See? When I Take a Break I Have a Lot More Pictures

At some point in your life, if you're like me, you stop and look around yourself and think "How did I get here?"  Then you start a blog and give it the same title and hope that someday your blog answers the question for you.  Today is not that day.

Last week I took a short business trip to a little place called "Orlando, Florida."  I stayed in a lavish hotel directly across the street from Sea World!  I did not step foot in Sea World, nor did I visit the Magic Kingdom or Apricot Center, but I did go to a place called "Orange County Convention Center" where there were lots of free ball-point pens and overpriced hot dogs.  However, one day they DID serve free Häagen-Dazs, and that was as magical as any Disney Princess.

There were also businesses with lots of great products; most notably:

A customary practice between Japanese is businesses is if your businesses have some sort of relationship that is mutually beneficial, the companies take turns treating each other to dinners and whatnot.  So there is a Japanese company that does business with our company and they also had a booth at this show, and they took my associate and me out for dinner.  After dinner, we went out for drinks.  But not just any drinks; we went out for the coldest drinks in the world.

This bar is called Ice Bar.  As far as I can tell, the only reason it's called that is because everything is made of ice.  Real ice.  Everything, that is, except the stuffed penguins and the customers.  But seriously, the bar is made of ice, the walls are made of ice, the trash can itself isn't made of ice but it's encased in ice with a hole cut in the top to put your trash in.  When you pay (the exorbitant price) to get in, you receive a coat and gloves.  If you pay a little extra you can get a fancy fur coat.  Apparently the company taking us out didn't think that we were worth the fur coats, only the $11 a piece to get in, on top of drinks.

This table is also made of ice.

So are these walls, chairs, and animals.

So is this glass.

Needless to say, it was cold but worth every penny that I didn't pay.  And at the end, I warmed up the bottom of my glass with my hand and stuck it to the table.  I bet they HATE that.  That probably makes me a bad person.  But I HAD to see if it would work, even though I could use the science part of my brain to deduce that it would indeed work.

After Florida, I got to spend about half a day in Bloomington with the kids.  It was great to see them and they loved their giant pile of presents.  I got a lot of great pictures on my Japanese cell phone.  

On the way back to Japan, I remembered that I forgot my Japanese cell phone back in Bloomington.  So those pictures will have to wait for another day.  But I made it back in one piece.  With the time changes and the International Date Line and all that added together, I was technically in transit from Bloomington for 42 hours.  Even if you account for the time changes, I was in transit for nearly 29 hours.  It was a long long long long trip.  Since I had my American cell phone with me on the way back, I was able to nab this picture of a Pokemon Jet:

In closing, I would like to share what I plan on doing with all of my non-blogging free time.  I know there are a lot of people crying and wailing and gnashing teeth because I don't blog every day anymore.  

It turns out my schedule in Japan MIGHT be changing.  I don't know for sure.  It's all up in the air.  But since it is, I have decided to seize every opportunity I can while I'm here.  For example, I have suddenly started watching Japanese television every day.  Also, I think I'm going to go to a Japanese conversation club once a week.  Also, I've got to brush up on my cooking because I promised a good friend I would teach him how to cook.  Plus, I picked up a tourist guide to Omura.  Actually, I went to the city building and picked up this guide book.  The Japanese version was right next to it.  The cover was exactly the same except for a) it was all in Japanese except the text at the very tip top, and b) the text at the very top said "Romantic Guide Book".  So now I'm left wondering if the stuff in the English version is as romantic as the stuff in the Japanese version.  I guess I'll never know, because I'm never going back there until probably next week when the free conversation club is.  

At any rate, I didn't have this guide yet when I went out after work yesterday, but I did revisit this place, that was shown to me by a friend: