Green Peanut & You

Today I bought what I thought were wasabi green peas and rushed home to eat them.

I was excited about the prospect of eating wasabi peas as I hadn't had any for about two and half months.

I stopped eating them due to developing an MSG-related addiction. (I found myself eating a packet everytime I was at work and going crazy-paranoid about people stealing my green peas, accusing them with rolling eyes and wasabi-salted breath. The MSG was addling my brain.)

However, today's peas were not wasabi green peas. They didn't taste like wasabi peas, in fact, they tasted like nothing. They were "Green Peanut & You". On the back of the packet was written: "Our company had researched the flavor with mustard technology for many years and selected the irish pea that being with the piquante feeling like to eat "wasami" The products is adopted Japen natural material,that is the favor of vegetarian."

I want me some of that mustard technology.

If I was a super hero I would be "Sarah-with-the-power-of-mustard-technology". I would leap buildings in a single bound in order to get some of those wasabi peas.

I really want wasabi peas, Monteiths Original and Oriental Parade in the summer with Fran. Swimming out to the raft and back again with three beers inside of me so that I don't mind fondling the jellyfish as I swim. Walking home from Oriental Parade via Deluxe or Parade Cafe for soy chai. 

I'm going to miss Deluxe. And Oriental Parade. And FRAN. And Monteiths beer. But I'm not going to miss the jellyfish overmuch.

They look and feel like silicon breast implants floating in the water - as though a plastic surgery delivery ship went down somewhere in the Cook Strait.

There'll be plenty of jellyfish in Australia. Box Jellyfish. Not as friendly as our beautiful little silicon-breast-implantesque locals...

 From my Lonely Planet Australia:

There have been numerous fatal encounters between swimmers and these large jellyfish on the northern coast. Also known as the sea wasp or 'stinger', their venomous tentacles can grow up to 3m long. You can be stung during any month, but the worst time is from November to the end of April when you should stay out of the water unless you're wearing protective clothing such as a 'stinger suit', available from swimwear and sporting shops in the stinger zone.

The box jellyfish has an incredibly potent sting and has been known to cause fatalities. Warning signs exist at affected beaches and stinger nets are in place at the more popular beaches... If you are stung, first aid consists of washing the skin with vinegar to prevent further discharge of remaining stinging cells, followed by rapid transfer to a hospital; antivenin is widely available.