Je râcle, tu râcles, il/elle/on râcle...

Hotpot has got to be one of the best foods in existence. For one thing, it's delicious. But even better than that, it lasts and lasts! Here I am having my sixth meal from the batch Eda and I had on Saturday -- though technically, it was two hotpots, since we had Sichuan and satay, so there was plenty of leftover broth, but I haven't yet had to add any water. Best of all, though, is that it's so easy. Get home, turn on the gas, wait for the pot to heat up, and add whatever I want to eat. So far I've had in it, at various times and in various combinations: tofu, mushrooms, Chinese cabbage, beef balls, fish balls, shrimp balls, pork, lamb, noodles, pea shoots, broccoli, Chinese broccoli, komatsu, and some other Chinese greens.

God, tofu is amazing. Whoever invented it deserves a medal.

I've determined that before the end of the year, I'll have "visited" more than 100 cities, according to Travelpod. At the moment, I'm at 94, but once I finish writing about B1's visit to Japan, that'll have added another three, and my trip to Provence will mean another five. Still only 16 countries, though! Technically, I've been in 24 different countries. However, Finland really doesn't count (two-hour layover), Belgium doesn't really either (I took a train through it, though I walked from one train station to another, which took half an hour, so at least I touched the ground?), and I was in the U.K. (London) for under 24 hours. Of the other countries, Switzerland will be included in not too long, I hope, and the others are from over seven years ago, so I may never get around to posting about them there. Although, I guess I could make another travelogue and just group them there. I can copy-paste from lj for my first trip to Europe and my trip to Vietnam, after all. *ponders*

Last night's ballet class was good but as usual, mostly getting the small jumps (which I normally suck at) meant that I totally failed at something I usually do okay on, in this case the bigger jumps. I'm sore today, but in a good way, like I can feel all my muscles. It's kind of disturbing that my reaction to this is, "Yes! Develop more muscles!" But I don't want to see them, I just want them to be there and allow me to do cool moves!

I put up my little Christmas tree last week, as well as Christmas lights in my window, and it makes me feel all warm and cozy. These days, I'm spending lots of time fantasizing about my trip back home, mostly about all the food I'm going to eat, and the snow. Snow... And cheese. I just had a brilliant idea, which is to take my family out to Meule et caquelon. They serve Swiss-style raclette, which is basically just heating up a huge block of cheese and drowning bread, potatoes, and whatever else you want in it. It's incredible. They also have regular cheese fondue, and other fondues, but who cares about those? It's all about the cheese.

It's not even nine and I feel like going to bed already. Bloh. *lame*