Japaniventures and..stuff...

Ambiguous Paris

2010-07-10T03:48:00.000-07:00

Bonjour folks!

We just got back and boy are our KNEES tired. Yes, knees.

After walking about for over 8 hours for 8 full days, we've returned with severe jet lag, a sunburn (it was hella sunny ALL WEEK!) and sore knees.
So here I am, half asleep, sitting indian style in attempt to share with you our experiences in gay Paree.

I haftu warn ya, this will be long...

If I haven't scared you away yet, I suggest you get comfortable :)

OK, here goes:

Because it is part of the whole experience, I MUST tell you about our commute...

It was HORRIBLE.
Our route was as follows: Fukuoka --> Tokyo --> Switzerland --> Paris.

Crap Luck #1: The whole disaster started at the ANA ticket counter in Fukuoka. The lady told us that we needed to grab our baggage in Switzerland. We thought that was weird since it should transfer over to Paris. So we asked her 2 more times, "Are you SURE Switzerland?" She confirmed twice without an inkling of doubt. "Ooookay," we thought and onward we went.

Crap Luck #2 came when our first flight departed an hour late. The layover we had planned in Tokyo was about 1 hour and 1o minutes -Not good. When we landed in Tokyo, there was already a Swiss Air lady waiting for us right as we got off the plane. She told us we needed to hurry since our next flight was already boarding! And so, with heavy carry-on bags, we ran. We sped thru customs, then sped to our gate. Still in doubt about our luggage, I managed to squeeze in a quick question with our escort. She also confirmed that we needed to get our baggage in Switzerland. Ooookay!

Crap Luck #3 We land in Switzerland and we run...again. We make it to baggage claim. Baggage not there. No one wants to help us. FINALLY, two workers are nice enough to help. They look at our tickets and say that the wording is weird, but they state that our baggage was heading directly to Paris. WTF. Too Late, we miss our flight.

Crap Luck #4: The lady at the Swiss Air customer service counter was not sympathetic. We asked to speak to her manager. The manager was worse! She was a total a$$hole. We had no choice but to pay $450 to catch the next flight.

Crap Luck #5: The wonderful folks at Paris airport's air traffic control decided to go on strike. Our flight was delayed by 5 hours.

Crap Luck #6: Finally reaching Paris, our baggage was nowhere to be found. And at 10 p.m., all offices were closed...so there was NO ONE there to help us. We go to our hotel, luggageless.

Crap Luck #7: From our hotel the next morning, we call the airport baggage claim office. The lady answering responds so quickly (as tho she didn't even bother checking for our stuff) saying that our luggage was not there. She then tells us that we need to go there personally to fill out a baggage claim form. Wait, you're saying we have to go all the way over there just to fill out a piece of paper? You can't fax it? email it? Nope. And so, the disgruntled Matsuos take a 1 hour metro ride back to the airport.

Once with got to the office, there we saw, sitting plain as day, next to the counter, our luggage. Wow, lady-on-the-phone, you mean you could have just turned ur head to the left to see our stuff? Thanks a lot.

As annoyed as we were that we lost a day, we were SO glad we got our luggage back. With our stuff safely back in our hotel room, we could finally start our vacation!

Places: Where Are We? (A couple of mentionables...)

Bike About Tours.
We didn't want to take just the typical bus tour so we signed up for a bike tour. There are a couple bike tours in Paris, but I went with this one just cause it got the highest rating on tripadvisor.com. It was a good decision. Our tour guide Pamela, a gal originally from Brazil was SO much fun. You could tell she really loved Paris. Not only did she give us the skinny on the basic history about places, but she threw in a ton of funny and useful info too! Another cool thing was that she showed us stuff that only the locals knew about.

Chateu de Versailles.
Better known as the estate of Marie Antoinette, this place was ridiculous. The grandness of it was, for lack of better words, over-the-top! If not for the spacious rooms with high ceilings, the larger-than-life old paintings, the numerous giant crystal chadeliers or the decadent guilded sculptures of the palace, it was the garden that was the star of the show. This garden is ENORMOUS! Even with my new eagle eyes, I could just barely see the end of the garden from the palace! The map we received stated that it would take an hour on foot to walk to the end.

Montparnasse Tower
It's just a simple, sleek, high tower with mirrored sides. The only thing this tower had going for it was the fact that it was the second-to-the-tallest structure in Paris. Pamela told us that most Parisians actually hate the look of the Eiffel tower but hate the Montparnasse tower even more. They say that the Montparnasse is the ugly box in which the Eiffel tower came in. (even tho the eiffel is taller) Haha. In any case it was then that we decided that we needed to go up the Monparnasse instead of the Eiffel. This way, all our cityscape shots will have the Eiffel Tower innit!

Eiffel Tower:
I wasn't even interested in the Eiffel Tower before we got there. But my co's raved on and on about how wonderful it was when they visited! To me, visiting it sounded too cliche. I expected to feel nonchalant about it, since I had already seen the Tokyo Tower and was not at all impressed. But here we were, at the top of Montparnasse tower, watching the sun come down on the left side of the Eiffel. "It certainly DOES stand out..." I thought to myself as Daniel excitedly snapped away on his camera. When the sun was finally gone and the dark came, the Eiffel lit up. "Yah. yah, I GUESS it's kinda nice..." I then thought. Daniel still snapping away,..trying to find the right camera setting to capture it. At that point, everyone was waiting. It was known that the tower would sparkle/shimmer every so often, but no one knew for sure when. Was it every 15 minutes? Every half hour? Every hour? Every 2 hours? Oh man, do I have the patience to find out? After about 58 minutes, I was unbearably cold from the whipping winds, and Daniel was done taking pictures. We decided to go. But as we gathered our things, it happened... The Eiffel sparkled. There was a relatively loud, audible gasp from all the people around us when it happened, followed by many camera clicks -much of them added to by Daniel. The tower look like it was covered with millions of blinking fireflies. It was then, that I finally changed my tune and thought, "Uaaaaau,.. that's awesome."

Basilique de Sacre Coeur
A Roman Catholic church in Montmartre. This place is awesome for three reasons. The view, the people and the crypt. Since this church sits on a hill top, the view of the city is amazing. Imagine, if you will: A bright clear day, an ice cold drink, sitting on a massive set of stairs watching musicians and breakdancers perform -using the fabulous view of the city as their backdrop! What's not to love? We didn't find that kind of excitement on the Eiffel or Montparnasse towers! The other cool thing there was the crypt. Dark, chilly, mysterious and just downright creepy, it was a neat contrast to the fun energy outside.

The Louvre
Ah yes, the one place that we just HAD TO visit. Given what I do for a living, I felt it was my artistic resposibility to visit this place. The Louvre houses numerous works of historical and influential art. As we entered thru the main entrance (the giant glass pyramid in the middle) I felt overwhelmed. What did I want to see? What did I NEED to see? Should I see it all? No no, that would be unreasonable, since people have told me that it takes several days to look thru the Louvre in it's entirety. But here's what unexpectedly happened: After walking through one very large section, I, shamefully, got bored. Of course, Daniel wasn't too thrilled about being in there to begin with so running thru it quick wasn't an issue. So what DID we end up seeing? We saw what pretty much every tourist came in to see: the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. I did get a nice surprise when we stumbled across the Nike of Samothrace scupture -one of the few things I actually remembered learning about in Art History 101. I then wondered if Boticelli's Birth of Venus painting was around somewhere. You know, the painting used to brand Adobe Illustrator? Unfortunately, that painting resides in Florence, Italy. Boo.

Dinner Cruise on the Siene
Nearly a month before we got to Paris, I made reservations for a fancy dinner cruise. Since it was pretty darn expensive, I did a lot of research on reviews to find the perfect one. I finally settled on Bateux Parisiens. When we got to Paris, we discovered just how many different cruise ships there really were -a lot. I started thinking that maybe I might have overpaid and shouldve waited till we got to Paris. Turns out it was one of the best things we did. We hoped on a beautiful, one level boat surrounded entirely by glass windows. The inside had a classy but simple feel to it with its white and light gray tableware. Our very attentive waiter made us feel "upper crust" as he served us our fancy food (that actually tasted as good as it looked) and constantly refilled our champagne glasses. There was even a Parisian band aboard that played french and american music. At one moment, the female singer sang a beautiful french song with only a violin accompanying her ethereal voice. Then, in the next moment the band was playing a cover of the BeeGees' "You Should be Dancing" (that one was pretty giggle worthy) All those things wrapped beautifully in a three hour package added up to: Totally worth every penny.

Food: What We Eatin'?

Chez Jean
A small, cafe/deli/shop just down the block from our hotel in Republique. This place gets first mention because they had a salad so killer that we went there like 4 times during our entire stay. Two out of 4 times we went, they had run out of the "Gina." The Gina is a gorgeous salad composed of lettuce, grilled eggplant, grilled chicken, sundried tomatoes and fresh mozzerella cheese, drizzled with pesto-oil-balsamic vinegar dressing. And it was big! And it only cost about 6 bucks. One time, there was only one left and Daniel and I had to fight to see who could have it. It was a draw -so we ended up sharing like civilized people. But even when we shared we'd growl at eachother a little -accusing the other of eating more than his/her share of the eggplant, mozzerella, etc. No joke, that amazing salad had to be split EXACTLY down the middle! :O

Meat
At a little grocery store near our hotel, Monop, sold various cured meats. They all looked rather disgusting, but Daniel, being the carnivore he is, had to try one. He settled on a little log of Salami. MAN, as soon as he opened that package, the smell that emerged was pure death! It reminded me of the mouse that trapped itself in the wall of our house ...and died. Being a good sport, I sampled a little, and it did actually taste pretty good, but the smell was sonasty that I lost my appetite for more. Daniel managed to enjoy about half of it, until the smell finally got to him too and the thing had to go. Even after tossing it out, the fridge still held onto that smell all the way till the day we left. Eww, perhaps we should have left more tip for the maids ;)

Pain du chocolat
Basically a flaky croissant with warm gooey chocolate in the middle. This thing is DAMN good. But not all pain du chocolats are created equal! The first place we went to have it was at a bakery recommended by the folks at Bike About Tours. Theirs was the best. The other ones we had fell between the categories of "so-so" to just plain "bleh."

Le Poissons
One night, we went to a upscale restaurant specializing in le poissons (fish). Our charismatic waiter who spoke his english in such a flamboyant manner, gave us good recommendations. Both Daniel and I were super happy with what we got -SO GOOD! My dish was a white sole fish with kind of a lemon/butter sauce. It reminded me of my favorite dish at L'Uraku in Hawaii (which is now no longer -so sad.) Daniel's fish was of a salt-crusted, baked assortment that kinda reminded me of hibachi-baked Uhu we made at camping trips.

Well folks, I think this is where I'll stop.

Now it's back to life in little Sasebo. As we reflect on our trip, we both came to an agreement: That even with all the new and amazing things we saw, ate and experienced, it sure didn't beat our home in Japan,...and Hawaii :) Love you guys!

Till next time, Au revoir!
-mag

ps. Pix are up on my Facebook page :)

my papa.

2010-03-17T02:55:00.000-07:00

I started this blog with the intention of keeping family and friends posted on adventures I've had since I left HI for the motherland.

This particular update, tho not quite an adventure, is still an experience I'll remember forever.

For days now, I have debated on sharing this because it's not about silly, fun things like dancing, eating or seeing new places. It's about something far more personal. Anywho, before I change my mind, I'll just go ahead and write this up and hope it was the right thing to do...

For the past year or so, pops has been in and out of the hospital. He's been fighting liver and kidney disease for a very long time. Its so strange tho, how subtle changes are when you see someone often. Just 3 years ago, when I was still livin' in HI, I saw dad quite a bit. To me, he's looked the same since 5 years previous. But after I moved to Japan, every visit back home made me a little sad. Pops looked weaker and thinner on every visit. Tho every week, on the phone, my parents sounded the same. "Oh, nothing new going on, and everyone is genki," mom would say.

