bye america!

greek frittata
from: mother's in portland
price: $10
rating: &&&&&/&&&&&
comments: I could not finish this whole lunch. well, I guess it was breakfast, but we didn't eat at taco bell until almost dinner, so let's call this lunch. click to see our hotel as we left it. with a fancy jag out front.

and greg had:

some kinda sandwich
comments: greg liked his sandwich. click to see Mt St Helen's from afar. all wiggly. this was on the way home to the 'couve.

and nicole had:

some other kinda sandwich
comments: click nicole's lunch to see the washington state capitol building and the sweet rentacar that we used on our adventure.

congrats adam and zuzia!!

schnitzelwich!
from: a food cart in portland
price: $6?
rating: &&&&.5/&&&&&
comments: today was adam and zuzia's wedding! congrats, you too. it's too bad you had to find your own way home after the wedding. oh well. in the break between the ceremony and reception, we wandered downtown portland in the heat and ate at the food cart parking lot? it was very tasty. we need this kinda thing in vancouver. and the photo of my sandwich was trying to replicate the photo that Tabor had at their stand.

and nicole also had:

a schnitzelwich
comments: click nicole's sandwich to see the cake from the wedding. yum!

and greg had:

some tacos
comments: also during the wedding break, greg and I tried beer samplers from Bailey's Tap Room which was amazing, and about a block from our hotel. click greg's tacos to see the inside of this place. all the beers... all the taps... super yum.

hello america.

sourdough jack
from: jack in the box (centralia, washington)
price: forget
rating: &&&.5/&&&&&
comments: so, today I went to america. hassles at the border, as usual. but this time with more information. turns out there is some criminal named greg williams who's been dragging my name into the ground. but the super angry, then super friendly border guard said he straightened it out, so it shouldn't be a hassle anymore. yay. click for a wiggly from the streets of portland!

and greg had:

some breakfast burger thingy
comments: the reason for my trip to oregon is to see adam and zuzia get married. and we used priceline.com to find a super fancy hotel for merely $55/night. bargain! click greg's lunch to see the view I had from my room. you can also check out my room, or one of the odd items they offer guests, or the classy phone by the elevators.

this is my blog.

burger n fries n shake
from: triple O's
price: $12ish
rating: &&&&/&&&&&
comments: last night, I took some photos for killerX57, aka bucketofbeer, aka brian. the pics were of a kitchen renovation that he did. still working on the big animation, bri. hang tight. but in the meantime, click my lunch to see a wiggly of the kitchen.

and dave had:

a blueberry sundae
comments: I met dave at lunch today. of course this meant a visit to the office, and the roof of the office. click to see how far along they are with olympic village. wiggly wiggly.

hello lauren!

sandwich
from: Swiss Bakery
price: $6ish
rating: &&&&/&&&&&
comments: I ran some errands today. and while doing so, I ran into wes and sandy, and their 2 week old baby, Lauren! fun! click to see the baby.

more catch up

samwich
from: mom's house
price: free
rating: &&&&.4/&&&&&
comments: this lunch was tasty. click to see my dessert. lemon loaf. again, by erin.

way behind in my posts. I try to catch up now.

hot torta sub
from: duffin's donuts (41st and knight)
price: $3.50?
rating: &&&&.4/&&&&&
comments: ok, I'm way behind on my posts now. it's already june, and I got no posts from may 21st. it seems no one really cares, but I'll try to catch up, anyway. cuz I'm like that. click to see a girl in japan promoting a "maid cafe". sadly, we did not visit one.

and dessert was:

cheesecake!
comments: erin made this at school. it was yum.

japan - day 7 (final day)

a beggie bento box
from: some place in the train station
price: no idea
rating: &&.5/&&&&&
comments: I wasn't overly fond of this lunch. some of it was quite tasty, but some were just not good to me. click to see the outside of the kyoto imperial palace that ritchie and I got up at 6am to see. all we could see was walls and gates. :(

I also had:

this amazing hot dog like food
comments: there was also this bakery at the train station that had AMAZING food. I shoulda bought more stuff from bakeries while I was in the country. yakitate jaaaaaa-pan!!! man, it was good. click on it to see the kids waving at us gai-jin as we waited for the train back to tokyo.

and ritchie:

seemed to like his bento box more than I.
comments: so, this was our last day in japan. we rode the train from kyoto back to tokyo, then another to the narita airport. I guess I was done taking pics, as there didn't seem to be as many wigglies today. click to see Mt. Fuji as we saw it from the train ride.

