This week I'm going to show you two food puzzles from Japan. I collect both twisty puzzles and food puzzles and this is the best of both worlds. It's a standard Megahouse 3x3x3 puzzle, but is unique in that it is a favorite noodle in the shape of a puzzle. I first purchased the first one from a re-seller on FaceBook and ended up paying 3 times the cost. I should have known better. Live and learn. The second I got directly from Amazon. There are both the Green Tanukyubu and the Red Kitsune Udon available. Even better, Amazon.co.jp ships internationally. Both are so realistic looking in the packaging I had a dream last night about eating them. Darn it all, I woke up craving noodles today. They even come with the instructions in a 'seasoning packet'. How fun is that? With shipping, they are only $58 for the two. Not too bad if you ask me.
Last weekend in the States was Memorial Day Weekend. A three day holiday for most. The club has a "no laborers" rule for national holidays and George and I found ourselves with three free days! Now I know we are retired and you are probably thinking all days are free, but you are wrong. With the Museum build, we've been non-stop busy and have been unable to do much of anything that we really want to do.
I supervise and cook for all of the workers. George has been busy building shelves (he is now busy installing glass shelves into those shelves). With his cataracts surgery these past two weeks, we've barely had any time to do what we want to do. I've not put together a crystal puzzle in weeks and his new puzzle backlog is disgraceful. I won't show you a photo of the bar area that has all the puzzles that need cataloging on it. That is my great shame. I've separated a large number of puzzles from the boxes and will be in need of help identifying them. I'm so used to tossing the boxes (from living in HK) that I forgot I needed to know what I have. In fairness though, I never thought that we would be housing a puzzle museum. Now I need to know all of what we have. Please bear with me when I ask for help in identifying these forgotten beauties.
Well, this weekend gave me some time to remedy some of these little problems. A while back I purchased a new light box from Amazon and a camera just to photograph puzzles with. I'm not a professional by any means and really didn't/don't know what I'm doing but George is pleased with the results now. First I add the acquisition number, then I enter any information I have about the puzzle on a spreadsheet. Photos are taken and then entered into a separate folder. At a later date, George will combine all of this information and enter it into an online database for all to see.
On to the museum build. Well, the day has come. We are ready. I now have handed the work crew the punch list. They are going through all of the shelving units and drilling the holes where the glass shelves will be mounted. The roof needs to be placed on the outdoor shed and the pool needs resurfacing. But that is just cosmetic stuff that won't hinder the installation of puzzles. We are ready to go. Just waiting on them to arrive any day now. A video of the mostly completed museum can be found on my youtube channel.
