Tokyo - Day 1

I tried to think of a clever title but clearly failed.

I'll get to Tokyo in a minute but first a public service message:  beeeeeeeeeeeeep - for the next 30 seconds, this blog will provide you with useful life information.  Dear Americans, airlines in America are unbelievably bad. Whenever you fly, choose a European or Asian airline.  This test will end immediately following the picture of my gluten free lunch provided by Turkish Airlines. Thank you for your attention. 

That's right. Those are lamb chops. And a hot gluten free roll. Oh right AND as much free red wine as I can drink. 

Tokyo - Day 1:

Soooo...moving on...Tokyo is awesome!

I think we made a good decision and booked ourselves on a Tokyo After 5 Tour the day we got here. The jet lag is pretty intense so after landing and navigating our way via train to the hotel, we took some power naps and then headed out to meet our tour at 5pm. There were a total of four of us plus our awesome guide, Meg. Our first stop was a Yakitori restaurant. We got there by walking through some pretty narrow alleys crammed with restaurants. 

Before:

After:

After the Yakitori, we headed to Tsukishima to try out Monj-yayaki. We cooked it ourselves while sitting around a very low table. 

They bring you the fresh ingredients in a bowl. 

Chef Andre at work:  Step 1 -  grill the meat and veggies

Step 2 - make a circle from the grilled stuff and then pour the batter into the middle 

It looked pretty gross but everyone swore it was delicious. Unfortunately, the batter had flour in it so I couldn't eat any. 

Andre got me this instead:

I'm going to starve here

We also tried a traditional dessert called tai-yaki.  It's a cake shaped like a fish and filled with different flavored creams like chocolate, strawberry, etc

Andre enjoying his fish

Check out what we saw in front of the Mikimoto store on the way home

A very American/British/Australian/Irish Thanksgiving!

It's official.  We're insane.  We did Thanksgiving at our house this year!

Even though our friends volunteered to bring most of the sides, we still ended up cooking most of Friday night and allllll day on Saturday.

I let Andre order the turkeys without supervision.  Before I knew it we had TWO 12 pound turkeys in our fridge.  We ended up baking one and it turned out surprisingly well!

major props to Andre for this!

the other turkey was the big American treat for everyone...we fried it!

Andre and Mitch totally have this under control

needs a bit more oil

we were low on space in the fridge so this is how we kept the beer cold

the table!  for all 14 people

dinner's ready!

trying out the hats mom bought us

the gang's all here!  (except photographer Andre)

Yoda trying on the hat

I believe the rest of the pictures will have to remain offline in order to protect those involved.  

We had a great time and we'll totally do it again another year (maybe in like five after we've finally finished cleaning up from this year...).  

Invasion of the Body Snatchers! errr...I mean the relatives came to visit!

We had more visitors!  Aunt Augusta and Uncle Pete stopped by for a weekend visit while out and about touring in Europe.

We're always really glad to have visitors because it gets us out of the house and out exploring.

We took Aunt Augusta and Uncle Pete to Mount Rigi and Lucerne on Saturday and then on a tour of Zurich on Sunday.

Mount Rigi and Lucerne

We woke up on Saturday to a grey overcast cold day.  We almost suggested not going to Mount Rigi but boy are we glad we went anyway.  We found the sun!  Now I think we understand why the Swiss all flee the city and go to the mountains on the weekend.  It's the only way to see the sun - get above the clouds.

our ride up the mountain

that's the cloud layer folks

We didn't really plan well.  Since it wasn't too cold in Zurich and there was no snow on the ground, we all thought jeans and tennis shoes would be perfectly appropriate attire.  

we were wrong

Sophie was better prepared than we were!

even at the top of a mountain, Sophie can find new friends

Uncle Pete trekking through the snow

he made it!

couldn't help ourselves - it's Sophie-Heidi!

After Mount Rigi, we headed to Lucerne to see the Chapel Bridge and have some weiner schnitzel

Andre and I were all excited because Uncle Pete said he wanted a weiner schnitzel and Andre found this restaurant in Lucerne that cooks the weiner schnitzel at your table.  So imagine our shock when we get to the Old Swiss House and we open the menu to read all about the Old Swiss House at Busch Gardens in TAMPA!  Are you kidding me!??!  At least the one in Tampa never cooked the weiner schnitzel at your table so that was cool.  Everyone said the weiner schnitzel was delicious.  Probably because they used approximately 1 pound of butter for each schnitzel!

mmmmm - the smell of melted butter was amazing

it took two people to handle this crowd

yum

And one last shot of the bridge as we headed home:

Zurich

We were total lame tourists on Sunday and didn't take any pictures!  We did a guided tour of Zurich which was actually really cool for Andre and I and probably much better for Aunt Augusta and Uncle Pete since they actually got to hear the history of the buildings and things we were looking at instead of just me and Andre pointing at stuff and saying hey isn't that cool?!