But last year, pops was in and out of the hospital every couple of months. He'd usually stay there for one night, then be allowed to go home the very next day. It was always the day they got home, that mom would call to tell me what happened. It would get so upset when she did that.

I understand that my parents never wanted me to worry about them and would feel bad if I flew home out of concern, but in November when I last visited, I discovered how severe dad's condition was. For reasons unknown, pops decided not to take his medication for just 2 days. On the third day, we had to rush him to emergency. The experience at the hospital was a nightmare. They took forever to give him the treatment he needed -even after the doc told me straight up, that if he didn't get treatment right away, he'd likely die that night. I panicked. After pestering and urging them every 10 minutes for nearly 4 hours, they finally administered his treatment.

Shortly after that, pops said he never wanted to go back to the hospital -no matter what. I can't say I blame him.

After that incident, I made mom promise to keep me updated on the TRUE condition of dad after I flew back home.

She was true to her word. She called me shortly after the new year to make a "suggestion." She suggested I fly home again soon to spend some time with dad before his condition possibly worsens. Dad's foot had developed a large wound and he was now bedridden. Mom had taken the new role of full-time caregiver. There was stress in her voice. She sounded overwhelmed.

I hopped on a plane the very next day to see if I could help.

I didn't realize how bad things were until I got there. Dad didn't just have a foot injury, he was much weaker physically. His disease had grown angrier since I last saw him just two months previous. But this didn't stop my parents. I came to see the wonderful dynamic between the two of them. Not only did they manage to keep their sense of humor thru this rough time, there were also moments of sweetness. I admired the strength of their relationship. Mom was supremely dedicated and dad was totally determined. They had their heart set to treated this "bed-ridden thing" as just a temporary set back. But, as dedicated as mom was, she just wasn't physically able to fully care for dad on her own.

I then decided, that for the duration of my visit, I would get a system in place to help my parents get thru this "temporary set back." I would get caregiver support for my mom. I would get my parents on a smooth routine. I would get them the supplies they needed. I would establish an open communication with dad's doctor, the home-visit nurse and nurse-aid. And the hardest task: get the rest of the family involved.

Please don't get the wrong idea of my family! The "hard part" was me ASKING them. It's just that...when I look back and try to recall on any contributions I've made to my family, during their times of need -I draw a blank. It's shameful.

It took me a couple days to gather the guts to call them. But when I finally did, without question, everyone was on-board to help. I found myself completely humbled and grateful.

Family and friends were always around to bring us food, help dad move, give good advice, or just keep us company. I really can't thank them enough. I also saw a new side to my mom. I have so much more respect and admiration for her now.

With everyone's help, the system I envisioned was finally coming together. I started to feel a sense of ease, that things would be okay when I flew back to Japan. However, despite all our efforts, papa's time was up and he passed away on the last day of January.

It's been nearly 2 months since we lost him and still I find something each day that reminds me of him. Pops had such an amusing awareness of the world. He told me about the pink dolphins of the Amazon River (no believe? google it!) and the mysterious lake discovered UNDER the sea (http://atlasobscura.com/place/undersea-brine-lake). He'd even notice the most subtle of things, like that one crazy (different) little whisker growing out of his cat, Meechan's cheek.

In the three short weeks I got to spend with pops, I lapsed thru so many different emotions. Amongst the sadness, frustration, fear and just plain exhaustion, what I felt most at the end was thankful. Thankful that I had that time with him. I think of the times I quizzed him on random things to keep his mind sharp. I think of the times dad teased mom to loosen her up. I think of his laid back demeanor. I think of his genuine smile. And I remember the moment he finally responded to my "I love you Dad," with a "I love you too."
A lot of people don't get that chance. I consider myself extrememly lucky.

I miss him so much.

Thanks for reading.

Yosakoi Matsuri 2009

2009-11-13T04:25:00.000-08:00

Since November of last year, I have been learning Yosakoi. If you ask Wikipedia what Yosakoi is, it will say:

Yosakoi (よさこい) is a unique style of dance that originated in Japan. Yosakoi started in the city of Kōchi in 1954, as a modern rendition of Awa Odori, a traditional summer dance. Yosakoi-style dancing has spread throughout much of Japan. The style of dance is highly energetic, combining traditional Japanese dance movements with modern music.

But if you ask me, I say that it's a combination of Bon dance and Karate! So many times while dancing I recognize the nearly identical movements I've learned in Karate. Of course, in Yosakoi, you gotta do 'em bigger and with a great big smile!... the more exaggerated, the better!

Every year in October, Sasebo hosts a big Yosakoi Festival (matsuri). This year, 158 teams from all over Japan (even as far as Hokkaido) came to compete/perform at this event.
So this year, instead of being a spectator, I got to be spectated! (is that even a word?)
Over the year, even if I was a newbie, I got to perform all over Kyushu. But when I watched my debut dance on video I totally cringed. I really stuck out -not just because I'm freakin' huge, but moreso because my movement lacked the amout of flavor my senior team mates showcased!

In June, we started learning the dance that we were going to use compete in the big Matsuri. I was determined to do my best and brew the "flavor" I admired so much. I soon realized that I DO have to put extra effort BECAUSE I am gojira.

As one of the tallest members of my team, all my low movements had to be modified to EXTRA low to align with the shawties in the front. It was pretty hard, but I wasn't about to slack off and let my team down!

Originally, we practiced once a week, but as soon as August came, it increased to twice a week,... then three times,.. then, on the final week, we practiced everyday. Weeks and weeks of sweat, blisters and body aches, and here we finally were, at the big event.

The event spanned over 3 days. We were scheduled to dance 21 times this weekend. Within these 21 dances, the 9th one was the doozie -it was the one to be judged.

The Matsuri was crazy. So many people came out to watch! Even tho we danced all over Sasebo, Nakiri park was where the main event was focused. And I remember standing and lookin at that stage before our first dance that Friday and feeling so unreal. I couldn't believe that I was going to be a part of this..AND with the awesomest team on the planet! ;)

The weather was nice and sunny so we sweated a LOT. The first 8 dances were wearing us down a bit but we knew we had to muster all our strength for the next dance cause that was the BIG one. We were all pretty quiet as we walked over to the judges' gymnasium. It was pretty intimidating. A huge gym with a stage. A long table spanned the entire stage with 10 judges sitting behind it. They all looked so serious!...and here we were with big smiles on our faces hoping they couldn't see thru them.

It started terribly. The music bounced around this huge gymnasium causing it to echo and it threw off our timing. Thankfully, within the first 3 seconds (which felt like forever), we got it together and finished strong.

After that it was all fun and games and we danced with reckless abandon and laughed it off when we made mistakes.

On Sunday it was the same thing, we focused our dance around high energy and fun rather than technique and perfection...the judging was over so now it was just time to make most of the event. But right around 3 p.m. we got anxious. At 3:30 the judges were scheduled to send each team leader a text msg list of 20 teams that made it to the finals. We sat quietly and hoped for the best.

It was now 3:30 and no text message. Then it was 3:40...still no message. Our next dance was scheduled at 4 and we all started to get antsy. Mako-chan started saying (in japanese) "Oh man, if we DON'T make it to the finals I'm going to cry!" then one of the kids asked her what she would do if we DID make it to the finals and she replied "Oh I will cry if we DO make it to the finals!" ..Whaaaat?! So with my limited japanese speakies, how am I supposed to know if we made it?!

Then the text message came and Tottchan read it carefully. We all gathered tightly around him, waiting for him to give u the news. He then started with the words: "Gomenasai minna (I'm sorry everyone)...[insert a bunch of big japanese words]..."

Mako cried out and threw her face in Maiko's arms. Oh man...soooo we didn't make it?

I looked around and a bunch of other girls were crying...dammit.

Then Yui-chan tapped me on the shoulder with teary eyes, smiling and said "Yokkatta ne! Fainaru haita! (Isn't it great? We're in the finals!)"

EEEEEEEEE!!!! So what the heck's everyone cryin' for?! Right then it occurred to me how hard everyone worked for and how bad they all wanted this. That's when MY eyes started to water. Oh my gawd,.. I'm crying.

Now we are back in game mode and we want to win this! Apparently the word spread quick cause by our 4 o'clock performance, the announcer knew what was up and introduced us as one of the finalists!

After that we are summoned to Nakiri park to dance in the finals. We line up with 19 other teams. Although there are about 14 teams in front of us, the line moves quickly and next thing we know, we're two teams away! And then it starts raining. The dance floor starts to shimmer, reflecting the stage lights...uh oh, wet stage =Bad. Then we are up. If there was a time to go fo' broke, this was it. I danced till my limbs caught fire, shouted till my voice cracked and smiled till my lips fused on to my teeth -so sexy! ...and then it was over. It was all up to the judges now...

Okay, I'll skip the suspense and tell you guys that we DIDN'T make it to the top 10. Yes, we were all pretty heartbroken, but we got over it relatively quickly and replaced it with feeling grateful for even making it to the finals. After that, we moseyed our worn-out selves to Yuusuke's (a team member) bar where we ate, drank and got hella merry :)

Speaking of merry, hope u all have a festive Thanksgiving!

Thanks for readin'!
Much aRoha

-Me

Love Hotels

2009-09-26T02:38:00.000-07:00

Yes. Love Hotels.

Smaller than your typical hotel, they usually have a fun/silly/blatant sexual theme to their name and you can pay two ways: per night, or per hour.

Living here I have always been fascinated by them. The sheer amount they have here is worth questioning why we have them. At first assumption, I guessed that in Japan, men are seen as the dominant sex, so having extramarital relations was to be expected-hence the need for these love hotels.

The thought made me somewhat angry -thinking: Why would a country allow these types of places to be built? It's like they were condoning, nay SUPPORTING infidelity! What the f#ck right? (Yes, sometimes I let my imaginations and assumptions go too far.)

Anywho, I needed to know the story behind these.

Without looking it up on the net, we consulted a credible japanese local, Eriko. This bubbly Sasebo-ian runs a local japanese radio show AND volunteers to guide various base tours. Her engrish is amazing..and she is hilarious! Anywho, she explains Love Hotels as such:

Long time ago, (not THAT long ago) an arranged marriage was the norm. Because of this, many people could not be with the one they truely LOVEd. And with that, LOVE Hotels were created. But nowadays, a lot of monagamous and even married couples take advantage of these hotels. In Sasebo, it is not uncommon for more than one generation to live under one small roof. Most homes in Sasebo are pretty small and some couples just need some privacy without mom, dad, gramps or grammy walking in! :O

Here are my two favorite Love Hotel signs. I wonder if Disney knows about Ariel's secret life. Be sure to click on the big one to get a good look at the little cartoon in the top right corner. The street sign in front of it is covering the name -it's called "Banado"

Little Islands with Big Character

2009-08-09T19:52:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, Sorry it's been a while. Things have been pretty busy with the increase of yosakoi practice -gotta kick ass for the competition in October!

However, I was able to squeeze in 2 weekend-long trips to 2 different islands since my last post!

The first one was to Goto Island. A little island that lives just a 3-hour ferry ride away. I went with a small group of Yosakoi teamsters. On this weekend, Goto Island was having their big annual summer dance festival. They invited us to perform and we happily accepted.

The 3-hour ferry ride was pretty cool. One whole floor of the ship was just carpeted flooring and people just set up picnic and lounged on the carpet. For the first hour, I dazzled everyone with my "american" card tricks and games. Then they taught me some of their card games. That was cool... But then, I busted out my travel-version of Connect Four and whooowee -party time!

We got to Goto Island around 11. As soon as we got there, we were packed into a tiny bus and caravaned to a little house that had only one very big carpeted room, one small room (where the ladies changed into their costumes) and a bathroom. We stayed here for a little over an hour to relax, eat and drink [apparently, with my team, it's never too early to crack open a can of booze]

After relaxing way longer than we should've, we rushed to get ready and headed over to make our first performance for the festival. The festival area was tiny. I'd say it's only about half the size of tamarind park. But the food booths sold cheap food and booze so we were happy! We were scheduled to dance 3 times. I tell ya, it was incredibly hot out, hotter than I have ever experienced -EVER, and so naturally I drank a little more than I should have. The first 2 dances were only about an hour apart...but the last one was scheduled a couple hours later after sundown. So by the time we were up for our final performance, I was pretty toasted. Both from the sun and about 6 chu-his :\

10 minutes till show time, I started getting paranoid: "What if I forget what to do? Oh no! (I run thru the motions...) What comes after this move? Izzit this move? No no no - izzit this? Oh wait, that can't be right...Ohhhh No."

Then we were up. I was in the front row, trying my best to smile -genuinely. Scanning the crowd, I unfortunately locked my sights on the guy holding the video camera. Oh crap. I hate video cameras. What izzit about vid cams that make me feel uneasy? And then the stupid camera's tiny, all-seeing, never-blinking, wretched red eye turns on... and a split second later, our music starts.

...go go go!...

Narukos flailing, legs kicking, fans twirling, the whole thing was a blur...and then, it was over. We graciously bowed, and the audience applauds. *whew*

I'm pretty sure that whatever I did up there looked REALLY messy, but I survived it! More importantly, I learned a very valuable lesson about booze control.

The festival ended shortly after. They closed it with a "charming" fireworks show (and by charming, I mean ONE poof at a time.) After that we walked to the nearest grocery store to grab more food and booze (which I did NOT partake of) then relocated to a creepy old japanese house to spend the night. That japanese house was really something! The room we stayed in was really musty, with worn-in tatami floors and discolored shoji doors. The fold-out tables there reminded me of the ones I saw my grandparents use in front of the t.v. when I was little. Oh, and the t.v. changed channels on it's own! CrEeEePy! :O

The next day we headed to the beach. I however, did not pack a swimsuit. I suppose in all the excitement, no one remembered to tell the American to bring one! Waah :(

But that's okay, pajamas will work -That felt weird tho. But it was pretty worth it! Even tho the beach was pretty crowded, the place was beautiful! And the water was SUPER clear. Even in waist-deep water, I was able to clearly spot little schools of fish darting by and a little starfish resting on the sandy bottom :)

After swimming, we had a awesome BBQ. There was so much food! But since we had the bbq out in the open with no shade, we got burnt up something awful! We realized how bad our burns really were when during the ferry ride back, everyone tried to nap on the carpeted floor but were all too sore to lie down!

Iki Island was the 2nd Island I visited. This time Daniel came with -along with a tour group of 30 base folks. Thankfully the families that came had very well behaved kids -so no screaming and fighting during bus and ferry rides! yay!

This tour revolved around Nishiki beach: a beautiful little beach about the size of Makapuu -maybe smaller. As soon as we got there we were in the water. The waters were as clean at Goto Island's beach! But better yet, it wasn't crowded at all so it almost felt like you were at a special exclusive place.

There was one food joint there: Cafe Hawaii. hehe. They even had Spam musubis and Loco Moco! We HAD to try those. The Spam musubi was a big ball of rice with a thin spam on the top with a little strip of nori around it. Much to our surprise, when Daniel first bit into it, there was also a pretty sizable strip of takuan hiding under the spam. It was actually pretty tasty! We might have to do that next time we make 'em!

The Loco Moco was good but strange. Much like the real thing, it had rice, egg and a hamburger patty... But it also had red pickled daikon, lettuce and instead of gravy: tonkatsu sauce? Whaaaa? I gotta admit, it tasted pretty good..but Loco Moco it was not!

The sun was BLAZING out and we kicked ourselves for forgetting to pack the sun block. We got really burnt up. Daniel moreso than me. When it was time to leave Daniel had transformed into a boiled lobster and I looked like I had a make out session with strawberry jello (only my face was red. hotness.) [Note: the beach shot u see here is of the following day -it was overcast.]

As soon as we hit the hotel we got ready to go out and explore the town. More importantly, to get something to eat and find a nice little bar to chill out afterwards. Less than half a block from our hotel we saw something amazing. At this very moment, we both knew we HAD TO go back to the hotel and get the camera.

We went back, grabbed the camera and quickly shuffled our feet to get back to our crazy discovery...There it was, a shrine housing a giant, 8ft tall weenie -carved out of wood (with great attention to detail) and varnished for extra glamour!

Looking inside, you get to pray to a small room full of various "accoutrements" and a giant one-eyed monster taking aim at you from the upper right corner of the room! Oh my!

We both assumed this was somekind of fertility shrine and left it at that. As we left, we spotted a bright and happy bar sign that read: Girls Bar BITCH. What the heck IS this place?!

Thoroughly amused, we took some pictures and were off to find a place to eat.

Everywhere u looked, there were signs for Uni (sea urchin). We guessed it was in season, or that Iki Island was popular for it. We've tried uni before and it tasted absolutely awful...like how paint would taste. So with no interest in eating paint, we passed on all the restaurants with the big signs promoting uni. After walking for about 10 minutes, and seeing so many uni signs, we had to wonder: Why would anything that awful tasting be that popular?

Daniel recalled a co-worker telling him that he had to try the fresh stuff. He said that if we got it fresh from a specialized place (like Iki Island) it was guaranteed to be totally different from any we have tried here in Sasebo. With that thought, we started to get curious. We ended up at the sushi restaurant, Torou, as recommended by the hotel concierge. It was a cute little family-run place. The papa was the sushi chef. He was a cool, no fuss kind of guy. He basically said "So whattaya want? ...you look like you're not sure,..mori awase is what you want, it has a variety of sashimi....1000yen, mori awase, yes?" I liked his style. Immediately I felt like he was a distant relative. We accepted his offer and he got right to it...the Mori Awase was FANTASTIC.

And then we saw the little sign for uni posted on the wall behind him. We looked at eachother and decided, "yes, let's try it." We ordered a small portion -just to try. It had a reasonable price tag onnit too: 1000yen for a small plate. It was about 1/3 cup of uni. There it sat infront of us. These little golden yellow slug-shaped things. Loading our chopsticks with a big one, I watched Daniel eat it first. "Oh, hey, it's pretty good," he said.

I popped one on my mouth... NO WAY,...it WAS good! It had a light, salty-sweet miso-like flavor. Wow. We cleaned it up within seconds :)

After having our fill of sushi, uni, beer (for him) and chu-his (for me), we thanked the family, payed our tab and were off to the next spot -Girls Bar BITCH.

On the way there, we made a quick stop to the 24hr omiyage shop. We came away with Hello Kitty brand, uni-flavored crackers and a couple of penis & va-j-j lollipops. Our friends, who kindly offered to watch the fuzzy kids are sure to love them!

I wondered if this place was exclusively for girls....or fellas... but when we went in, 4 cheerful 20-something year old girls greeted us in. I asked if it was okay that Daniel came in -they said "Hai hai!" Then I asked if it was okay if I came in and they said "Hai Mochiron!" (of course)

Despite the misleading bar name, this place was pretty classy! Small, but really well designed and CLEAN. On one side, a big flat screen t.v. playing popular american hip hop music vids and two large tanks: one with a giant arowana, the other with a mini python! The other side had a brand new dart boart game. The tables had these cute little glass vases with what looked like decorative twigs in them. One of the hostesses came up to me and tells me that I can eat the them. She grabs a twig and starts nibbling onnit. Whaaaat!? This girl is crazy. Laughing at my reaction, she kindly explains to me that this is a special snack the owner makes: Deep-fried spaghetti noodles. I pick one out and try it -YUM! And so, for the rest of the time there, I am chomping on these twigs, drinking umeshu and beating Daniel at darts -awww yeah!

After our time is up at GBB (it was a pay by hour: all-you-can-drink place)... we were in the mood for karaoke. The GBB girls said that there was only ONE karaoke place to go: USA Karaoke....What's with this town? It was just a couple of store fronts down so we decided to check it out. All they had were old, run down private karaoke rooms. We were lookin' more for a bar scene so we passed on USA K and popped into the cute little cafe next door: Cafe Marimo.

The lady running Cafe Marimo looked about my mom's age. She was so sweet. She recommended some fresh cake. I got a melon shortcake and Daniel got a chocolate roll cake. Both were light and lovely. Daniel even said that this might be a new thing for him: Having cake after drinks. As we enjoyed our cake, we started discussing how these places stay in business. Everywhere we went had little or no customers. I mean, this was a Saturday night! Where was everyone?! The only other customers at Cafe Marimo was a table of 5 mamasans gabbin' away. Moreso, it looked like they were friends of the owner. I mean, with such few customers, how do they pay the girls who work at GBB? ...Let alone the electricity to run the place! We were baffled. And with that, we decided to call it a night.

The next day we visited Monkey Rock. It's basically a giant rock on the edge of the island that's shaped like a gorilla. When our bus pulled up to the view point, we were all pretty darn amazed and how much it really DID look like a gorilla! It was a cool experience. The whole area around this rock was so peaceful and natural...like one of those Hayao Miyazaki landscape scenes.

After taking a bunch of pictures, we hopped back on the bus and spent the last hours of our mini-vacay back at the beach.

That's it for now guys! Happy Summer!

Duuude, I did WHAT?!

2009-05-27T04:52:00.000-07:00

Now many of you know that I was never into the whole jogging/running "phenomenon." At this point, I've lost count of how many people I have expressed to regarding my hatred of running. I'd say that the only time I'd run is if I was playing a game or being chased by a rabid dog...

With that said, I did the unthinkable...

On Saturday, May 23rd, I, the self proclaimed anti-runner, took part in Fukuoka's 12hr Relay Marathon.

But first, my training:

I had about one month to transform into a runner. For all you real runners, I'm sure you agree that this is a relatively unrealistic goal. Turning a person who HATES running into a marathon runner? Ridiculous!

But I was determined... Well, sorta.

One might ask WHY in the world would maggie sign up for such a thing?

Well I will answer you in 3 phrases:

1. 12hr ALL NIGHTER (Which means camping with a bunch of friends! =Fun!!! Which also leads me to the next two...)

2. Lots of Food!

3. Lots of Booze!

This was not an opportunity to be missed!

But even with my motive slightly askew from the rest, I did not want to be a useless team member, and so I ran. I ran 3 times a week (Yosakoi and Yoga filled the other 2 weekdays). It was tough. The first week's attempts were aweful. It was on the treadmill at the base gym. I was only able to run continuously for a max of 5 minutes. For three days it was 30 minutes of stop-and-go running. Not only was it difficult, it was rather shameful. On every trip to the gym, I'd encounter a few teammates in training -everyone of them running effortlessly on their 'mills like freakin' gazelles! Even Daniel runs with ease! Okay, I going to need to get more serious.

I have two co-workers that run. Sara, a seasoned runner (A fabulous girl from my hometown -who is also on our marathon team) and Fee, a born-again runner. They both agreed that finding the right breathing pattern with ur run makes all the difference.. Oh and the right music really helps too. With that, I cleared everything out of my ishuffle and refilled it with faster adrenaline pumping music. The next week, I foregoed the treadmill and decided to run on the track of the base park. In two warm-up laps, Daniel helped me figure out my most comfortable breathing pattern and speed. Three times around the field equalled a mile -I was only able to manage a single mile. But I gradually got better in the following weeks. I found that running was MUCH easier when I was plugged into a really good set of songs.

*pause*

[inserting tangent here]

I'd like to take a moment to make a "shout out" to Charlie of Kaiju Audio for sending his fabulous mix -Every other step that hit the ground synced perfectly with the beat -muchos mahalos!

[Aaaaand we're back.]

...So anyway I kept at it, eventually increasing my non-stop runnability to 2 miles...and then 3. Gir served as a great running partner. If I ran too slow, he would get distracted and start veering off the path. He was such a big help that I wished so bad that I could run with him in the marathon. Next thing you know, the marathon was upon us. Ohhh crap.

With 3 measly miles mentally noted in my portfolio, I was a bit worried. I didn't want to be "that" person. You know, the one everyone has to wait for... the one everyone secretly wishes wasn't on their team but is too nice to say! But I did design our team shirt -so at least I can say I was good for something!

