Noodle Joy with Cabbage

Jen, look how great the noodles are in Japan with Ameen and Ana Laura!

Here is a close-up of my noodles, although I forgot to switch to noodle close-up setting.

Jen, do you like Sapporo beer?

After the noodles, we felt like this!

The croquettes oozed like this.

And come with unlimited cabbage, which is my new favourite unlimited thing!

Ameen also loves cabbage. Anyway, afterwards, we felt like this, and we'll be back for more soon! What do you think, Jen?

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Beautiful Black and Blue Craters

Check out the tranquillity of Kawah Putih, a baby blue volcano salt lake.

Nothing but us, dead trees, and acidic water.

Ok perhaps on this holiday weekend, we did notice a few people over to the left.

Only a few wandered into our picture, of course.

Barry, who is sadly becoming a bit of a travel snob, tried his best to keep a positive attitude.

Next stop, black crater, this one seen from above.

Many came seeking the beauty and tranquillity.

Crater 3, grey: In a brilliant tourist scheme, you could escape the crowds by paying a mandatory "guide" to take you to the bottom along entirely unhazardous hiking trails.

This crater, clearly, was the most badass. You could hang out with steam jets, bubble pools, and men selling green stone trinkets.

The steaming vents have sulfury yellow plaque.

Which has that freaky kind of beauty, I think.

The rotten egg smell and handing out of useless hello kitty face masks only added to the allure.

After this, we went for a drink at our hotel bar. Except this hotel was big on Ramadan...

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Wedding wonders

We went to a wedding!

The stone goddess approved.

I matched my henna to my ring and my dress, as you do.

There were two events, so I had a lot of OCD matching to do.

Barry just had to tie a funny knot.

We were careful not to fall into the ornamental pools.

And instead to stop and smell the butterflies.

And we stayed in a room with a dipping pool, which helps wash off the OCDs!

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Under the Maldives

We got an underwater camera ziplocky thingy.

With it, one of us was able to find a fish or two.

The other one of us was unbalanced, and her pink snorkel and matching pink mask both filled readily with salt water. Luckily I only drowned a little bit, and only once.

But look at my cool ripply reflection!

Anyway, we got seriously into fishtology. Above is a prisoner fish. Below, a unicorn fish, ready to ensnare its prey.

Below, a fingerprint fish.

Parrot fish and buddy blue fish.

Mixing stripes and polkda dots fish.

Weird gills fish.

Dinner. (Jackfish).

Snugglefish.

Needle fish.

Yellow school of fish, with one opposite direction leader.

Finally, evolution fish with grippy feet.

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Life on the Atoll

This is Malé, which needs a bit more room.

It's one of the many Atoll islands in the Maldives.

We stayed here.

It was not without hazards.

See if you can see the bird in this picture.

There was the occasional storm.

Anyway, the balcony was great for fish washing. Here I demonstrate the form for this sport.

Here is what I saw.

Look, a cute little shark!

Above water we also saw these guys.

They even jumped up to get a better look.

Barry spent more time underwater. We'll see his pictures next.

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