been told.

This is the 101 from afar. We went up to the top if it. This is the world's second tallest building, but still has the world's fastest elevators! It was a beautiful view from up there. It was a little crowded and kind of expensive, but I'd say worth it! Also you get to walk through a bonus coral museum no one tells you about until you there.

This is the ticket for the metro! It's a plastic coin! Weird.

This is the National Palace Museum! It's HUGE and has a ton of artifacts, that some people would argue are stolen from China. We saw a lot of cool pottery, weapons, jade, and historical documents. We did not look at the Jade that is shaped like a cabbage though. Because there was like an hour long line to do that. We were not feeling it.

This is Chiang Kai-Sheck's presidential residence.

This is also the presidential residence. It was also HUGE and very elaborate. Definitely did not feel like it belonged to a single person, even if that person was the president.

Zack's other friend, Laurent, paid for us to get 45 minute massages. We were kind of nervous since that's kind of a long time to have a stranger you can't really talk to touch you. My massage was kind of rough and was definitely sore the next day. I do think my feet hurt less though. For reference, in the past week we've walked 59.5 miles. So I guess we earned a massage.

We went to Tamsui, which is at the end of the metro line in Taipei. It was beautiful but so freaking hot. There was a British fort there. That was surprising.

After going to Tamsui, we went to the a Beitou Hot Springs. Remember how I said it was hot? It was even hotter at the hot spring.

People we're meeting

This and the picture below it are of my cousin Karin. She's 12, and was born in America. She's been going to "English camp" with us. She's pretty shy, but I definitely think she's understanding more and more English. She's very sweet and is very excited to go to Universal Studios Japan with us.

So I didn't actually meet this guy--I just made him take a picture with me because he's wearing a Princeton football shirt and I used to work with a guy that played football at Princeton. He was uncomfortable.

This is Laurent. He used to work with Zack's organization in DC. Now he lives in Taiwan again. He was very nice to us. He bought our tickets to the National Palace Museum, our lunch, our massages, and our dinner! He got us very drunk and took us to places we wouldn't have seen otherwise! 

This is Gino. He's hilarious. He speaks amazingly good English for someone who has never been to the US. He's sort of YouTube star in Taiwan and apparently had a small role in a movie! There was a billboard for his movie in our metro station so we took a picture of him with his billboard self! He also took us around, helped us order food and made sure we had a good time.

We're also obviously seeing my grandparents, aunt and uncle a lot. They aren't so much into pictures though. They never want to take selfies. Rude.

Things we're eating

 Most of this does not need an explanation. It's all delicious.

There was $5 beer at the tigers game! Too good! Also, it said you weren't allowed to bring cans or bottles into the stadium. Which we took to mean, you can't bring beer. NOPE. There was a line where they took your bottles or cans of beer and poured it into paper cups and you're allowed to have that! Can you imagine how insane that would be in the US?

My grandmother was super worried that we wouldn't have enough to eat so she packed us hard boiled eggs. As we were leaving she told us "It's hot, so be careful!" "There are crazy people so be careful!" "You're cute, so be careful!" And then "Sometimes eggs make you cough! So be careful!" What? So I ran that by my mom. And she was like "yeah! eggs do make you cough! You should be careful!" Is that a thing?

We didn't actually eat this. But it's very realistic penis ice cream in Taiwan. Why. 

This is the dinner Laurent got us. It was SO good.

We both super liked octopus mouth. I guess I'm more surprised octopus mouth is a thing you can eat that I am that I like it? How do you even get the mouth like separated? 

Mos Burger! Instead of a bread bun, it's rice!

That's it for now! We leave Saturday so we're wrapping up now, but I'm sure I'll have another absurdly long blog post to share!

Sundays are for cooking

I bet you've been wondering what we eat on a regular basis here. Or maybe you haven't.  But either way, you're about to know!

I spent all day today cooking so I wouldn't have to during the week. If I don't make my lunch for the whole week on Sunday, I end up not doing it and having to eat out. So here are some of my cooking adventures!

When we visited Bobby in Cincinnati, he mentioned that sometimes when you wake up in the middle of the night, it's because your blood sugar is out of whack. He said he eats a banana to fix it and it helps him go right back to sleep. So, since Zack like NEVER sleeps, we decided we'd get some bananas in case he wakes up and can't get back to sleep. But...he didn't have the problem before the bananas went bad. The only thing left to do was make banana bread. And probably buy more bananas, because eventually he'll wake up and be crabby about not being able to sleep.

And since everything is better with chocolate, I cut up some of the many Hershey kisses my mom sent me for my birthday and threw them in there. I should have used the dark chocolate ones and not the regular ones, but I wanted to save those for myself.

From what I hear, it's pretty good banana bread. I haven't actually had any yet, but I don't know how it could be bad.

While it baked, I decided to make something new! I'm doing this thing where I track my calories with My Fitness Pal. I wouldn't call it a diet, but it just kind of makes you eat less because you have to be honest with it and say what you ate. Anyway, I'd been reading about steel cut oats and how they're so good for you and whatever.  The only catch is, it's not like instant oatmeal--it takes like half an hour to make.

Usually I don't make it a point to buy organic food, since it's more expensive. But, I couldn't find the nonorganic version at Harris Teeter, so I guess I'll just be extra healthy. Basically all you do is measure 4 cups of water or milk, and then 1 cup oats and boil it til its not water anymore. I felt like it'd be weird with boiled milk? So I used water.

It took a while, but eventually became just mushy and not watery.  I like it! I usually like mushy things. I added some sugar and walnuts so it'd be less boring though. So my plan is to eat this for breakfast for four days and see if I still like it. Sometimes the texture of yogurt makes me want to gag, but hopefully this doesn't have that effect.

Then I need to make lunch for the week! I have a lot of extra vegetables that need to get used so I decided to do stir fry! I cut up onions, zucchini, and broccoli and set it aside. I needed to go work out, so I didn't want to get too deep into the cooking process. This also gave me time to soak the rice before I made it! That's something my grandmother always does, but I never really have time to because rice takes so long to begin with.

ThenI went and ran. I wanted to watch football while I ran since that's the only tolerable to distract myself from the fact that I'm running. BUT, only 2 of 4 treadmills had working TVs and the 2 good ones were taken. So I just had to listen music and struggle through the three miles. I've definitely had a better half hour.  When I came back, I was too hot and my feet hurt. So I had to take a shower before Zack and I embarked on a shared culinary adventure.

We'd read online about Shooter sandwiches. We thought they looked kind of cool so we decided to make some for ourselves! Some people do crazy things with them but we decided to keep it simple! Ours was just steak, onions, mushrooms for Zack, and bacon in a hollowed out sourdough bread loaf. I'll just post pictures of the process instead of explaining the entire thing.

Our loaves of bread!

Steaks! We originally thought we could fit two in each, but the loaves were too small!

These are the mushrooms Zack made. I still think mushrooms are gross.

Bacon! We eventually cooked six strips. We did not share this since strip between us.

Sauteed onions! way better than mushrooms!

Me hollowing out the bread loaves.

All the bread that came out of the two loaves.

Adding stuff into them!

Right before putting the lid on.

Them in the process of being smushed!

These were supposed to be bread crumbs, but I dropped them all over the floor so we couldn't eat them. It was kind of a bummer, but since everything else turned out well, I'll count them as a sacrifice to the cooking gods.

After we smushed the sandwiches, I went back to the stir fry! It's pretty easy. I basically just cooked all the vegetables and chicken in soy sauce and siracha and put it over rice. Our kitchen was just super hot from all the cooking and our super loud fan ended up turning on. Every time it turns on, I feel like it's judging me and calling me a bad cook.

At 5 we had to go to this Michigan in Washington dinner and meet all the interns for this semester. The last two times I've just stayed home by myself while Aaron and Zack go, but this time they put that you could bring a "life partner" or spouse with you if you wanted. So Zack put me down as a life partner, which I feel like is a big step in our relationship! Or maybe it just makes us sound like a gay couple from the early 90s. Who uses the term life partner anymore?

Very smushed. Very good.

The dinner was fun! I mean there's no real point. You're just supposed to mingle with the new interns and talk yourself up. I don't have a lot of talking up to do, and interns are only so interesting, but the other people sitting at our table were for real adults and were super nice. Also, I mean, you can't really be upset about free dinner from a program you didn't even participate in.

When we got back we cut open our sandwiches to see if they were sufficiently smushed! They looked pretty good! I'm excited to eat it for lunch tomorrow!

Also, you probably all got the snapchats, but for our work party on Friday my coworker Stephanie and I decided we'd try to extra celebrate the baby shower aspect of it and make a watermelon baby carriage!  I didn't get many pictures of the process because my hands were mostly covered in fruit guts all the time, but it wasn't so bad making it! Stephanie did the carving of the baby's head, but I hollowed out the watermelon and made room for the pacifier in its face.

It was definitely one of those projects were the longer you look at it, the worse you feel like it looks (much like at Painting With a Twist). We were worried it looked like  a severed baby head. Then we were worried it looked like dog/bear and not a baby.  I was also worried that Steph would have a really hard time getting it to work. I guess it was easy enough because she showed up at work with it on time!

At the party everyone was really impressed with our skills! A lot of people didn't get that we made and thought that we bought it! I mean, it ended up kind of cute, but I wouldn't definitely not pay money for this quality of work. We have another baby shower coming up in November, and obviously need to celebrate it in a similar fashion so it doesn't look like we're playing favorites. I'm not sure how to up our game though? I guess we have some time to brainstorm.

Anyway, sorry this isn't about actually interesting things, but this is all I've been doing this weekend.