Farewells at Work and at Home

The week before I left for vacation was my last week of work at the WIC office, or at least for the time being.  My coworkers decided to take me out for a lovely lunch at a place called The Cake House.

Lots of cakes:

They also sell some meals and uncake related foods.

Two of my coworkers ordered the chicken pasta meal.

It came with the pasta (featured above), this salad, and a beverage, plus dessert.

My other coworker ordered the seafood pasta, which is also what I tried out.  It was really good.

The dessert is the dessert of the day, and it's a surprise.  I am happy to say that this was a very nice surprise.  Yum!

During that time, Ryan ended up going to Hawaii, but only for a short time (the thing he went for was cancelled right when he got there).  Don't worry, it was long enough to find all of these Kit Kat flavors for us to try.  Kit Kat is huge in Japan.

This is a black honey (sugary syrup) flavor.  It really tasted like pancake syrup.

This is green tea and cherry blossom.

Strawberry

He also picked these up while in Hawaii, but the Kit Kats are all from Japan.

Orange.

Wasabi (yes, they are a bit spicy).

Strawberry cheese cake.

Almond Jelly

Blueberry cheesecake.

The night before I left, Ryan took me out to dinner at a place near the base.

The table set up was really cute.

We started with edamame.

We also ordered tomatoes and mozzarella, but when it came there was bacon on it.  Ryan ate this one, and I ordered one without the bacon.

Ryan ordered the bibimbap, which is a traditional Korean dish.  

I went with the salmon.

There were quite a few smokers in the place, and so we decided to head across the street for some dessert.  It's hard to see, but the sign is so funny (in a cute way).  It says "yes we're welcome".

They only had one option for dessert, which was the dessert of the day.  Boy were we happy when this beautiful dessert showed up.

That's it for everything leading up to my time away from home.

QUESTIONS:  Have you ever had bibimbap?  What's your favorite place to get dessert (other than at home)?  Did you know there were this many Kit Kat flavors?

Aomori Art Museum and Tony Roma's

Don't forget to enter my GIVEAWAY!

A few weekends ago, Ryan and I took a short road trip to Aomori City.

Along the way we pass this sign and I always want to stop for a picture.  This time we were in luck since we had a red light and Ryan was driving.  It's a male and female statue on top of the town welcome sign.  I think it's cool.

Another major activity for us here is looking for various Kit Kats.  If you don't know, Kit Kats are super popular in Japan (click HERE to find out why), and there are all kinds of flavors around.  Anytime we go into a convenience or grocery store, we stop to look and see what kinds they have.  Here we found green tea and vanilla in the big size bars.

Believe it or not, there was actually still a lot of snow on the sides of the road and ground (in the woods/mountains) that hadn't yet melted, and it had been snowing as recently as the week before, anyway, so needless to say, lots of snow, and of course I took pictures.

It's hard to see, but there is a stream down there with a nice, swift current.  I guess that is where all the melting snow goes.

It's very pretty here, so I was glad to be in the passenger seat and able to take pictures.

Another shot with the stream.

Almost to Aomori (ok, not almost, but we are getting there).

One of the highlights of the drive is going through some big mountains in tunnels.

It looks like you drive right into the mountain.  There is one tunnel that just keeps going and going.  I can't remember how long it is, but it is probably the longest tunnel I have driven through.

Then we arrived at our destination.  We decided to check out the Aomori Museum of Art.

Some seriously interesting displays inside.  This one actually creeped us out a little bit.

Notice anything not so kid friendly in this "kids" room?  I have no idea why, but the Japanese love using this word (look closely if you don't know what word I am referring to).

Here is what may be the main attraction at the museum.  I always see this picture when I am looking at things about this museum, so I know it is an important and well known piece.  Curious how big this is?

Looking at it with me in the picture gives you a pretty good idea of the size of this sculpture.  This dog even has a bowl with it.

After the museum, we headed into Aomori city, parked the car and walked around.  Here are some of the things we found.

Love this guy!

We even walked over to the Bay.

Only in Japan!  Gotta love it!

Oh, and oddly, as for things to find in Japan, look where we went for lunch:

That's right, there is a Tony Roma's in a hotel in Aomori, and it is popular with Americans.  We went for lunch, just to see if it lived up to it's hype (it didn't BTW).

We started with spinach and artichoke dip.

I had bread served with my meal.

Ryan had a hamburger.

I had shrimp skewers, and actually these were really good.  This, for me, was the highlight of the meal. Ryan said his burger was fair, and the dip was not very good at all (way too greasy, but I guess some people like that).

That was it for Aomori, but I wanted to share a few more pictures I have.  As you may know, I am a little behind with posting, and with my upcoming trip, I want to have most of these pictures posted and shared.

This is a restaurant just off the base.  Mexican in Japan!  We decided to give it a try before seeing a play on base.

We started with homemade chips and salsa.

Ryan had a combo platter.

I had shrimp tacos.

The verdict: AMAZING!  Maybe we just haven't had Mexican in a while, but this was definitely up there with some of the food we ate in Las Vegas.  I am not kidding.  We were extremely surprised.  We have been back once since then and I am headed there again this week for dinner with a friend.

Last up...more Kit Kat!  These are cookies and cream bite size pieces that Ryan brought back from Okinawa.

Don't forget, there are a few more days on my giveaway (link at the top of this post).  Make sure to enter!

QUESTIONS:  Have you ever tried any unusual Kit Kat flavors?  Have you ever been disappointed with a restaurant meal (didn't live up to the hype)?  Have you ever been extremely surprised by a restaurant meal?