Note: The shirts say SRF Hashiri Crew. Most of the guys are from Daniel's workplace -SRF (Ship Repair Facility). The fun part is the Hashiri Crew part. The kanji of it roughly translates to "Going mad from running." Yay!

Saturday, May 23rd, Noon. It was finally the day. 6 hours from now, we would be camping and competing against 50 other teams to see who would reign supreme. In 2 vans and 1 car, we packed 14 runners, 2 alternates, 1 chef (just a guy at daniel's work who likes to cook), 1 cheerleader (Our buddy Cary) and a team mascot (our Gir -we were so happy we could take him with us!) The runners were broken up into 3 groups arranged by time slot. Team A took the first and last 2 hours of the 12-hour marathon (a 6 p.m. - 6 a.m. affair). Team B (The team Daniel and I were in) went from 8 to midnight. Team C went from midnight to 3 a.m. I'd say it's pretty clear that my group had the most ideal time slot!

With all the stops we made on our drive, we ended up reaching the marathon site at 4. We quickly set up our tents and settled in. Our chef, Ishimarusan started up the fire and began cooking our first meal. The first runners however, quickly ate their packed musubis, rested for a bit to digest, then hopped to their feet to do a warm up run. 5:30 was the opening ceremony, and it was awesome. After a few minutes of incomprehensible speechery, a japanese-speaking Ronald McDonald saunters up on stage and leads us thru a wonderfully silly warm up stretch. I wouldve taken more pictures, had I not been joining in on the fun! And yes, I did find it a bit ironic that McDonalds was sponsoring this event.

And then it was 6, and the race/marathon had begun. My team had 2 hours to wait for our turn. We were anxious. But it was the hanging out and waiting at our camp site, that made me realize that this event was more serious than anticipated. With coolers chock full of beer, and chu-his, everyone opted for the water and gatorade. And with mouth-watering, perfectly seasoned baby back ribs sizzling on the grill, most people opted for small bites of chicken. Then after eating, some people went straight into their tents to rest up!

And then, when I was just getting used to the idea of chillin' out, we were a half hour away from our turn to run. I popped into the girl's tent and almost ritualistically prepared myself. I changed into my favorite track pants, slipped on a pair of extra cushiony new socks and put on each running shoe with great care and consideration. Then I put my hair up in the smoothest possible ponytail, strategically placing clips to hold down any strays. This took 3 tries.

The wind blew my ponytail as I stepped out of my tent -I felt ready.

This was our strategy: For 4 hours, the 4 out of 5 of us elected to run 2 laps around the course before tagging the next person. Since the course was one mile long -I elected to run once before tagging the next. Daniel was the 4th runner and I was the 5th.

The first run was going to be the deciding factor of whether or not I could really do this. I needed it to be good. I needed to stay motivated. I needed to pick the right song. I cheered and chatted while the first 3 runners ran their hearts out. When Daniel got tagged, I knew my turn was coming up soon, so I started shaking up my limbs, hopping in place and trying to warm up. The cold and windy weather did not help. I popped in my earbuds to find the right song. I settled on a classic: It's a Fine Day by Miss Jane. I pressed pause and waited.

Then, there was Daniel, about 40 feet away, approaching fast. I could feel my heart pounding. I quickly got in "transferral" position. Shouting at him to "Go Go Go!," I pressed play and started running as he ran up next to me and passed me the relay sash.

With sash thrown on, I focused on the run. I tried to pace myself, but the adrenaline made me run faster than I had been training. Much to my dismay, the first half of the course was at a 15 degree incline. I ain't gonna lie, it was pretty hard, but I was determined to keep my pace to the beat. When I hit the decline, I knew I was going to be able to do this.

It was estimated that each person would take approximately 10 minutes per lap. Without doing any math, this figured that each of us would have 3 turns. Four of us would run 6 miles and the 5th, being me, I would run 3. Sounded perfect to me! ...Fortunately and unfortunately, my team mates ran a lot faster than planned and we were ahead of schedule! This meant 4 of us needed to run ONE FINAL LAP. And with me being the 5th runner, I was in the clear... but then the unthinkable occurred: Daniel got a mean cramp.

Koutaro, the first runner from Team C, volunteered to run in Daniel's place and start their time slot early...but that's not what happened. Because like some cheesy heroic moment, I stood up with conviction and said: "I can do it!"

But inside I was a little worried...I was pretty tired, My body felt kinda messed up from the running and stopping. Burning up while running and freezing from the cold air and wind between runs took it's toll. I looked at my tired teammates who busted their ass running TWICE as much as I did and thought, dude, I gotta run like heck for these guys! I stretched out, shook myself off and waited for Matsunaga, the 3rd runner. In no time at all, he was turning the corner running towards me. I pressed play. It was decided that John Legend's Green Light was going to get me thru this. But then that song lasted only 4 minutes and I wasn't quite done yet,... so without slowing down, I skipped thru a couple songs and hit the jackpot with Green Day's Burnout to take me to the end.

I had never run that hard in my entire life...98% of me was screaming at me to slow down. I ran so hard that I felt out of control. So much so that he other wickedly stubborn 2% of me was getting worried that my feet wouldn't hit the ground right and I'd gribble royally. And yet, with flailing arms, a painfully dry throat and legs aflame, I managed to overtake 3 runners before I tagged the first runner of Team C. Even with music blasting in my ears, I could hear my team mates cheering me on as I growled and pushed thru the last stretch. It felt great. By the end of our time slot, we were at 17th place out of 50. Hey, I was cool wit that!

After our team was done, we mustered enough strength to cheer on Team C for their first laps. We then stumbled back to camp, dranks lots of water, ate some of Ichimaru's "made-just-for-Team B", garlic fried rice and crashed right out. Even with the hard floor (due to limited space in the van, we didn't bring any cushiony luxuries), the constant music and exuberant announcements from the emcee on the loud speaker and the wind whipping the tent, I slept okay. Gir in particular was very useful, he served as a fuzzy body pillow :)

Conveniently, I suddenly woke up at 2:45, just in time to cheer on the final laps of Team C. Team C, a power house group of avid runners, boosted the Hashiri Crew to 12th place when they were thru!

The hardcore Team A, gave us a strong finish and solidified us in 13th place on the board. Nothing like lucky number 13! :) Ichimarusan welcomed the morning with a wonderful breakfast of 2 different pastas (one Garlic vegetable and the other Alfredo mushroom), toast and vegetable soup. Karato, a speedy fellow from Team C commented that Ichimaru was our MVP -everyone unanimously agreed.

In 12 hours, we ran a total of 98 miles. Darn, so close to 100... Oh well, I suppose we'll have to shoot for that next year! I sguess that also means I kinda like running now -scary yah? :)

My first dance recital...at age 30.

2009-04-21T06:24:00.000-07:00

So remember when I said that I joined a Yosakoi team? Well this past Sunday, a small group of 9 Ikkijyu (our team name) members, Daniel and I hopped on a big bus, along with members from other yosakoi teams, and rode 2 hours to Nagasaki. We were set out to perform at the "Yokabai Yosakoi Matsuri." Daniel came along to record this momentus maggie event. (More like catch me acting a fool on film.)

[note:] Yokabai is pretty much Sasebo/Nagasaki slang for saying "It's all good!"

Anywho, I have to tell you how hard I practiced the week before! So 4 days before my debut, I FINALLY got real props to practice with. The props included 2 fans and 2 narukos. Narukos are these wooden clapper things. Lemme tell yah, practicing with the real stuff is A LOT different from faking it with my jazz hands! I practiced every night till that fateful day. On one of my practice days, I whipped open a fan so hard that it flung out of my hand and flew nearly out the back door! :O You can imagine the new anxiety I developed after that happened! But by Saturday night, I was feeling pretty confident and ready to just get out there and do it!

On Sunday morning, the only thing Mami (the team mate that got me in all this madness) told me to do was to make sure I put my hair up when I got there. No problem I thought, I can whip my hair up in a high pony in a matter of minutes right? But when I got to the place where everyone was meeting THEN I understood what she meant. She meant make it NICE. All the girls had their hair done up perfectly -It looked like one of those cute "prom" hairstyles. PLUS they all had fantastic makeup on! ....And here's me, the super-sized japanese-american (yes, I can honestly say that I am pretty much bigger than EVERY member of the team -guys too!) with my sad little ponytail and barely a lick of makeup on. Damn.

Luckily the girls had some spare hair pieces. They were made like scrunchies, hairy scrunchies. They all had a good laugh when they put it on me. The thing looked really fake since the color didn't match with my natural hair color at all. Even so, it still looked better than my sad little "real hair" sprout!

We got there at about 10 a.m. Our first performance was at noon, so we had 2 hours to kill. So what do they decide to do? Get drunk. :\ hoo boy.

We walked to the nearest convenience store and stocked up on beers, chu-his and snackies. Is it just me, or do you get buzzed faster when you drink in the sun? I felt totally relaxed. And then it was 11:50. At this point, I felt surprisingly okay...not at all as nervous as I expected to be. We did a quick stretch and then huddled together for a pep talk from our coach/sensei Miyuki. She said to just have fun, don't worry about messing up and ....Gambare Maggiesan on her debut! And everyone agreed and told me to gambare.

Woah. After that, the ONE butterfly in my stomach decided to multiply. We ran up on stage and made formation. This was it!

~Look out into the audience and smile maggie, SMILE.~

CHEEEEEE........
Two booming pounds of the taiko starts our song. I must've practiced dancing to this song at least 20 times that week, but this time it was different. To the beat of the taiko, my heart felt like it was a big ball, bouncing against the inside of my chest. It was a cool feeling.What added to it was the fact that the stage was set up along the harbor. As I danced, My eyes scanned over the people watching us and out to the water... it was beautiful! I didn't panic about the moves at all... kinda felt like my mind was detached and my body was just goin' on without me! Well, it was like that up until the second segment! That's the part with the fans!

I knelt in position, holding my closed fans, waiting for the exact moment to whip them open....

*fwap* First fan opens...success!

[close fan] prepare for finale...

Here it is, let's do it -both fans open!

*fwap* *fwa...* Uh oh. Right fan opens all the way. Left fan, only halfway.

I spent the next series of movements trying to pry it open with my pinky. No success. It's the end of the song and we have to do a final pose with the fans before we bow to finish. Daniel, captures a priceless moment ...I really need to work on being more discreet :O

After that, we ate lunch, shmoozed with other teams, drank more chu-his and performed again at 3.

All in all it was a great day. And I have the headband tan to prove it :)

Kampai!!

Oh Yes, We were Amused.

2009-03-02T02:05:00.000-08:00

My boss Alz, and her husband James invited the marketing team, along with some of her closest, funnest friends to celebrate James' birthday.

That morning, a tour bus, complete with driver waited to wisk the 26 of us off. During the ride, we enjoyed some mega-loaded snack packs lovingly arranged by the couple and watched the family friendly movie, Madagascar 2. After the movie was over, the guys snuck in about 10 minutes of UFC. And then, we had reached our destination: Greenland Amusement Park.

Right as we unloaded the bus, we had a clear view of one of GAP's roller coasters. It was a rather frightening sight with its riders screaming and their legs dangling as they are whipped around, twisted about and turned upside-down! hohoboy.

Even tho there were only like 3 kids in the group, everyone looked pretty excited. I think I was even skipping to the entrance.

We made sure to ride every ride that looked like it could make us pee our pants...along with some good ol' fashioned classics like the merry-go-round.

I can say with confidence that I am a new fan of the roller coaster. I say "new" because I don't think the rollercoasters I've ridden at the 50th State Fair or the Punahou Carnival quite measure up to the ones I've ridden here.

After about 5 hours of awesomeness, we left with our pants still dry,... but totally pooped. Most of us knocked out during the ride home. Greenland Amusement Park, you get a high five :)

Woah, u just blew my mind.

2009-02-05T23:21:00.000-08:00

Guys, if you ever get the chance to see these guys -DO IT.

http://www.blackviolin.net/
2 violinists + 1 turntablist = AWESOME

They came and did a FREE show for us in lil' ol' Sasebo... after the trio thoroughly blew everyone away, I think it's safe to say that everyone felt like they should have paid. Which would explain why they sold out all their CDs that night.

(Geez, sure wish that guy took a better picture of the trio rather than focusing on us!)

Snowcone for Gir

2009-01-25T03:08:00.000-08:00

When we first moved here last January, we thought it was crazy cold! Taking Gir outside was quite an ordeal. Every "Gir-ing" meant piling on layers of clothes and trying to keep your teeth from chattering -Daniel and I would always bargain with eachother to see who would have to take him out. The most it ever snowed last year was just a trickle -enough to see the very tops of the mountains turn speckly white. The locals here say that the winters here get cold enough to snow -but rarely ever does!

With that said, this past weekend made Sasebo history. It snowed 4 inches :) On Saturday we took a snowboarding trip to Tenzan. On a normal day, it takes about an hour and a half drive to get there. Even with the soft, steady fall of snow all morning, we got there right on schedule. Tenzan was pretty awesome...since it constantly snowed, the slope was pure powder. Every spill was just lovely! Imagine, if you will: Speeding... and then wobbling out of control... and then crashing ...into pure fluff! yay! Coming back, however really sucked. The snow had forced the main highway to close so we ended up in a gridlock on backroads. The drive back took 4 and a half hours! On the way, an unlikely beacon of hope lit us up...it was a 7-11 (yep, we have those here!)

Aaaanywho, when we finally got back, we saw that our car was covered in snow. While our parking neighbor grumbled, sweeping the snow off his car, we were laughing and taking pictures!
The drive home was a bit worrisome (We didn't have snow tires or chains and we lived up a steep, windy hill) but we were really excited to get home and take gir out to see the snow. We took him the park across the street. The park was all white. At first gir was a little nervous about all the white stuff. But then all of a sudden, something in him clicked and he started prancing about and bouncing around like Tigger!

It snowed all night so park was whiter and fluffier the next morning. Lucky for Gir, his good friend Chiro (a Shiba) and his owner, Takeharasan came out to play. They chased eachother around like crazy in the snowy field. We also discovered that Gir has a thing for demolishing heaps of snow and eating it.

Well that's it for our Snow-venture! The rain came and washed away most of the snow. All that's left is just a few slushy piles of snow here and there. I made sure to stomp on as many as possible before I got home -so fun das why!
And with that I shall leave you with a couple of fishing trip pictures of gir. It was really cold out and Gir was shivering so I let him wear one of my jackets -looks good yah?

Oh, and not to be outdone, here's a random picture of miu under a folded towel -Cheers!

New Year's Eve in Fuk's!

2009-01-02T07:36:00.000-08:00

Hey hey my fellow friends and familia!

Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu!
(That's: Happy New Year!... of course, I'm sure you would have guessed it even if you didn't speakith japanese)

So while it's still "fresh-ish" in my head...or at least most recent, I will start with our first New Year's Eve celebration in Japan :)

Before our AWESOME plan came to fruition, we were likely going to celebrate ringing in the new year at Huis Ten Bosch (a dutch theme park -In Sasebo? yes. weird, I know.) On new year's eve, pretty much EVERYONE in Sasebo goes there. I hear they have an amazing fireworks show. And from what I heard from Mizu (Her first name is Sarah but we have 2 Sarahs in our department so she told us we could call her Mizu...ANYWHO...) co from Hawaii just today "Oh man, it's like a hundred times better that Ala Moana's!" woah. I no can believe.

I GOTTA see that! So that's prolly what we'll be doing next year. But let's talk about what we did for THIS year!

Daniel , me and 4 new friends (The OTHER Sarah, 2 Johns and a Matt) rented a van and embarked on a journey of partying in the urbanest, hippest city in Kyushu...Fukuoka!

Me and Sawah (nickname!) had to to work that day, so everything was back-to-back! Took Gir to the kennel in the morning -we didn't know how many hours we'd be away in Fuk (That's "fook" for those of u who think otherwise!) and Gir's bladder can only hold it so long! Then Sawah and I spent the work day cranking out a bunch of jobs that needed to be completed before New Year's Day.

Then at 3 (cool boss let us off early) I bolted out the door, picked up Daniel and sped home to feed Miu. (We figured Miu would be better off at home) Got dressed, grabbed everything I thought I might need (which is ALWAYS far too many things) and sped back to base to meet our friends. By 4, we were all in the van, with Wu Tang Clan blasting on the CD player and heading for Fuk!

And ladies, don't try this in van: Putting on makeup in a van on the highway is at a Difficulty Rating of I'd say 9. Perhaps I'm not well enough practiced in the art, but dayum! I swear, everytime it SEEMED like the van was moving smoothly, I'd cautiuosy start applying a little eye liner and *gatunk* ...yeah. liner everywhere =not lovely. Lesson learned.

So after an hour and 20, we made it to Fuks...at this point we were pretty excited! We even found a overnight parking for 1000 yen -not bad for the city! The first thing we ALL had to do was go to the bathroom! Right there, just a few feet from our stall, the parking complex had a set of really nice bathrooms -I love this town! And then we were off to find La Boheme! We had no trouble finding the place. All we had to do was ask where the apple store was -it was in the same building! Oh yes indeed, the Apple Store... this place is going to be awesome. Here's their website in case ur curious: http://www.qualita.boheme.jp/en/Tenjin/home/location

I gotta say, this night could not have been set up better. The people we were with were all good fun, super cool folks and this place we were headed for was charging only 4000yen for All-you-can-eat-AND-drink for a ridiculous EIGHT hours! (6pm to 2 am) Gee willackers! We were the first ones there so we picked out the perfect upper corner spot in the lounge. And oh yes, as soon as our home base was set up, we got started! Poor La Boheme, we really took advantage of the buffet and free drinkies. The buffet refills would not come quick enough -we were cleaning it out faster than they could replenish! But hey, what can you expect with 6 hungry americans? ;D After the place started filling up, we were still the only table with pitchers of cocktails and beer! At one point, the waiter brought the food to us first before bringing it to the buffet table! But then they got all freaky exotic with the food and brought out stuff like spaghetti with spicy fish egg sauce :\ I think that was our downfall. We stopped eating but kept drinking.

By 11:30, we were all pretty toasted. Conversations got sillier and the music seemed to get louder. Speaking of music, they played some pretty decent stuff... a lot of hip hop, some dancehall, some old skool stuff,.. and Christmas songs? hoo boy. There was one hour where the DJ kept playing a marathon of dorky Christmas songs -not the fun, classic stuff, but the Backstreet Boys/98 degrees kine :\ errr...me no likey. The group sent me the "native speaker" to ask the DJ to play something,..ANYTHING other than this stuff. There were 3 DJs behind a tiny table that just barely fit 2 turntables and a mixer (I think that's what u call it). They happily accepted my request and played some T.I (which Matt totally dug)

By the end of the night, our party increase by 2. We attracted a mellow, big guy named David who is currently teaching english in Korea. And a girl named Bessi (who I think is one of the Johns' friends.) I don't think any of us knew much about her, but it didn't stop her from getting silly with the rest of us!

They even had prize drawings too! Daniel won a bottle of champagne... we gave it to Sawah since she loves the stuff more than anyone. But everybody got served free champagne and sake at midnight anyway! And there we all stood with our fancy glasses, watching a giant screen suspended above the bar, blipping bright pink bubble numbers...counting down from 10...9...8....

Where's Daniel? ...3..2...1!!! YAY!!! Akemashite Omedetou! We hugged a lot of strangers that night :) But where did Daniel go? There he was, stumbling down the short flight of steps in front of me, after spending the final seconds of '08 in the bathroom! *sigh* oh well!

After that we decided to try and head over to the next place -maybe a dance club... but as we walked aroud, we stumbled across a crowded shinto temple right smack in the middle of the city! It was all lit up and lined with vendors selling food, fortunes and good luck charms. We all knew we just HAD TO shake that lound clankety bell and make that wish! I even bought a keychain with a tiny horse carved out of wood. Sawah and John bought white protection arrows.

After that, we were hungry!... Crazy yeah? considering we had all-you-can-eat pretty much all night! So we stumbled into a popular japanese restaurant called Joyfull. Personally I'm not a fan of the place, but it's main appeal is it's open 24hrs..oh and it's cheap! I had myself a katsu curry dish...pretty spicy, but much to my surprise, tastier than I had expected :) Maybe I was desperate? who knows. But it made me burp a bunch of times within the next hour... that wasn't so pleasant. We all crashed out in the van...then Sawah (the superwoman) said she was okay to drive and drove us all back to Sasebo. It was about 5:30 and snowing when we got back. It was so pretty, but crazy insane cold! We quickly drove to the kennel, retrieved our Gir, and went home to thaw and knock out till 2 in the afternoon :)

Happy New Year!

Snow & Yosakoi-ing

2008-12-19T06:16:00.000-08:00

It's been nearly a year since we came to Sasebo and we hadn't ONCE experienced snow. The folks here say that it's rare for it to snow here -even tho it gets so darn cold! But lo and behold, on Daniel's birthday, it snowed! I know he was pretty amused, but I was absolutely thrilled!

We had already decided a few days before that we were going to drive over to Fukuoka on his birthday to check out what is said to be the biggest (and quite possibly, the only) snowboarding store in Kyushu. The journey was definitely not what was expected. With the light, gentle snow sparingly trickling down in Sasebo, we thought the drive would be worry-free. But BOY did we worry! As we drove further away from Sasebo and closer to Fukuoka (upper Kyushu), the snow fall grew heavier and the flakes got BIGGER! So we took a break at a rest stop to stretch out and frolic (okay, maybe the frolicking part was just ME.) Till that point, I had been driving and it was time to switch. Despite the worrisome snow falling on us on the road, it was beautiful! The hills alongside the highway had snow-tipped pine trees. But when we finally got there, we forgot about the scenery and were stoked to git'ta shoppin'! The store is called Power's Surf and Snowboarding and once we walked in, we were in awe... this place had everything!

But then we looked at the price tags :\

Yikes. Sooooo expensive.

They even had some Hawaii brands! -which was weird.. but of course they were like 3x the normal price. And so after browsing the shop for about 20 minutes with our mouths open, we decided to leave empty-handed. Since Power's was in a big shopping mall, we took it upon ourselves to explore a bit. Even after all of that tho, we still left empty-handed. *sigh* oh well! And so we labeled the day as a good "sightseeing" adventure.

Feeling rather unfulfilled, the minute we got home, we hopped on the computer and ordered complete snowboard sets from http://www.the-house.com/

Then the weekend after, we went snowboarding in Tenzan. It's a ski/snowboard run about an hour-and-a-half from Sasebo (damn, why does everything have to be so far away?) My friend Sarah took us there -she's CRAZY about snowboarding. She often jokes that if her BF of two+ years made her choose between him and snowboarding, she'd just tell him "K' Bye." She laughs when she says this, but then she says in a slightly more serious tone, "But he knows better than to make me choose..."

Anywho, snowboarding was the best! The last time we snowboarded mustve been like 5 years ago.. and it was only for a week in Whistler!

So anywho, at Tenzan, I was worried that I wouldve forgot how to board, but yay for me, I still remembered! Even odder, I think I had better control than when I was in Whistler! How can this be? Now I absolutely can't WAIT for our snowboarding gear! I think it's going to arrive next week! *crossing fingers*

And while we're on the subject of "New & Fun Things" I also joined a Yosakoi team! It's crazy how I ended up joining too. Remember that bar I talked about a while back -Yakkyugushi? I think this was my pre-blog days. Anywho, there are a couple of really sweet girls who work there and since we go there every so often, we made friends with not only the owner, but them too :) One day, we asked the girls what they like to do in Sasebo in their spare time, and while others said tennis, shopping or whatever, one girl Mami (24 years old) said Yosakoi.

