No Sugar Challenge

6/28/2022 Day 1:  I have a two-week business trip coming up, eating junk food and living in hotel.  As a preventive measure, I decided to stop eating sugar.

Defining sugar is difficult and convoluted.  So I decided simply no desserts and sugary drinks.  No desserts after meals; no cakes or cookies or donuts from shops.  No alcohol, either.  Only tea, water, and black coffee.

It had been more than one week.  I felt no difference at first.  No weight loss.  No inch loss.  No clear skin.  Nothing per the all-knowing internet.

Until today 7/7/2022.  Math Teacher was feeling groggy.  During the yoga class, I felt dizzy while bending down.  Low blood sugar type of dizzy.

Sugar withdrawal, we decided.

7/12/2022 week 2:  I really didn't see any difference.  I felt groggy in week 1 and didn't sleep well for a couple nights.  Other than that, nothing.  Same weight.  Same waistline.  Same triple chins.

7/15/2022:  We finally measured ourselves.  Should've done this at the beginning, but we were both really bad at planning.  So our waistlines were at 36" and 35", respectively.  Guess which was which.

7/22/2022:  The end of the challenge.  We measured again.  **Drum Roll**  36" and 35", respectively.  Three weeks and three days of no desserts and no beer; wasted!  😡😠😢

The next measurement would be the end of the business trip.  😨😟

The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980), The Gods Must Be Crazy II (1989)

Fact #1:  rhinos stamp out fires.  They are nature's firefighters.

Fact #2:  some cultures shake their heads horizontally to indicate a "yes" statement.

I've held these two facts my whole life.

When I watched The Gods Must Be Crazy, the movie showed these two facts.  I told Math Teacher that the movie got the facts correctly.

After watching the movie, I then realized, I HAVE WATCHED THIS MOVIE BEFORE!  When I was in elementary school!  Definitely before third grade.  And I have held these two movie scenes as facts ever since.

The power of movie.

I am not going to check if these two movie scenes are actual facts.  To me, they will always forever be.

The sequel was ok.  Some parts were ridiculous, but still enjoyable overall.  The children were so cute!  The hand-holding soldiers were hilarious!

Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

Funny, entertaining, hilarious goats!

I didn't like Marvel casting Natalie Portman as Jane Foster.  She was already in Star Wars.  Marvel should've given some other new beautiful actress a chance.  Besides, how was she going to lift the hammer with those itty bitty arms?  Any Olympian female swimmer has bigger biceps than her.

I'm glad Marvel also recognized the problem.  Natalie Portman had toned and large arms in the movie.  That I approved.

Other than that, THOR'S NAKED BUTT!  I appreciated the eye candy.

Christian Bale was a great villain.  He was one of the few actors that I could see as a bad guy and a good guy rolled into one.

Oh, Stormbreaker was funny, too!  I really like the name Stormbreaker.  Unfortunately nobody can use it anymore.

Fukusaya Castella cakes

Fukusaya is one of the most famous company for castella cakes.  It's spongy, moist, sweet, and delicate.  I've had castella cakes from Fukusaya for years.

Until this year.

While we were souvenir shopping at Nagasaki Airport, Math Teacher suddenly started humming Batman theme music and said, "BATMAN!"  I was thoroughly confused.

He then pointed to the logo of Fukusaya and said, "BATMAN!"

That was when I realized, the company logo for Fukusaya was a bat.  To make sure, I asked the staff at the souvenir shop, and she confirmed it was a bat.

Math Teacher was happy that one of my favorite food in Japan belonged to Batman/Wayne Enterprise.  I said, no.  The castella cake pre-dated Batman.  He wasn't having any of it.

Anyway, great cake to go with black tea.  The sweetness of the cake balanced out the bitterness of the tea. Wonderful pair.

Bat signal on the lower left

Bat signal

Bat signal and the castella cake

Pesto Sauce, homemade

Pesto sauce is my favorite pasta sauce.  I always thought it was difficult to make so I always bought from stores.  However, none impressed me.  Something was off; I couldn't tell what.

I finally broke down and looked up recipes for pesto.  Turns out it only requires five ingredients:

• basil
• garlic
• nuts
• parmesan cheese
• olive oil

I already have everything on hand except basil.

Pine nuts are traditional, but a lot of recipes say pine nuts are expensive so it's ok to substitute for other nuts.  I usually have either almonds or walnuts on hand.