Who else wants to come visit???

who knew chocolate chip cookies were so damn difficult?

yea yea i know - i'm way behind on my blog - i've got one word for you....DEAL!   :)

I'll get caught up this week but first I thought I'd entertain you with the stories of my regular everyday life.

Sooooooo as you may recall from a previous blog, here in Switzerland, it's customary to bring a treat to the office on your birthday (still weird but whatev').  Last year, I brought a few different things including some triple chocolate chip cookies which turned out to be a massive hit.  Interestingly, even though the Swiss eat tons of chocolate, they don't appear to have made the leap toward putting chocolate into a cookie.  Probably chocolate by itself is unhealthy enough for the Swiss and they aren't interested in adding butter, sugar, etc.  Crazies!

Anywho, so I thought this year I'd whip up a quick batch of cookies and I'd knock my customary obligation out of the park!

Did.not.work.

I don't know what the problem was (certainly it wasn't me) but after my third batch of really flat overcooked cookies, I threw a mini fit like a five year old and went to bed early.  Literally pans and cookies all over the counter and they stayed there for days.  I'm surprised I didn't wake up to divorce papers the next morning.  :)

I took a week to cool off and I tried again.  Mostly because during the week, we received Christmas gifts from our neighbors and so now I'm not only ducking my customary work duty but I'm also the crappy neighbor that hasn't given a gift yet.  Sigh.  So, rather reluctantly, I took the cookie dough out of the fridge (the extra from last week was frozen and thawed) and got to work again.  Over the week, I purchased a few molds that were probably meant for jello or something but I figured, I would trap the bleeping cookie dough into a shape so that it couldn't flatten itself out into a shapeless blob.  Take that cookie dough!  And it worked!!!!

I'm so festive.

And then since I only had four molds and tons of cookie dough left (and not enough patience to continue making four cookies every 15 minutes), I decided put it all into a pie plate and see what happens.  Take that Martha Stewart!

I'm going to tell them that Sophie helped.

My poor neighbors.  It's the thought that counts, right?  RIGHT???

Blogfest 2013 - #3 - Oktoberfest!!!

Yea baby!!!

So we figured that attending Oktoberfest was a mandatory event while living here in Europe.  I'll be honest, I wasn't so much looking forward to it.  The idea of sitting in a tent with a few thousand of my closest friends all hammered off their asses?  Not so much.  But I was pleasantly surprised.  We had a really excellent time.  The atmosphere there is just so much fun.  Before you even go into the tent, there are these huge fairgrounds with all kinds of rides and food and drink booths.  I do, very highly recommend, riding the rides prior to entering the tent to drink!  But anyway, inside the tent, everybody is in a great mood, the band is playing and everyone is singing along.  Sometimes while standing on the benches.  Two drunken thumbs up!

The tents are huuuuuuuuge

this is maybe 1/4 of the tent

and so are the beer steins

His and Hers

somehow, our friends managed to convince us that appropriate attire was this:

before

during

a little later

and after

The best part of Oktoberfest?  They close the party down at 10pm!

There are a ton more pictures but they will most certainly not be uploaded to the internets.  Feel free to drop by and visit if you'd like to see the rest!

Blogfest 2013 - #2 - the Swiss Grand Canyon

After a busy and hot summer, we decided to do as the Swiss do and go to the mountains for a weekend.    We found a nice hike in Flims which is about a 2 hour train ride away from Zurich.

Here's a link to the hike should you ever find yourself in Switzerland and looking for a nice half day wander through the mountains.

We took plenty of pictures of course!

Before we get started, a nice shot of a typical Swiss village:

And now, the Swiss Grand Canyon!

For next year, we must figure out how those folks got down there with rafts and canoes.  That looks totally awesome!

Andre and Sophs checking out the view

the hilllllls are alive with the sound of muuuusic!

We also hiked by the absolutely amazing Lake Cauma.  

So, who wants to come visit now!?!?!?

Blogfest 2013 - #1 - We Moved!

Sooooo, seems I've been a bit remiss in my blogging over the last few months.  Time to catch up!

First up.....we moved!  After over a year of commuting for over an hour each way, Andre finally convinced me to move apartments.  We moved to the other side of the Zurich lake.

Here's some perspective:

It's about a five minute walk from our new place to the lake which should be totally awesome (in about 10 months...).  In the meantime, we have an excellent view of the train tracks and the lake!

Here's a shot of one of Switzerland's finest trains.

The trains are a bit loud but everyone we've talked to says you get used to it.  Here's hoping that's true!

We have an excellent picture window (please ignore the boxes - we're not 100% unpacked yet)

The new place is basically the same size as the old place but our bedrooms and the bathroom are much bigger so as a result, we have waaaaay too much living room type of furniture.  Time to get on the Swiss version of e-bay and get to selling!

Our old apartment had a glass shower door so when we moved in to the new place, we had to buy an emergency shower curtain.  There's wasn't a lot of choice.  It's growing on me though!

And of course, with the new deck we have, Andre had to go out and buy himself a present...

We've already put it to some serious good use!

Coming up next...the Swiss Grand Canyon

oh and come visit!