I didn't even know what Yosakoi was at the time (this was pre-tokyo) and I couldnt really understand the concept. But then I guess while we were in Harajuku, watching the Super Yosakoi, Daniel remembered me saying "Woooow, that looks like so much fun! I want to do that!" So then, a couple months later, when we went back to our favorite bar, a drunken Daniel asked Mami if her team would be open to new members, not only that, a gaijin (foreigner) member -How embarrassing! Anywho, Mami asked me to make sure I was interested -which I totally was! and she said she would ask her team. The following week, I found myself surrounded by local japanese people -dancing! And I'm their first gaijin member! The team, Ikiijyu, doesn't have a video on youtube so here's one that I thought looked most similar to their style:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvHVAbwQEHc

Everyone is good fun... and I am getting PLANNY practice in speaking japanese!

ps. Sorry there's no pictures in this blog but I hope it was still worth the read!

Turning the big 3-Oh with big, half-naked guys?

2008-11-19T02:17:00.000-08:00

Yep, I dunno what's more shocking: turning thirty or seein' big, nakey (nearly) guys wrastle! I'd like to think of it as a tie.

But first, I absolutely MUST share with you the day before my birthday. Since my birthday shares the same day as a holiday (Veteran's Day), and it fell on Tuesday, I intended to take Monday off. I mean hey, four day weekend man! But Daniel convinced me to take the Friday after Thanksgiving off instead. He reinforced it by saying, "Whattr u gonna do with Monday off anyway? you're prolly just going to stay home, laze away and work on your blog..." Oh how right he was! He pretty much nailed it right on the head ;)

The thought of having a full day to do absolutely nothing sounded divine! But then the thought of having the day off after consuming an ungodly amount of turkey and stuffing sounded absolutely neccessary!

Anywho, with that said, I went to work on Monday. It was like any other day... until

the lady with the flowers and balloon came. Me, thinking this was a mistake asked the lady if she was sure it was for me. In her best Engrish, she said, "

Are you Matsuosan? [I nodded]... den deesu for you!" I could feel the heat spread throughout my face, I knew it was all red.. I just KNEW. My co's, watching the whole ordeal, confirmed it as they laughed :\

I opened th

e attached card: "Happy Birthday to you! From your hubby" Awww how sweet... but wait a minute,.. this isn't Daniel's handwriting! This left me with some questions. I called Daniel...

[me:] "Hi babe, thanks for embarrassing me at work! Nah nah, thank you for the flowers, you totally caught me by surprise."

[him:] "Yah, that's why I really wanted you to go to work today! That woulda sucked if you took the day off!"

[me:] "Ohhh okay, well you did a good job convincing me.. but hey, what's with the card? It's not even in your writing!"

[him:] "Oh, yeah, so what's it say?"

[me:] Hu-whutt?! you don't even know what it says?

[him:] "Uh.. well, I just told her I'm your husband...So what's the flowers look like?"

[me:] WHAT?!?!?! DANIEL! You didn't even pick out the flowers? What about the balloon?"

[him:] "Balloon? Oh yah, that's right, they said if I paid a little extra I could get a balloon to go with it."

[me:] DANIEL! Damn dude,.. so what part were you involved in all of this?"

[The doodoo head:] "Uh,.. well I asked them to put some purple flowers innit cause you saw that field of purple cosmos at the park on our last field trip and you said they were really pretty..."

[me:] Awww Oooookay, at least you referred to SOMETHING I said.. that's pretty sweet for you to remember...

[him:] "Yeah, see, I'm sweet! But fo reals, they make it so easy! All I did was call them and tell them I wanted flowers and where I wanted them to go and they just picked out everything! I didn't have to really do anything! All I had to do was give them my credit card num...."

[me:] "Ahem, daniel...DANIEL! Just shut up and say, 'I'm glad u like them, Happy Birthday.'"

[him:] "Oh okay, Happy Birthday ~luv you!!"

*sigh*

Anywho, my co's were really sweet too, They sang happy berfday to me with big, lit-up 3 & 0 candles atop a choco-banana cake. It was pretty tasty too! Light and fresh..I helped myself to two pieces. Holy shit guys,.. I'm 30! But as I sit here, with my 30-year-old fingers typing up this blog, I vow to all of you that until the day I die, I will proudly state my real age to anyone who asks. Of course not without asking the asker how old I "look" first! On that note, judging just by my writing ability, I'd say I'm about 13 ;D

Onward to Sumo!

Sumo is actually a whole lot more historical and respected than I ever imagined! but I wont go into the historics -you can find that out on Wikipedia ;) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumo g/wiki/Sumo

What I can tell you is what it was like watching one live!

The tournament started from as early at 8 in the morning. Our tour bus got there at 3:30 in the affernoon. The high-ranking sumo wrestlers were set to start at 4 o'clock, so we came just in time to see to the best guys. I tell yah, these big guys are amazing. Did you know that every one of these guys can do the splits?! We watched a video of them training in their "stables" and doing the splits. Everyone on the bus was like: "Woah...no way!" Apparently, despite their size, they are extremely flexible, and after watching them, pretty darn fast too!

I thought the way they had it set up was pretty trippy. The sumo wrestlers entered the same way the public entered, so people were able to see each wrestler in traditional kimono (actually, I think they're call it something different for guys -but whatever) walk in with his small entourage. They really are big when you see them up close! Such presence!

There was even an opening ceremony for the high rank guys. They all came out and stood around the ring. Each wrestler wore an elaborate (and probably very heavy) mawashi. I think that's what they are called... That's what the regular thong-looking things are called.

For lack of better word, the "ritual" they do before the actual pushin throwin' is a bg part of the sport. The lower rank guys get right to wrestling, but the higher rank guys have up to 4 minutes of tossing salt and staring eachother down until actually fighting. The fight itself lasts for only 30 seconds or less. I dunno if it was our new found appreciation of sumo, or the anticipation of each fight after waiting up to 4 minutes... (maybe it was both) but it was actually pretty exciting to watch!

In the end, the winner of the tournament immediately does a solo performance. I'm not sure if all the winning wrestlers do the same show, but I was pleasantly surprised to see him use what looked like a japanese bow. His movements were so fluid but very controlled. I thought it was beautiful :)

It was dark outside as we left the center, and the wooden structure at the front entrance was now lit up and occupied by a taiko drummer. I wished I couldve stayed to watch him do his thing but our bus was getting ready to leave so I didn't even get a chance to shoot a picture of it. Oh well, that's okay, I was here to see Sumo ...so I was satisfied :)

Halloween in Japan! ahem ...and some big balloons.

2008-11-03T02:26:00.000-08:00

Halloween weekend was quite amusing. On Friday, I went to Harbor View Club's (the "nice" restaurant on base) very first Masquerade Ball. There were three reasons why I was already stoked about this event.

1. I got to design all the media for it! This includes banners, flyers, posters and even tickets! I had free reign to design it however I wanted. My direction from Luis, the event coordinator was: "I want it dark and eerie, but elegant!" I even went ahead and designed the tickets to look like masquerade masks. People raved about those :) But they were quite the project -since we had to hand-cut every one of them. And for even MORE fabulousness, each ticket had 3 little crystals adhered to the outer corner of one eye.

2. Planning only for a small, intimate event, they sold nearly 100 tickets! yay!

and 3. The "ball" encouraged guests to dress up. Whether it be all fancy-like, accompanied by a mask -OR- wear a costume. I decided a "dressy-costume" would be best suited for myself.

Even though last year I had made Daniel a Daniel Larrusso (Karate Kid) costume and a Cobra Kai costume for myself, he REALLY wanted to be Cobra Kai this year. I didn't mind, since that would mean less work for me (since I'd obviously be making HIS costume too) and more time to do my costume! What kinda sucked was how much better he looked innit than I did! :\

I decided to go with a futuristic, space-girl look. And so I ordered a simple (more importantly, cheap) A-line bridesmaid gown and altered the heck out of it! Before I was finished with it, I had a skype session with my girls, Heather and Sarah. I showed it to them and Heather exclaimed "Oh! you're going to be Cinderella!" ...hrmm... not the reaction I hoped. I told them it was going to be a "space dress" and they both looked a bit puzzled. That's okay, that just meant I had to work on it sommore! Because no matter how cheap that bridesmaid dress was, if I didn't wear it at all, it'd be a total waste! -it's not like I can wear a bright aqua-colored bridesmaid dress on just any old occasion! ;) ...and so, I managed to finish my costume a week before the ball. I proudly called it the "Cyberella."

Anywho, onward to the Ball!...

After getting dolled up, (or in Daniel's case... just getting dressed) We both decided it would be best to catch a taxi to the event. When we got there, we met up with Cary and 5 local japanese friends in the lobby. Cary was dressed as a Rastafarian Car Salesman and everyone else had cute halloween hats on. Except for Yuki, she wore a cape and devil horns -which I thought was awesome for her -since the others seemed to be more on the shy, "un-costumey" trend. When we stepped in we were all in awe. The place looked awesome! Like Luis said, it was dark and eerie but elegant! In hindsight I wish I took pictures of the place, but I was more focused on talking stories, enjoying all the fantastic "horrors" d' overes, drinks and atmosphere. And I really DO mean fantastic! The hors d'oeveres were SOOO good! Among them were these tasty mini quiches, tender & juicy slices of BBQ tri tip beef (I swear I could not stop eating those -Sarah don't freak out, they were SMALL slices) chicken salad croissant sammiches, little sticks of teriyaki chicken, macadamia nut crusted chicken, some kind of lemon butter grilled fish, and a couple more I can't remember.

In the beginning while people ate, they projected the movie "The Haunting" on 3 large screens. Great idea in concept, but since most people were talking and eating, the movie seemed a bit too quiet. I think a subtitled, muted version of the movie, overlayed with cool eerie music, would have been a better choice. After the movie ended, there was a magic show. Well, actually, it was more like a guy doing silly tricks and trying to entertain with slapstick comedy rather that real magic. His starting trick was dropping his hat on his foot then kicking it up -catching it on his head. His ending trick was getting out of a straight jacket while riding a tall unicycle. Even with that said, our local Japanese friends were totally entertained! I'm guessing watching a live, american magic show (that is probably better suited for kids) was quite a treat for them!

As soon as the magic show was over, the costume contest started. But this wasn't one of those stand-up-on-stage-and-look-pretty contests. This was a dance-while-judge-floats-around-eliminating-people-one-by-one. Since Luis, the host of the party pretty much knew everyone, he decided it would be fair to pick a random person from the party to be a judge. The judge he picked was a japanese lady (looked like in her 40's), wearing a puffy pink tulle dress. I had no idea what look she was going for but I figured she'd be a fun judge -Boy was I wrong!

She proceeded to eliminate pretty much every creative and original costumed character on the dance floor. My co, Sarah, who came as a greek muse (the girl in white, pictured above) and her friend Dora were eliminated right in the beginning.. then Daniel got axed... then me. Waah. What she did end up with were 5 people/couples dressed in what cleary looked like store-bought costumes. A pair of pirates (there was a BUNCH of people who came as those!), a pimp & ho, a french maid, who's costume looked JUST like the one they sold at the NEX) a lovely "masquerade ball" dressed girl (who BTW is a friend of mine, so it's was okay for her to be up there..hehe nah, for reals, her's was pretty nice.) and a beer bottle. And who ended up winning? The Pimp & Ho. *sigh* I guess the japanese lady didn't "get" what we were supposed to be :\

...What?! Noooooo, I'm not all salty about losing! :P

After the contest ended it was "everybody dance" time. That was pretty fun.. until they started playing a string of salsa then reggaeton.. then country music? Hoo boy. We decided it was a good time to leave. Luckily the taxi got us back right at midnight so I turned into a pumpkin at home.

All in all, for a first-time event, it was "alright"... but on that same token, a few days later, our Japanese friends told us they had so much fun, they were already thinking about what costume to wear to the Ball next year!

