Weekend adventures
Dec. 7th, 2013 01:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
indigo_rose99So Friday night I ate room service. Yes, my risk tolerance has increased over the weekend. Worst case, I feel lousy over the weekend....And Sunday at noon I go back to the conservative lifestyle.
So far I have reveled in eating real food. I had a Japanese bento box Friday night (B- quality) and an eclair (A-... Tasty!). Saturday morning I made it to the breakfast buffet before it closed (my first time!). I had a bit of everything. I even poured myself some mango juice and a glass of watermelon juice. Luxury!
I made it to the lunch buffet today (also my first time). I had a really good tomato pumpkin soup that made me feel like it is December. And a crepe. And sushi. And soba in a spicy sauce with veges. And bread pudding with chocolate sauce. I may not NEED to eat again until Monday morning!
I have been showing symptoms of food poisoning since Thursday evening. Yes, I'm ok. I am drinking from my huge cache of water bottles. This is what I mean about food being an adventure... I KNOW the consequences, and I am fully in the process of paying for them. Hopefully it will get no worse than the current level of discomfort. I brought the serious food poisoning antibiotics just in case. I hope that my stash of Imodium will be more than sufficient. And if I do this right, I will only need the drugs on the weekend, when I can take a few hours away from humans... Ok, no more details. You are welcome.
So today I set out from the hotel on foot in one of the directions a coworker pointed out. To a mall. The first building I encountered was a book store. I adore book stores. But book stores in most other countries have nothing in English.... This was ENTIRELY in English. And it was THREE FLOORS! I stayed for an hour. The only section that was crowded was the gaming room. Everything else was nice and quiet. *happy happy place*
It was a shopping complex, so next I went in the grocery store. I wasn't serious about buying anything, but ended up buying some nicknacks for gifts. And found a display of the English digestives covered in dark chocolate I am so fond of. I'm going through the stash I brought with me quickly, so I restocked.
I think that grocery stores are a fantastic place to examine a culture. What do they buy? What do they expect to buy? I saw a few entertaining things.
First of all, the ice cream. It was so crazy, I took several pictures. There is the usual vanilla, chocolate, rocky road, caramel.... I thought the mango and green tea were not unusual sounding, though they are not easy to find in the US. It is the OTHER flavors that caught my attention.
Salted caramel. Ok, that one sounded pretty tasty. Sweet corn. Wait. What? Yep, really. Sweet corn. Queso Real. I went in for the fine print on that one: Cheddar Cheese. I swear! It is in the picture, top center! And one just to creep T out: Avocado. Yes, there is an ICE CREAM in avocado! Bottom left in the picture! I was actually kinda tempted by the Chocolate Orange Peel (not shown in this image) one, though I have no place to put it and these containers are far too large to eat in a single sitting.
No one seemed to mind me taking pictures, so I took another one. This one seemed to be of a dried snack. Or cereal. But the label...
Yes, it seems to be.... Broccoli. The picture looks tasty enough, but... Broccoli?! I may have to buy some when I go back. Assuming they let me in the US with it. It isn't fresh fruit!
For the most part, in spite of my pictures here, the grocery store was like any other. Ok, there was one aisle you would never see in a standard US grocery store...
I made it back from the grocery store with only a surreal conversation with a stranger as I walked down the street. *sigh* I'm to the point that everyone looks familiar, so when people start talking to me, I assume that they know who I am and I just don't remember them. At last, I decided this one was really a stranger. We discussed American geography and weather. He kept walking when I stopped at my hotel.
So far I have reveled in eating real food. I had a Japanese bento box Friday night (B- quality) and an eclair (A-... Tasty!). Saturday morning I made it to the breakfast buffet before it closed (my first time!). I had a bit of everything. I even poured myself some mango juice and a glass of watermelon juice. Luxury!
I made it to the lunch buffet today (also my first time). I had a really good tomato pumpkin soup that made me feel like it is December. And a crepe. And sushi. And soba in a spicy sauce with veges. And bread pudding with chocolate sauce. I may not NEED to eat again until Monday morning!
I have been showing symptoms of food poisoning since Thursday evening. Yes, I'm ok. I am drinking from my huge cache of water bottles. This is what I mean about food being an adventure... I KNOW the consequences, and I am fully in the process of paying for them. Hopefully it will get no worse than the current level of discomfort. I brought the serious food poisoning antibiotics just in case. I hope that my stash of Imodium will be more than sufficient. And if I do this right, I will only need the drugs on the weekend, when I can take a few hours away from humans... Ok, no more details. You are welcome.
So today I set out from the hotel on foot in one of the directions a coworker pointed out. To a mall. The first building I encountered was a book store. I adore book stores. But book stores in most other countries have nothing in English.... This was ENTIRELY in English. And it was THREE FLOORS! I stayed for an hour. The only section that was crowded was the gaming room. Everything else was nice and quiet. *happy happy place*
It was a shopping complex, so next I went in the grocery store. I wasn't serious about buying anything, but ended up buying some nicknacks for gifts. And found a display of the English digestives covered in dark chocolate I am so fond of. I'm going through the stash I brought with me quickly, so I restocked.
I think that grocery stores are a fantastic place to examine a culture. What do they buy? What do they expect to buy? I saw a few entertaining things.
First of all, the ice cream. It was so crazy, I took several pictures. There is the usual vanilla, chocolate, rocky road, caramel.... I thought the mango and green tea were not unusual sounding, though they are not easy to find in the US. It is the OTHER flavors that caught my attention.
Salted caramel. Ok, that one sounded pretty tasty. Sweet corn. Wait. What? Yep, really. Sweet corn. Queso Real. I went in for the fine print on that one: Cheddar Cheese. I swear! It is in the picture, top center! And one just to creep T out: Avocado. Yes, there is an ICE CREAM in avocado! Bottom left in the picture! I was actually kinda tempted by the Chocolate Orange Peel (not shown in this image) one, though I have no place to put it and these containers are far too large to eat in a single sitting.
No one seemed to mind me taking pictures, so I took another one. This one seemed to be of a dried snack. Or cereal. But the label...
Yes, it seems to be.... Broccoli. The picture looks tasty enough, but... Broccoli?! I may have to buy some when I go back. Assuming they let me in the US with it. It isn't fresh fruit!
For the most part, in spite of my pictures here, the grocery store was like any other. Ok, there was one aisle you would never see in a standard US grocery store...
I made it back from the grocery store with only a surreal conversation with a stranger as I walked down the street. *sigh* I'm to the point that everyone looks familiar, so when people start talking to me, I assume that they know who I am and I just don't remember them. At last, I decided this one was really a stranger. We discussed American geography and weather. He kept walking when I stopped at my hotel.
no subject
Date: 2013-12-07 12:27 pm (UTC)The plastic tub aisle looked more like a Walmart.