A lot of recipes also say basils can be substituted for other soft leafy greens.  So I've used parsley, dills, and 大葉.  Basils are still the best because of that strong hit of sweetness.  So I usually buy a mix of basil and whatever fancies me on the grocery shopping day.

Put everything in a blender and blend it up.  I have a weak immersion blender so I blend up basil and olive oil first to create a liquid base for the rest of the hardy items.

Even salt and pepper are not required because parmesan cheese is salty enough.  I still put a little salt and pepper in the mixture because I consume pesto sauce slowly.  Salt and pepper act as preservatives in the refrigerator.

The reason that I consume pesto slowly is because it is actually a very filling sauce with nuts and parmesan cheese.  In my household, a little bit goes a long way.  So with cheaper ingredients and using the pesto judiciously, it's actually cheaper than buying from the store.

Some recipes call for lemons.  I've tried one whole lemon and couldn't taste the difference.

I finally understand why pesto has been around for thousands of years.  Once I get the hang of making pesto, it's very addictive.  It is so easy and so delicious.  Homemade is much better than the store-bought.

Pesto, homemade

This time I used basils, dills, 2 garlic cloves, 1.5 cups of olive oil, 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese, 1/4 cup of walnuts, salt, pepper.  It feels a bit too liquid-y.  Too much olive oil, I suppose.  Next time I'll know to put in more cheese and nuts to balance it out.

Nagasaki Three-Day Trip

Day 1:  Nagasaki Peace Park, Atomic Bomb Museum.  Not much to say.  Very sad.  There were two peace parks; very important to visit both.

Delicious eki-ben

Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum

Day 2:  Nagasaki City Science Museum.  It's very small and catered to children.  We enjoyed a half-hour show about Mosasaurus.  It was dramatic, full of emotions.  One thing I need to complain, though. Nagasaki boasted itself as the only window to the outside world when Japan was an isolated country.  So it had lots of interaction with foreigners for hundreds of years.  Before entering the museum, it has pictures of European scientists that were connected to Nagasaki.  Upon entering the museum, there was not one word of English, or Dutch, or Portuguese, or Chinese in this science museum.  Its website does not have a foreign language page, either.  What happened to Nagasaki's connection to the rest of the world?  Shouldn't it pride itself as an international city?

長崎市科学館

Day 3:  shopping malls.  Too hot.  We visited Nagasaki during the rainy season; everyone pre-warned us that we would get rained on.  We only got rained on in the peace park for about five minutes.  After that, the sun came out and actively burned the humidity in the air.  It was so hot.  I got heat stroke and couldn't breathe.  So we stayed indoors.  There were more things to see in Nagasaki, but they were outdoors.  We just couldn't bring ourselves into the sun.

On our way back, here was our flight number.  What an ominous sign.  Something bad will happen.

Flight No. 666

Hiroshima Three-Day Trip

Day 1:  shopping!  ROF inside the Shareo underground shopping is my favorite t-shirt shop in all of Japan!  Cutest print design that tells a story on every shirt.  I've spent hundreds of dollars in this shop in the last 10+ years.  My worry is that as I get older and fatter, I wouldn't be able to fit into its shirts anymore!

However, Shareo seems to be going downhills.  A lot of stores were closed, for pandemic or some other reasons.  We went to the above-ground shopping Hondori Street, and Math Teacher was impressed with the number of cafes.

Okayama to Hiroshima bullet train

Day 2:  A-Bomb dome, Peace Park, Memorial Museum.  Somber learning experience.  Not much to say here.  Very sad.

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

Prefectural Art Museum:  beautiful.  They had an exhibit to showcase Hiroshima prefecture artists and asked people to vote on it.  Both Math Teacher and I couldn't vote because they were simply too wonderful.  We couldn't pick one, and we felt bad for even trying to pick one out of so many talents.

Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum

Day 3:  Miyajima and Iwakuni.  The torii gate at Miyajima is still under construction.  I felt bad that Math Teacher was missing out on one of the most beautiful scenery in Japan, but we had to visit it now because we didn't know when the renovation would be finished.  So I told Math Teacher to imagine a beautiful red gate in the middle of the sea.

Itsukushima Jinja

Iwakuni is a dying city, but somehow they put in a new train station with escalator.  Five years ago they had nothing; we had to drag our own luggages up and down the stairs!  Kintaikyo is still standing, thank goodness.  Still as serene as ever.  However, the souvenir shop stopped selling my favorite spicy pickled lotus roots and four-season sake set 😢

Kintaikyo Bridge