On Saturday, I volunteered at the Haunted House & Carnival. Even tho we worked for 6 hours, it went by super fast. We had to quickly set up all the games, run the games for the hundreds of kids flooding in, then break everything down at the end. It was funny hearing all the kids screaming from the nearby haunted house. Some of the poor kids were too scared and redeemed their house entry ticket to play a carnival game. I manned the "Add 'Em Up" game: you know that game where you have to roll a bunch of balls down a slope into numbered slots? But instead of regular balls, we had ping pong balls painted as eyeballs :)

Anywho the coolest thing this weekend was Sunday's Saga Balloon Fiesta! After enduring a 2.5 hour drive filled with the constant, glass-shattering screams of two toddlers (both from the same parents) who sat 2 seats behind us, everyone was relieved and happy to finally reach Saga. Iwanted to kick myself for not bringing my headphones to play PSP.

After getting off the bus, we realized that we had to walk quite a ways to get to the food and souvenir tents. It must have been at least a mile or 2 long. When we got there, the booths seemed endless! An endless row of Yakitori, Tako Yaki, Grilled Corn, Yakisoba, mini candied apples and other fruits (which I thought was weird at first), Okonomiyaki, French Fries and so on...

We didn't want to make the same mistake of buying from the first booth we saw because last time we did that -and it sucked! And then we saw like FIVE other booths selling the same thing for cheaper and looking like theirs probaby tastes better! And so, with that in mind, we walked thru the whoooooole stretch. By the time we got to the end, we were starving! Daniel got desperate and almost bought a pack of stale-lookin' fries. Cary and I had to stop him and coax him out of this nearly devastating move.

Then there was an excited stir around us. It looked like the event had started. With packages filled with well-thought-out food choices, we headed back to a long open grass field that we had passed on the way in. We set up pikinik on a small steep patch of hill. It was pretty uncomfortable, but the place was crazy packed, so all the prime real estate was already taken.

We looked up and there were a bunch of hot air balloons in the sky, approaching pretty quick! Balloons would come down one by one to the field in front of us -it was then that we noticed the big bright pink "X" marked in the grass. We realized that this was an actual competition! The balloon that dropped it's marker the closest to the big X would be the winner of the fiesta. After realizing this, the event was much more exciting! The black balloon (pictured here) came the closest to the target and when he dropped his marker, (almost a bullseye hit) people were cheering, "Yatta! Yatta!" (You did it!" x2) While some balloons drifted slightly away from their desired course and nearly hit some of the spectators! -That was awesome too ;)

We even visited one of the balloons that crash landed in a different field. Even tho the fiesta is called the "International" Balloon Fiesta, we were still pretty surprised to discover a Hungarian pilot!

Cool event, it's likely we'll be checking this out again next year :)

Have a great weekend folks!

Lions and Tigers and Bears...No Lie!

2008-10-08T16:58:00.000-07:00

Who'da thought, in the middle of Japan (okay technically more like the lower half...), I'd go to an African Safari park?

The park, which resides in Beppu/Oita is a three hour bus ride away. I found out this week when my mom came to visit that she grew up in Oita! I also found out that Oita is famous for their great abundance of onsens (hot springs) and monkeys! It was at that very moment that I was able to fully understand why my dad always jokes that my mom is a monkey. Not only is my mom from the city of monkeys, she also happens to be born on the year of the monkey! Oh boy, good times ;)

Aaaanywho, we rode in these mobile bus-cages (that resembled some wild beast) and got to feed lions, and deers, and bears, and elephants,... and giraffes! Oh! then when we got off the bus we got to feed kangaroos (I had no idea how super soft their fur would be!) ...and and and squirrel monkeys!! Omigawd, the squirrel monkeys! I swear, I would take the whole 3 hour bus ride in a heartbeat just to see those little guys again! But when I went back to work the next day and gushed to my co's about them, they told me there's a place (called Biopark) only 45 minutes away that has them too :\ Grrr. Oh well, it was still cool to feed the big animals!

Dude, Giraffes have crazy long tongues.

Oh and the other guy in there is our friend Cary -he's from Hawaii too.

I absolutely adore the little Ojiichan monkey on the bottom right.

My deepest apologies for this horrid montage!

Go Wild! -me

Catch My Tokyo Drift?

2008-09-02T02:45:00.000-07:00

....Heeheehee...

HI THERE!

Hey hey guess what? We went to Tokyo!! ;D

I'll start with the moment we stepped out of the airport and onto the street....

Oh wait, before you do that, I must tell you that this may very well be the longest blog I have written, so you might want to go to the bathroom, grab a nice cup o' joe and settle in. OR not. Up to you! ;)

It was a dark and drizzly night (around 6p.m. I'd say), and there we stood at the curb, waiting for Daniel's dad (who works as a taxi driver), to come pick us up.

Naturally, I was a tad nervous and excited to meet the guy so my heart quickened everytime a taxi passed by....there were a LOT of taxis :\

Finally, a shiny white taxi rolls up. A guy jumps out, runs up to us and says "Hayaku, hayaku!" (FYI:"hurry x2"), grabs our bags and loads them up in his trunk. Daniel whispers to me, "Is this my dad? he doesn't look like him."

HUH-WHUTT?!

[note: that last time daniel saw his dad, was over 10 years ago during highschool -but seriously, one SHOULD be able to recognize someone after only 10 years right?!]

Of course I'M no help since the only thing I've seen was a picture of him 27 years ago -carrying a 3-year-old Daniel!

We cautiously move the rest of our things into the trunk -staring at him- trying to discover a facial feature that we might recognize... We hop in the car, still worried that this might just be some ballzy taxi driver -after all this IS Tokyo!

But then he asks us about our flight with such detail that we realize it's him -WHEW!

With that all sorted out, I give him my (now late and awkward) introduction speech -he laughs, saying there was no need to be so proper.So I immediately ask him how he would prefer I address him. My choices were: 1. Danieru no otoosan 2. Matsuo-san or 3. Papa-Matsuo. He cheerfully picked the last one.

So that night, after checking into our first hotel, he took us out for Chinese food. He said it was the best chinese restaurant in town...at the end of dinner, I agreed everything we ordered was deeeelish! After a nice conversation full of japanese and english (and me as the translator), we called it a night.

The next morning, Papa-Matsuo took us to our second hotel. The New Sanno Hotel. We would be staying here for the rest of the week. This hotel is for Military and DoD only. When we first got there, the security guys gave us a lot of trouble. They didn't allow taxis to drive up to the front entrance...plus there was a bus behind us trying to park where our car was! The only way to get out of the way was to back into the front driveway! But even after Papa-Matsuo explained what he was going to do, the security still freaked out -even some of the staff from inside came running out and started yelling at us! GEEZ! But after he finished backing up (got out of the way of the bus) and got back on the street, they FINALLY understood. And lemme tell ya, it's FANTASTIC! The place was real classy-like, and the service was amazing! At the front desk, they told us that they could upgrade us to the Lincoln Suite for the first night. This room was reserved only for VIP! Of course, we took it. I'd like to think they gave it to us because of the whole drop-off drama they put us thru!

Here's some pictures of the suite: SWEEEET ah?!

Okay, so I've been thinking about how I would write this blog. Should I write it by days or by category? I've decided it would prolly make more sense to do the latter -the previous idea wouldn't be such a great idea since I can already hear myself saying "And then we did this,.. and then this..and theeeeen...." oh brother.

1st subject: FOOD!

CHINESE? On our first night in Tokyo, Papa Matsuo took us to what he claims as "The Best Chinese Restaurant in Town." I don't think we ever caught the name of the place, but it's a nice little 2 story place, in an area called Shiba. But dude, that place was Goood! Some of the stuff we ate were totally new to me -I'm not even sure what was innit all -but it was still mui ono! Of the many dishes we got, my favorites were this beef w/ green bean dish (Dare I say, much savorier than the one at Little Village in downtown) and their cake noodle dish -Hoo man, that one was hard to order!- I didn't know how to explain it, and Papa Matsuo didn't know what it was so all I could say to the waitress in japanese was: "The crunchy noodles that are stuck together and it has sauce and other stuff on top of it." Shameful. But she figured it out and boy am I glad she did! Mm mm!

SUSHI. Of Course. Yet again, another place that we were unble to retain it's name. But this one was a little shop run by Papa Matsuo's golf buddy. This is the place we experience REAL Toro. Do you guys know Toro? I'm sure most of you do, but if not: Toro is fatty bluefin tuna belly. There are 2 grades of this stuff: Chu-toro and O-toro. Chu-toro is "middle" grade and O-Toro is the higest grade. Real O-toro will literally melt in your mouth -and of course, this stuff is pretty expensive too. Since Papa Matsuo insisted we order the best, we ordered both toros. Our reaction: WOW. It really DOES melt in your mouth...and da buggah taste good too! It was hard to go back to regular red Ahi sushi after that!

MORE SUSHI: This time we had it for breakfast! It was at the Tsukiji Fish Market. At 5:30 a.m. there is a fish auction that pretty much every Tokyo guide book insists you go and see. Unfortunately, we got there just when it ended. That's okay tho, we still got to see massive Ahi's (much much bigger than our Gir) getting carted away to their winning bids. After walking around the big market area full of all kinds of fish, we decided it was time to eat them. We picked a cute little sushi shop on the main street and dug in. It was good -but we gotta admit, not as good as Pap Matsuo's friend's sushi!

YAKINIKU. Korean Style, in Shinjuku. We went here with Misako (Daniel's mom's long-time friend) and family. They fed us SO MUCH. I totally got my Kal Bi fix -and then some. This was a family of eaters! There were 6 of us, and they ordered about 8+ platters of various eats to cook up AND each of the 2 daughters got their own big bowl of Bi Bim Bap atop a heap of rice! But I guess we shouldnt have been too surprised since this family runs a manju and snack shop! For our last dinner in tokyo, they asked us to have dinner at their house and while Misako was cooking a grand meal, the rest of the family was trippin' out that we didn't need to gorge ourselves on snacks while we waited for a little less than an hour!

NEW SANNO'S RESTAURANTS: We went to two really nice places in the hotel. One was a Japanese restaurant. We decided to go to just because it was convenient. We didn't think it was going to be anything special. We even wondered why an american/military hotel would even MAKE a Japanese restaurant in the midst of well,...it's native country! But of course, regardless of my doubts, it was wonderful :) Since we went a bit late, we almost had the place to ourselves! They do Teppanyaki (kind of like how Benihana is). The chef cooking up our stuff was a cool, mellow japanese guy who spoke really good english. The food he cooked us looked and tasted fantastic, but looked like such small portions -but after we finished the last dish, we were SUPER full. Sha-zam, like magic! (lawdy, did I just say "sha-zam?")

We also went to the hotel's fanciest restarant: Wellington's. This was a new and amusing experience for us since we've never really done "fine dining" before. We knew it was a classy place, but we didn't realize just how classy! I managed to pass dress code with what Sarah calls my "Naked Eye" dress ( http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=Sn56sIX5KWE) and mary jane shoes. Daniel however, didn't make the cut with his button-up shirt, dark jeans and Vans shoes. Awww. poor ting. But instead of shunning us away, they offered up a closet of dress pants and shoes where he could borrow from! At first, all the special attention was kind of awkward. We had about 3 guys waiting on us! The "champange and food" guy, the "basket of warm bread" guy and the "I'll answer any of your questions, is there anything you need?" guy. But even with the 3 of them, they made sure to give us our space. Oh yah, and the food was excellent too ;)

Basically, we had a good and tasty experience with pretty much everywhere we ate! Well, except for ONE place. After ending a late night at the club on the final night, we went to a little mini mart and bought some musubis -we were STARVING. His one, with smoked/cooked salmon innit mustve gone bad cause the poor thing got really sick the next day. At first we thought it was a hangover, but since he really didn't drink all that much and had a mean tummy ache for the entire morning, we ruled out the booze and figured it mustve been that damn musubi! Then Papa Matsuo told us that during the summer, it isn't a good idea to buy musubis with meat innum... NOW he tells us!

Onward to SHOPPING and EXPLORING:
With Papa Matsuo as our personal chauffer for the first 2 days (he had to work for the rest of the week), we got to go pretty much wherever we wanted! At first we felt guilty to have him drive us everywhere but he insisted and he was happy to do so. The awkward part was that he would take us everywhere and wait in the car until we were done with the place -then take us to the next place! He said that walking around tokyo didn't really interest him. I guess cause he's lived there all his life? He assured us that he would be fine waiting -as his car has a t.v.

