@just beewrote:
@geezerettewrote:
The deli, the butcher shop, most restaurants were all Mom and Pop when I was growing up. Very few chains. Howard Johnson’s—and I distinctly remember their food was awful. The independent restaurants always had homemade food. And they were actual restaurants, not drive thru.
But I do remember one guilty pleasure: White Castle. I loved that place. The smell, the grease. I can still smell the onions. In fact, I probably still have that onion smell in my clothes until today.
@geezerette
It's mostly chains now and they're the same in just about every city. If I travel I don't want to eat at the same places I have in Albuquerque but apparently people do.
The basic strip mall, recreated from coast to coast.
I'm still trying to understand the wing craze. That's the part of the chicken you give to the cat.
So I will begin my travel story here. Did you know that in Japan, they have KFC meals for Christmas? I was kind of disappointed when we were in Sendai, Japan a couple of weeks ago and saw a KFC. I made a comment about it and was told that the locals have a twisted idea of what an American Christmas is so they have "Kentucky For Christmas". So sad. Japan is full of amazing food and they choose to go the "American" route. When we travel we look for the mom & pop hole-in-the-wall places to eat. Those are always the best in terms of taste and value. No American chains, except McDonald's where they have a regional special like the ebi-burger which is a fried shrimp burger only found in Japan or the seasonal strawberry soda float, which is as pretty as it is delicious.
I've been MIA because our family went on a mission trip to Ishinomaki Japan for 2 weeks! This is the area that was hit by the huge tsunami in 2011. Our church sends a team about every 20 months and this time we felt called. We love Japan and was able to see a whole different side. We teamed up with a local church which is staffed with a team of US & Japanese missionaries. They have been there since just after the tsunami hit 7 years ago and have been serving the community. We helped in a wide variety of ways from baking cookies for the missionaries to give out on their home visits to the depressed and shut in to giving an English class at the YMCA. It was really neat to connect with people on a personal level vs being a tourist. Also, being from Hawaii really opened doors. For some reason, Japanese love Hawaii and would want to meet & talk to us. We had a great time and I hope we will be able to go back as a family again to reconnect with our new friends. If you love Japan, please pray for Ishinomaki. Physically, the area is rebuilding however many people remain depressed and hopeless. Can you imagine that everyone in your region lost a loved one or friend from one disaster? Pretty depressing right? The death toll was 19,000 people from the combined region. So sad.
Knowing that this would be a working trip, i packed very lightly, especially the toiletries. And I hardly used any of my makeup. In fact, DH asked me if I could put on lipstick to brighten up. Gotta love the guy. We just didn't have the time or space for making up my face and our guests didn't care or notice. It was pretty freeing. We had a little time for shopping and I only ended up buying one lip product in the cosmetic category. I spend most of my money at the Nozomi Project and the Megumi Project which make jewelery from broken pottery and use old kimono fabric for other modern items. Really great organizations that ship worldwide.
I need to make dinner but will continue later.
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