Konbonwa!
The week in particular went by a bit slower, but as always the weekend flew by. I have a few recent yummies even though we have been on a “diet”. Disclaimer: I don’t really believe in diets. I believe in altering the way I eat as a “reset” but if I change it too drastically, and it becomes something I hate/feel like I’m depriving myself it just doesn’t last.
So we’ve just been making things a little less complicated and trying to have better portion control. I’ve been eating 2 hard boiled eggs for breakfast and tea with honey in the morning around 7:30. Then, around 10:30 I have a kiwi and/or banana if the banana is a little one. We always have whatever we had for dinner the previous night for lunch. We’ve been doing the following meals: chicken with kimchi and sauteed veggies, baked chicken with roasted veggies, and a salad with baked tuna or salmon. When you switch up the veggies and seasonings, it hasn’t been bad at all! Don’t get me wrong we definitely have an occasional cheat meal or two. Like Pariwar happens once a week… that will be my very, very enjoyable cheat meal. No shame in that.
Some random food related pics from last week:
Last weekend we tried a new Turkish restaurant downtown that we have tried to go to a couple times. It’s pretty small so this time we were smart and made a reservation way in advance to make sure we could get in. Before that we saw this sexy man in 50 shades of grey and also did a bit of shopping at forever 21. The shopping in Forever is so much more organized and actually had a better selection than in America! Some great buys and I will definitely be back 🙂
This gave me a little taste of Israel and the mediterranean type of food I’m missing. There was one chef and a waitress, but the atmosphere of the place was welcoming and the food was simply delicious. It’s always nice to find new restaurants around here since we usually end up going to the same 3. This was a keeper, we will be back! 🙂
The main reason that provoked this post was an event that happened at school this week. A high school student was inspired to organize an International Day/Global Citizens Day. She is from Burma and found that most people had no idea where that is (myself included) or anything about their culture. She wanted to create a day for students to teach others about their culture as well as learn about other cultures other than their own. After presenting the idea to the teachers, and some organizational help, her dream came true. Not going to lie, it was a bit chaotic before hand and I thought the day was going to be a hot mess as big events like this can be. (It was for the entire school- pre-school up until 12th grade.) I was pleasantly surprised when the day ran smoothly and I was in tears by the end of the day.
I helped out in gym by leading some Zumba and the kids played olympic winter games. They rotated between different rotations all morning participating in various activities. The highlight of the day however, was the parade of nations. Each country that is represented in our school was called and students carried the flag and paraded around showing their pride. I was in awe by 2 things: 1. How one student made her dream come true and I have no doubt this will now be a NIS tradition to continue. 2. How much diversity there is at our school and how special it truly is. Each student has a different background and experiences that brings so much flavor to the classroom. It made me sad because I’m going to miss being a part of this next year. It makes me wish I was saying, but I’m trying to embrace the “in-between”, this stage where I don’t know what’s next yet. I have so much to be thankful for and in a sense, I made my dream happen just like that student. I’m living it, right here and now until I know what the next dream is. 🙂
Another great event this week: the 100th day of school!! I still can’t believe it’s almost March. That means my birthday is almost here (yikes, 23!) and that there are about 3 months left… SLOW DOWN TIME. Anywho, dressing up like grannies was soooo much fun and I will definitely be doing this again. Half the kids/teachers didn’t even recognize me. Plus we couldn’t find baby powder and we were resourceful and used flour hahah. It worked so well and I rocked my babushka. Oy vey I looked hot
This weekend we went hiking up Mt. Sanage! I don’t think we actually made it up all the way but we hiked for about 2 hours and it was straight uphill, it was a fantastic sweat. It was a bit foggy BUT this was the first time we didn’t get lost or hit too much traffic. Katiria and I may or may not have said a quick positive prayer hoping for this before we left. It worked 🙂
After a nice warm shower, grocery shopping and a quick nap, we tried another new restaurant! We tried this Indonesian restaurant downtown that someone recommended. We got lost because they apparently have moved but didn’t update their English site… but we found it!
The food was really good, this was my first time having Indonesian food. Leah, Anna and Katiria went to Bali over October break so they knew what to expect. They said the spices weren’t quite the same but still really good. I would love to go back here. Except next time I will be checking the dancing schedule because downstairs was the most heinous music ever. There was a special Balinese dancing performance with music that sounded like 3 year olds banging on all sorts of instruments SOOOO loudly. It was horrible. But we escaped and walked to this little wine bar through the hobbit door for a bit.
Next weekend we are off to Tokyo and then after that we have Nagano (snow monkeys and snowboarding!!!) and then Cambodia… so many travels coming up 🙂
Sayonara for now y’all
The Traveling Teacher 
I like the old lady costumes. You are awesome!