and we also had:

some rice triangles
comments: throughout our trip, we ate lots of these rice triangle from convenience stores. they are delicious. this one was a fancier one. wrapped in a banana leaf, it really kept the moisture in more than the seaweed/plastic wrapped ones. click to see ritchie mixin' it up with the locals.

japan - day 6

ramen! (ok, I'm seeing a theme here)
from: some ramen restaurant at the kyoto station
price: average
rating: &&&&/&&&&&
comments: yeah, I guess I ate a lot of ramen this trip. its fairly priced and delicious, how could I not? this was the only miso ramen I had. I liked it. the other guys noted that it was very salty. anyway, today we went to the arashiyama area outside of kyoto. they have monkeys there!!!!! click my lunch to see a monkey.

and greg had:

ramen, too
comments: there were many monkeys all over the place, like this cute monkey, and nursing mothers and we could even feed them, but only from the feeding house. click greg's lunch to see his monkey imitation. I think my impression is better. but his yogic flying is even more impressive.

and hey ritchie had:

miso ramen, too
comments: click ritchie's lunch to see some very nice grounds of a temple/shrine? that we toured. so nice. and refreshingly cool on a hot day.

and this was my late lunch/early dinner...

a McDonald's Ebi Burger!!!
comments: this was a very tasty sandwich. I liked it very much. click to see a good wiggly of an awesome statue of great power.

japan - day 5

samwich
from: some bakery r something
price: no idea
rating: &&&&/&&&&&
comments: today we hopped a bullet train to kyoto, then another train to nara, then back to kyoto for the night. click to see a bullitt train gif. it's a big gif.

and greg had:

tonkatsu sandwich
comments: greg loved this sandwich. in nara, we visited this cool school-group-infested buddhist temple and the surrounding park where very tame deer roamed freely. click to see a pic of a deer crackin' the funniest ever jokes. some funny deer, I tell ya.

and nicole had:

an openface toasted like sandwich
comments: click nicole's lunch to see a wiggly taken from above the todai-ji temple area. on an unrelated note, so many things are so cute in japan, in kyoto, we found that even the police station's wanted posters are cute. funny, huh?

and ritchie had:

a samich, too
comments: click to see ritchie answering the temple's phone. this was also the night of our most-expensive hotel. since we paid so much, we had to be sure to make use of all APA Hotel's Always Pleasant Amenity.

and the most interesting thing eaten from a vending machine was:

chicken nuggets. heated.
comments: I remember hearing tales of how you can buy anything from japanese vending machines. I didn't find any of these magical vending machines anywhere, but there was always drinks and snacks machines. and of those, the best one we saw was this one, which microwaved your food before serving it.

japan - day 4

ramen
from: some place in harajuku
price: I forget, but fair
rating: &&&&.4/&&&&&
comments: today we went from shin-yokohama back to tokyo to try and see the cosplay kids at harajuku. there's usually lots of girls dressed up on sundays like lolita-goth girls, or like their favourite anime characters. today, there weren't that many. you can click my oishi lunch to see the best costume we saw.

and greg had:

also ramen
comments: while we didn't see a lot of cosplay, we DID see the tokyo rockabilly club drinking, dancing and rocking out. that was awesome to see. click greg's lunch to see some of the dudes. I also got lots of video clips of them dancing. I will try to post those clips, once compiled, in a later post. they were awesome!

and nicole also had:

ramen
comments: also in the harajuku area, we visited a big thai-festival. it was packed. so many people. click to see some of the locals posing with some of the thai performers.

and of course, ritchie had:

ramen
comments: click on hey ritchie's lunch to see me getting busy with a dolphin. or you can see greg gettin even busier.

japan - day 3

tiny burger-meal-shaped donuts!
comments: this was actually breakfast, but again, I just had to post it. there's a donut shop called Mister Donut all over japan, and they had this cross-over promotion with Mos Burger where they make these tiny burger-like donuts. the patty is choclate, and there's jam or macha filling in them. so cute! and tasty. the fries were not as good cuz I forgot about them ni my bag till the end of the day. click to see the Tokyo Station building.

and lunch was:

ramen!
from: the shin-yokohama RAMEN MUSEUM!
price: about 1000 yen
rating: &&&&,4/&&&&&
comments: today we changed our lodging from Tokyo (Shinjuku) to Shin-Yokohama due to a lack of vacancies. but I'm glad we did. cuz had we not, we would have never been to the Ramen Museum!! or "Ramusement Park" if you prefer. upstairs, there's a brief little museum-y area where they show the history of ramen. all in japanese, of course :( click to see on of the displays that showed the historical packaging of instant noodles.

