Of Filipino Food, Pointy Chinese Hats, and "Deseray" Industries (right next to Hungry Howie's Pizza!)

Not much going on at the moment, but some good times were had yesterday. Alyssa had the day off, so we went out to eat at her favorite Philippino restaurant, Pista Sa Nayon. The food is quite delish and the Philippino owner is a lot of fun to talk to. Sometimes he'll even introduce you to the other diners, most of whom are usually Philippinos themselves, so that always gives Alyssa a chance to practice her Tagalog. (Her proficiency is Cebuano, but so far we haven't met any Cebuano speakers there.) If you're ever in Boise, that's a restaurant I would highly recommend.

After eating, we visited the Asian market just down the street, where Alyssa had to restrain herself from buying every other item she laid eyes on. It was like being transported to another country--they had chicken intestine, balut (chicken fetus), salted duck eggs, prawns, shrimp crackers, those tiny bananas that are so dang good, dragonfruit, jackfruit, purple fruits that looked like Kooshballs (I think they were called "rambutans" or something), salted fish paste, those pointy Chinese hats, even samurai swords! You can bet we'll be going back there, because I really love those little bananas. I may have to get me a pointy Chinese hat while I'm at it!

After the Asian market, we went to the D.I. to check out their Halloween costume assortment. Pretty lame, but we did end up buying a red-and-white-striped shirt for Alyssa's costume. We're thinking of going as Waldo and Girl Waldo ("Waldina"?) this year. I was kind of hoping for The Hamburglar and Carmen Sandiego, but maybe next year. The problem with being Waldo is that we've still never been able to find a red-and-white-striped shirt for me. If it doesn't work out, though, we can always be cave people again, like two Halloweens ago (see the above photo).