A couple of weeks back I stumbled across what I found to be the most mesmerizing series of japanese commercials…

TV In Japan page

YouTube Commercial 1

YouTube Commercial 2

Kewpie Homepage

I found myself powerless to resist Kewpie’s amazing marketing skills - so great are they I ended up picking up a package even though cognitively I know that cod roe spaghetti is highly unlikely to be favorable to my american palate.

Since then the package has sat on my counter, mocking my consumeristic weakness. I’m currently firming up my resolve to try it this week and see how it turns out…

Looks like the first leg of my brother’s sailing expedition to explore the sunny coasts of Mexico didn’t go too smooth - here’s hoping he’s found all of the issues with his boat and the rest of his trip goes according to plan.

Details at www.jasonrose.net

There are a couple things my brothers and I try and do each year - get together and go snowboarding a couple of times each winter and go backpacking at least once every summer. My brother Colin usually takes a pass on these things, being a family man and all, and this year my brother Jason was busy getting ready to go on his big ocean voyage.

That left yougest brother Trevor and I to maintain the tradition. We hiked along the ocean last year, this year we decided to head back into the mountains. We ended up choosing to take the Graves Creek trail and then turn off and head up to Lake Sundown. Since its a bit of a drive to get to the trailhead by Lake Quinault we took off Thursday evening after a brief false start involving forgotten hiking boots to spend the night in Aberdeen before heading out first thing in the morning.

Now, Trevor had been gracious enough to handle the accommodations part of our trip. Being even more of a cheepskate than I, he choose Grey’s Hostel at $20 for a single private room with shared bathroom. Now, at that price (and given Trevor’s dodgy reservation phone call - a story you’ll have to ask him about) our expectations were pretty low but I can’t say we were really prepared for what we found when we got there. You get there and there is a single door on the street and a video buzzer you need to use to call to get the manager to let you in. Turns out the owner has modified a wing of an ultra-low rent apartment building into a hostel. You go up several flights of stairs covered in dilapidated, taped up carpeting to get through the dimly lit apartment section to the hostel section. Words fail me when trying to accurately describe the smell, but if forced I would say it had notes of smoke, urine, and musty abandoned house. The hostel section is definitely nicer, nice enough that they lock the adjoining door to the apartment wing at 10PM.

For all the forbidding ambiance the manager (Mike?) was a really nice guy, the rooms were actually really clean even if the place was in poor shape, and our stay uneventful except for the drunk who wouldn’t stop shouting from the street below once we went to bed. We headed out first thing in the morning to swing by the ranger station on the way to the trailhead.

At the ranger station we found out to our dismay that there was a much easier route up to the lake that our guidebook had failed to mention and that there was 16 people already registered to stay up there. So much for trying to choose a little harder route to buy us a bit more seclusion. The ranger couldn’t suggest a backup destination so decided to go for it anyways.

I had hoped that the last several weeks I had spent biking to work would have helped whip me in shape for our trip. I was sadly mistaken. 3275ft net elevation gain over 8 miles kicked my ass big time. It was the last mile or so that really did me in, where you gain about 1000ft of elevation.

Once up at the lake we were surprised to find that we had beat everyone else up and had the place to ourselves. Well, to be more accurate it was us and the flies. Zillions and zillions of flies. We ended up retreating into the tent until it cooled down a bit and the onslaught abated.

I did a bit better on the way back down, but it was (literally) painfully obvious that Trevor was in much better shape than his elder brother - a fact he had no problems verbalizing. We ran into some fresh bear tracks and scat that were not there the day before, but no bear.

We stayed at some interesting places, saw some beautiful sights, and I am now so sore that when I walk its best described as a hobble. All in all, a pretty good trip.

Pictures can be found at on my flickr page.

Went back to Uwajimaya and found the 3 compartment containers I was looking for. They are little more expensive but the main section is the perfect size for doing lunch-sized donburi. For their inaugural use I tried to recreate one of my favorite meals from when I was in Japan - unagi, train station bento style with scrambled egg.

I’ve been really enjoying doing the little bit of extra cooking required to put these lunches together. I’ve been uploading pictures of what I make to flickr and tagging them - if you want to see what I’ve been making you can always see pictures of my latest lunches here.

I stumbled across some containers I just love at Uwajimaya’s this week - they are 870ml with 4 removable inserts and and locking lid mechanism that works really good for ~ $4.50 a pop.

I try and be good by making my own lunches each week. I usually just do a big batch of stir fry, pasta, or what have you on the weekend and portion it up into tupperware so I can just grab-n-go in the morning. For the longest time I’ve wanted a bit more variety but that usually includes multiple containers that end up too big for the quantity of food I want to bring. This 4 insert system works great, although I have to definitely think smaller portion sizes since its really easy to end up with more food than space. Here’s what my lunches for this week look like…

I’m not sure if I’m ever going to get as fancy as some people get with doing the multiple course thing, but I am digging my newly diversified lunches. Now if I can only find some of the other combinations they make for when 4 courses is too many…