and greg had:

ramen
comments: the downstairs of the ramen museum was something quite extraordinary. there was a fake old fashioned village built with different restaurants where you could try many different types of ramen. since we were still near tokyo, the tokyo-style ramen restaurants had almost no line ups. but the further away places (like Sapporo) were way too lined up for us. and we were hungry. click to see the inside of this place.

ritchie or nicole had:

ramen, too
comments: for the rest of our day, we went to Yokohama. where we visited their Chinatown and the big amusement park where we went on the giant ferris wheel to see the sites of the city from way up above. click the pic to see the roller coaster that descends into the earth. or you can see greg and ritchie about to enter the pool/earth part of it. can you see them? right above the fountainy splash.

japan - day 2

chirashi
comments: this was breakfast. I thought I'd post it cuz it was good. today we started our day by going to the tsukiji fish market. not at 5am, like the guidebooks all say you should (to see the fish auction, particularly the tuna). click to see the outside of the market.

and lunch was:

some kinda mos burger
from: mos burger
price: ok, I doubt i'll be remembering any prices from this trip
rating: &&&&/&&&&&
comments: after the market, we toured around the Ginza area. which is a fancy shopping area. with stores like tiffany's. we checked out a few shops, including the apple store, but like every apple store I've been to... you go in, then look around, then realize there's nothing really very special about it. I buy my macs online. but it's still cool, somehow.

and ritchie also had:

a burger
comments: click to see one of the oh so many fancy buildings in ginza.

and greg had:

also a burger
comments: click greg's hands to see a billboard for a new VW Scirocco. bringing back the old name. wonder if we'll be getting them here, too. if you want to see a larger crop of that pic, click here. the high rise elevators are cool in it.

japan - day 1

ramen
comments: this was actually breakfast. I thought I'd post it anyway, cuz it was delicious. click to see the gang at breakfast planning out the places we'll visit today.

but for lunch I had:

pasta
from: kamakura pasta
price: uh... 1200 yen?
rating: &&&&/&&&&&
comments: today we had some delicious pasta. and got to take off our shoes and put them in cubby holes. click to see the view from way up in the government building in tokyo. a great viewpoint, and it's free!

and hey ritchie had:

pasta, too
comments: click to see ritchie taking a photo in a park.

and nicole had:

the carbonara
comments: click to see the view from our hotel room window.

and greg had:

pasta, too
comments: click greg's lunch to see Akihabara, one of the places we visited today. this area is known for it's electronics stores and such. needless to say, I really liked looking around these stores. so many cool toys.

going to japan lunch!

samwiches
from: la grotta (commercial drive)
price: not sure... ritchie bought them
rating: &&&&.4/&&&&&
comments: so today we embarked on our trip for japan. yes, I know I'm posting this well after the fact, but if you're eager to see many japan wigglies, you're just gonna have to wait. there were over 2000 photos I imported into iphoto, and it's gonna take me a while to go through them. this number doesn't include the many thousands of "burst" photos I took with my new camera. what?? new camera? you bet. more details in later posts. click to see one of the very few two-camera-wigglies I made on the trip.

and nicole had:

a sandwich
comments: ok, I can't remember who's sandwich this one was, exactly. they were all very similar. and delicious. click this sandwich to see the scientists who scanned us all with thermal cameras to see if any of us had the evil swine flu. I guess none of us did. we were given papers which said so.

and ritchie or greg or someone also had:

tasty sandwich
comments: click this one to see ritchie sporting one of the masks we were given once we passed the swine flu test. we didn't wear them more than just here on the plane. since half of japan was wearing them, we felt that us gai-jin just couldn't pull off the look as well as the locals.

this modern lunch breaks me

number "66"
from: Pho Le
price: $8ish
rating: &&&&/&&&&&
listening to: bloc party
comments: this is going to be my last post for a week and a bit. that's because tomorrow I'm off to japan!!! I doubt I'll be able to post while I'm there, but I'll definitely be taking lunch pics, and you can see em after I get back and go through them. click this lunch to see a close up of the cute little animal vegetables that came with my meal.

and greg had:

pho
comments: greg says you should vote. if you live in BC. we already did since we're leaving town. click to see my local voting place, and the people's propaganda blowing in the wind.

and nicole had:

chickeny pho
comments: there's some significance to this lunch as well. these three featured guest lunchers will be my lunching, breakfasting and dinnering companions for the next week. click nicole's lunch to see the 'couve a-wigglin'!

and hey ritchie had:

pho, too
comments: click ritchie's lunch to see broadway as seen from the office depot parking lot