Trinkets & Tidbits: Sweet potato chips and random ponderings!

Hiya sweet folk,

Today's delightful little discovery was toffee-glazed sweet potato chips! Or maybe it's honey... I'm really not sure but whatever it is it's crispy and crackly on the outside fluffy on the inside and truly magnificent eating... although every bite comes with a hint of guilt as you consider all the 'sometime foods' that have gone into the production of such a decadent morsel.... but well worth it as an occasional afternoon treat!

Today also brought the discovery of a small coffee shop that sells... coffee yes, but also.... vegemite and tim-tams! (Along with pasta, cheese and red wine!)... I was so giddy with enthusiasm that I almost blurted it out to anyone who'd listen (and more than likely not understand) but I refrained and stifled my silly little giggles. That is one downside to travelling alone (and there are many upsides!) ... you can't just turn to your buddy and gush about that van shaped like a dog... or the fact that the single banana you just bought at the grocery store comes packaged in cellophane and ribbon! I guess that's what the blog's for... venting happiness!

I'm lucky enough to already have made some friends here in Tokyo on previous trips, but of course they are working through the week and I'm still in that splendid twilight zone floating and skipping along somewhere between a leisurely holiday and the giddy rush of moving your life to a brand new city in a far off land (especially, when like me, you've threatened to do just that for the last 4 years).

So here I am... happily pushing the notion that in a few weeks time I need to start looking for an arubaito (part time job) way back to the deep depths of my mind, somewhere between my hiding kanji knowledge and the name of that guy that sings 'Ramona was a waitress' that I've been trying to think of all day. Bloody hell, he's from 'something for kate'. I know it. And yet it won't come. And I refuse to google it because I'm a stubborn weirdo who competes with herself. "I can't let me win or I'll lose!"

I am a firm believer that there's only so much room in your brain for all the info we try to cram in on a daily basis... so when you're in a situation of 'high alert' when you're traveling for example (making sure you're walking up the right street, watching that you don't knock an old lady down with your bottom as you both pass through a japan-sized shopping aisle...), I think your brain makes an educated choice on useful information and discards a few things it deems 'temporarily unneccessary'. Well, not discarded... filed to the very back. Next to the afore mentioned Kanji...

Tomorrow it's off to the ward office to declare myself as an ALIEN. I had my costume all picked out, I was going to go as roger from American Dad, but when my Japanese friend saw it all arranged neatly on my bed ready to go, she quickly explained to me that 'Alien' here just means you're a foreigner. Yeah ok, I'm absolutely joking about the costume but would I have been the first to attempt this joke? I think not. There's probably already been a gaijin wonderfully bogan enough (it would've been an aussie) to turn up to the office in an ET getup, just giving us all a good name...

Well I'm the first to admit that this entry is rather ranty and rought with tangents... but I blame the sugar rush from my glazed potato treats. Please now enjoy some more snaps from my aimless wandering. Ja mata ne!