Onsen are the Greatest

 Especially when you have the place to yourself! Look how amazing. It's like the prefects bathroom in Harry Potter. On a cold winter day to be able to go have a scenic soak inside or out is really nice! This is a particularly nice private onsen on the island of Shodoshima which is currently in it's off season so not too many other tourists are around.

 The aesthetic dedication they have to the outside tubs is amazing!

 This is the view from another bathhouse on the same island. It's built up on a hill so you can see the sea from the baths. Probably the bath with the best view on Shodoshima.

Taiwanese Food

So today after we went to the bizarre city office in an attempt to find Vikram, we went out to lunch at a Taiwanese restaurant.

First of all, I don't even know what Taiwanese food is. Seriously. I hear the words and I think of Vietnamese food...so yeah.

Anyways, we go to this place that Bret had been mentioning, that we'd actually attempted to go to before but it was closed.

It was not good. The whole menu was pictures of semi appetizing chinese food looking stuff. Taiwan is above the Phillipenes, to the right of China. So...maybe the food is like Chinese food. I am not great at geography, as I have stated in the past, so I looked all that up just now.

So...when you have bad food are you supposed to pretend it's good? I mean...I feel like I should just cut my losses, pay the 6 dollars, and get out of there, but Bret gets all...disgruntled at my complaining. Which I understand, but I still don't want to eat microwaved freezer food. Lunch is an important meal of the day! Usually the only big meal I have.

He had this omellete with some sort of sauce and crab on top and I had...some sort of pre-cut vegetables with chicken in a sauce that tasted like cornstarch and water. Seriously, it was bad. Bret described his crab as tasting like it was dried and re-hydrated, while I think it had just gone bad. It tasted terrible.

But...we have different opinions I guess, and he doesn't like to waste food and all that...

After that we went home, he got ready for work, and I've been sitting around with nothing to do. I decided to write this because I think it was funny. Bret's probably going to read it and be all like, why did you write that...etc etc.

I just don't like eating garbage.

After all of that, I looked up Taiwanese food on google images and it does, in fact, look like Chinese food in a lot of cases. I tried to find things that didn't look like Chinese dishes. Here are some pictures.

To be fair, in the countryside it's rare to find foreign food that's done well. At least in my humble experience. We have an amazing Korean place that does killer bulgogi, but it is pretty expensive so we never go.

Festivus for the Restuvus

Most Afternoons

On many a weekend afternoon, I find myself with nothing to do, waiting for Bret to come home. I've been reading a lot of books, but the last one I finished, I kid you not, literally had an entire passage discussing how sad it is for one to read books in volume and the pain of pitying looks from librarians when you hand back a stack of books after a week. WHATEVER BOOK. I don't need you or your judgement.

Bret told me to study Japanese before he left for work, maybe I'll succumb to that now. 

Unpenji

We climbed Mt. Unpenji, at the top of which is one of the sacred 88 temples of Shikoku! There, we got the stamp we needed to complete our Imabari to Takamatsu section of the pilgrimage. It was definitely amazing in winter, although freezing. We bundled up, ate some Dango (grilled mochi on a stick), and started up!

Progress!


Angelina in repose


A repose a little higher up, I suppose.


Forging up the trail


It was cold, but steep so we were mostly sweating. Although my nose was frozen solid.

A little statue within a hollowed old tree

Statues in rows, columns, or just on there own.


Each one had a different face, different clothes, expressions, hair, accessories (including animal friends). Not a single of the over 300 were the same, although all constructed in the same manner


Apparently this guy has a lot of kids

The Shaka Nyorai, or Shakyamuni Buddha, reclined in front of a seven storied pagoda