Praying Mantis

This little guy or gal met me at my car after my first appointment for baby #2. Apparently they are symbolic for stillness, awareness, creativity, patience, mindfulness, calm, balance, and intuition. I’m not big into signs but it gave me a sense that everything will be okay. 

Taste Test

Our last MOPS meeting we did a little Japanese taste test. Some ladies went grocery shopping and grabbed some unique things for us all to try out…

Left-seaweed and miso seasoning

Below- more seaweed

Left-it looked like cereal and really could be eaten with some milk but they sprinkle it on noodles

Below- a fishy, cheese textured substance. Decorated into cute creations. We had bears and pigs.

Left- dried fish

Below- fish eggs…I can’t even explain. I think there were just a lot of them all clumped together to make this form it is in.

Left- bean sprouts and radish

Below- sardines and lotus root

Left- noodles, ginger, bamboo

Below- milk tea, coffee, and rice balls

 

   here fishy fishy fishy.   

 

 

I thought it was going to be crunchy…and then it was a bit chewy. NOT YUMMY. :)

 

 

I was sitting at a table with 3 Japanese ladies so I tried everything with a smile.

 

Soaking up the culture!

Baby # 2

Food wasn’t sounding good, some food that I was eating was tasting weird, my boobs were sore…and then I realized I was about 10 days late…

1 Test

2 Test, 3 Test later…

I decided we had baby # 2 on the way.

I’m currently 8 weeks along!

More Miyajima

The Japanese kids were working on their English. They were stopping all the foreigners asking them where they were from, what Japanese sport they like best, what their favorite Japanese food is, and where they most want to travel to in Japan. We got stopped about 5 times! It was cute!Peter eating some yummy fried oysters. They are entering the prime oyster season. They are sold every where right now!

A traditional Japanese hotel or a ryokan.

  

Fried pastry.

I’ll say it is the world’s largest rice scoop but I’m really not sure if it is! It is huge though!!

Miyajima had a whole shopping area I didn’t know about. Our friend’s the Hills introduced us to a whole new side of the island.

One of the greatest things they showed us was this ice cream in a butter bread cone! It was so delicious! I love the "how to” on eating your ice cream!

Random Sushi

We went out to eat with some friends of ours. After dinner we decided to walk over to Mister Donut (another post) to grab some dessert. We ended up going the wrong way and came upon this sushi place. We had just been talking about how we had only eaten sushi once since being in the land of sushi. It must have been fate. We grabbed some sushi, regrouped, and then went on to Mister Donut.

Super sushi…don’t think I’m ready for this…just yet.

                 

Donuts, coffee, and sushi go together, right?

Little Gardener

We planted tomatoes and peppers this year. It was our first time growing stuff. Needless to say we only produced about 8 peppers and no tomatoes. Cora liked to help in the garden…and of course in the buff. How else do you garden in the middle of a neighborhood?