Palette Town in Odaiba: This place surprised us. When we first entered we saw a huge Toyota musuem/gallery. This place was bizarre. They had all the latest models and some cool futuristic prototypes. They even had a cute toyota car ride with their tiniest car. We decided to skip on that. But here's a picture with me in one :) Anywho, the surprising thing was how massive this place really was! After walking thru the Toyota place then thru a big game center,we came out thinking, "What a weird place. I guess we should head back to the car now..." But then we walked back to the main entrance and saw a rather unassuming door downstairs to our left. We figured it didn't hurt to see what that was all about and we went in. DUDE... it was a HUGE indoor mall! Whaaat?! What was even weirder was that they designed it to look just like Vegas' Caesar's Palace Forum Shops! It was a pretty neat place -I think when I come back to Tokyo, I'd like to spend a little more time here. Oh oh! but before I get to the next place, I gotta tell ya about the really cool "thing" we experienced at the game center! There was this black fabric-covered cylindrical room in the middle. It was maybe about 20-25ft across inside. And for 600yen you can sit in this room and be engulfed in 3-D! The theme this week was horror. We thought it would be fun so we went for it. There was a small group of 20-somethings (4 girls and one guy) behind us debating on going in -but I guess since they saw us go in, they decided to try it too. Oh my lawd, it was hilarious. I'll admit, they had some pretty freaky things in there like the massive 3-D fleshy worms (with sharp teef) that shot from one side of the room to the other side (how'd they do that?!) and the crazy lookin' bloody guy that came bolting out at you, cackling, with his massive shears and those blades shooting out -cutting your head off! Me and Daniel were "woah-ing and laughing but the girls were screaming! One girl even burrowed her face into her friend's back and started crying! yikes!

Harajuku: Thanks to Gwen Stefani, pretty much everyone knows about this place. The place where all the kids (and excentrics) come to "express" themselves. This place is fun to just walk around and people-watch or get that random odd accessory. We went here twice during the week. The first time we went, we were lucky enough to catch a big celebration happening at the park by the subway station. The event was called Super Yosakoi. From what I could tell, Super Yosakoi is a event where big groups of people dressed in lovely matching outfits, dance syncronicly (?) (syncronycically? syncronized-ly? well u know what I mean) and they compete with other groups. There were even Chinese and Korean groups! Anywho, it was really neat... it looked like so much fun too! Made me kinda wish I was in one of 'em. On a related note, I just heard that Yosakoi is coming to our town! Oh boy, oh boy! I'm SO THERE.

The second time we went to Harajuku was on our own. We went to visit the MoMA store. No Museum tho, just the store. I couldn't believe they would have one WAAAAY over here in Japan! I HAD to check it out. The store was a pretty good size, about the size of maybe 2-and-a-half Starbucks. I spent a nice chunk of money there :) I was happy.

We also visited the Meiji Shrine there. Picture taking a nice 15 minute stroll thru a lush wooded path and it ending at the grand entryway of a shrine. Beyond the huge wooden doors was a big open courtyard and the shrine sitting just beyond it. *sigh* On one side of the courtyard there was a great big tree with a fence around it. The fence was covered with thousands of people's wishes. People from all over the world, written in countless languages. Amazing. Many of these wishes asked for good health for family & friends and for love. It's nice to know that despite our many differences, we all basically want the same thing. After adding a wish, tossing a coin and paying our respects, we headed back. I felt refreshed and content. I dunno how Daniel felt, but I'd like to think he felt the same. We walked a different path back and realized that no one else was on it. hrm... strange. Then it started to pour. As the heavy-heavy rain came coming down, and the sky suddenly getting darker, the once lush and peaceful path seemed rather creepy. Slightly worried, we walked faster, huddled under a broken umbrella. Then Daniel started to stare and squint at something up ahead on my side of the path. He started to say, "Is that a house over th.... AAAAH!" I screamed. I hate him so much. By the time we got out of there, the rain had stopped, and any residual peacefulness we felt had gone with it ;)

AKIHABARA: This is the electronics district. Alls I gotta say is: TOO MUCH. Personally, that place is just overload. But I'm pretty sure Daniel dug it. A couple of times I heard him say, "Holy crap, I can't believe they sell this here, that's crazy!" ...Oh well, at least I found the laser pointer I was looking for (toy for the fuzzy beasts back home).

OBON FESTIVAL in Roppongi. Let me just say this: This Obon festival was NOTHING like the one in Sasebo -nor like any in Hawaii! Basically, the streets packed with the usual little booths -selling food, toys, accessories, games... but this one had BOOZE. A lot of the bars in the area got in on the action and served up glasses of Dom Perignon (with fresh strawberries -ooh lala) and X-rated (the pink drink) at very reasonable prices. So naturally, the majority of the people we saw in these streets were drunk 20-somethings. A lot of the girls wore their yukatas with red light up devil horns that were sold on the street. I wasn't too sure how to feel about that -seemed a bit offensive. But then, after a couple of drinks, I really wanted to find a pair of green ones! Shameful.

And noooooow, we reach the segment I like to call: MY FAVORITES...

HASEGAWA KYUGUTEN, a japanese archery store owned by the family of Mizue, a Kyudo sensei and friend of mine. :) I can't tell you enough how excited I was to go to this place! I'd say just as (or maybe even a bit more) excited than meeting daniel's dad! teehee...visions of arrows danced in my head...hmm...What color should I get? I hope they have one that I like! So silly yah? When we got there I basically FLEW out of the car. And then of course ever so quietly opening the door, popping my head in and saying with my most polite voice: "Sumimasen...Ohaiyogazaimasu..." Mizue's mom came out and greeted me with a smile and we went straight into business! I was looking for a whole set: a Bamboo bow and a set of 6 arrows. She had me try a couple of bows to see which one felt the best. Then she went to the back to wrap the handle with my chosen pattern. In the meantime, Mizue's grandma came out and helped me pick out a set of arrows sized just right for me. There were SO many lovely colors to chose from -I was a tad concerned that I might have trouble deciding! But when she put the whole batch of them on the table, I knew exactly which one I was taking home with me. It seemed to say "Psst! Hey you! lookit me! I've been waiting for you!" I lovingly call this color: "mint-aqua"

SEA-AQUARIUM & CITY LIGHTS in Roppongi Hills. Roppongi Hills is this set of HUGE twin buildings -taller than the Tokyo Tower! At the top of one of these buildings is a art museum and a creatively designed, beautiful aquarium. What you also get when u buy a ticket to any one of the exhibits is a free panoramic view of the city thru high, glass-to-ceiling windows. Oh man, it was fantastic! And because it rained, soft, thin gray clouds wafted in and out of our view of the tokyo city lights. Some may say it ruined the view, but I thought it was pretty cool -plus it reminded me how high up we were!

ABSOLUT ICE BAR TOKYO in Roppongi. This little bar is based on the Ice Hotel in Sweden. What's even crazier is that they ship in all ice stuff FROM Sweden! At 3500yen for cover, the price was a little steep, but we just HAD TO try it! What we got for that price was a big heavy silver coat with a faux fur-lined hood, a pair o thick, insulated gloves and a drink (served in a cup made of ice). The music in there was a nice chill, atmospheric, housey type of music that perfectly matched the surroundings. And our ONE drink was reeeally yummy! I was kind of sad when I drank all of it (but passed on getting another -it would cost 1200yen). You also only get to stay in there for 45 minutes, but after sipping our drinks, taking pictures and soaking in the experience, we were ready to move on to the next place. The place was small and pricey, but we both agree that it was amusing enough to be worth it -at least once!

CLUB WOMB in Shibuya. After the Ice Bar, I was ready to go to a club. In Sasebo, there are NO CLUBS. Now folks, it's not like I'm a heavy clubber, but I like to go out one in a while and shake my kaboose every once in a while. So when my buddy Charlie told me about Club Womb, I was stoked to see what it was all about! Good thing I had wrote down the address from their website before we left the hotel cause it was pouring outside and we couldnt see a thing! The taxi driver took the address and entered it into his hooked up GPS. We were there in no time. But when we got to the address and got ou, we couldnt find a "Club Womb" sign anywhere! Just a big unmarked building. There was a guy in the front, holding an umbrella and waving us over. He said to me in japanese, "I know what you are looking for" and points to a short set of stairs with a big orange door at the bottom. The door opens from a guy on the INSIDE and he waves us in. SO COOL! We felt so covert! They even had a finger scanner at the front for members! Wussup wit dat?! That can't be for real, can it?!

Well folks here we are, we have reached the end of this blog... FINALLY! Hope this blog was a least a little entertaining (or useful! -if you havent visited tokyo, you really should!) Anywho, thanks for being part of this one-sided conversation! :D luv u guys!

-M2

ps. saw this great sign in the subway:

Spirits and Creatures!

2008-08-17T18:37:00.000-07:00

So far, this summer has been hot & muggy, cultural, and weeeeird.

Hot & muggy at 90+ degrees with a bajillion percent humidity.. I tell ya, it's just plain "eww" out there) "Black Flag" is what the guys on base are calling this weather. Oh and I hear the worst is still to come! guhreeat.

Cultural because it's Obon Season.

And Weeeird because never in my life have I ever seen so many unusual creepy crawlies in my life! I'll show u some in a little bit....

So, many of (or all) you folks in Hawaii may know about Obon thru the Bon Dances that occur around July-August. Alls I knew about Obon was the dancing-around-a-tower and shrine-visiting to celebrate/remember/ pay respects to people who have passed on. What I got to experience this past friday was a whole 'nother side....

The entire last week was observed as holiday for the Japanee folk. Unfortunately for the japanese nationals who work on base, they dont get these days off (Those who work on base observe american holidays only). During this time, families and friends gather to make a float, (resembling a boat -yay, I rhymed) in honor of a loved one who has passed away this year. They then carry or push these boats on wheels (depending on size) from their homes, parading them to a big park in the middle of the city.

Since this was our first year attending a traditional Obon ceremony/festival. We needed to do it right. We even got off work an hour early so that we could take care of the Gir and Miu matters and not have to rush to get ready. It was a good thing too, cause it took me like a freakin' HOUR to get my yukata on! I even had to watch a instructional youtube video about 10 times to get the obi on right! I was getting pretty frustrated...the ties and folds just weren't staying put!

...All the while, there sat Daniel, (who ready in seconds flat, because all he had to do was throw on a hapi coat) ooh-ing and woah-ing at videos of freedivers spearing uluas! [hmph.]

But when I finally got that yukata on I was stoked! So stoked was I, that I almost didn't care that it was highwater! -Apparently the "One-Size" style comes up a bit short for Magzilla ;)

After a couple pictures, we were off to the Albaqurque Bridge (the bridge that all the americans from base, cross to go into town), to meet a couple of friends. There, they had various food, souvenir booths and even a little buddhist shrine set up forpeople to pray!

[Oh by the way, they even had those plastic rainbow light-up toys! You know what I'm talking about right? The ones they have at the Polynesian Cultural Center or the ones you can get during christmas at Honolulu Hale! ... except over here they had SWORD kine! Ohhhh boy, did Daniel wanted one of those! -but he got over it pretty quick when they told us it was $12.

What we DID buy was a floating lantern to share. We even got to decorate it before we released it into the river. While decorating, I glaced over at a haole guy next to me who wrote a little note on his lantern addressed to his uncle who had passed away. It said something about how he was glad he got to see him before he left for heaven... It made me a little sad -but then a little ashamed for being so nosey and peeking in on this poor guy's personal life! oops. Anywho, after successfully releasing our lantern, and watching it float over to get lost with the other lanterns, I felt an unexpected sense of calm. I may have only lasted a minute or two, but it was definitely there.

After that. we were off to get some food.. we were starving! we ate tako yaki and a banana-choco crepe. We sat and ate near the street where the parade of boat-floats passed by. It was trippy, they only close one lane of traffic for this parade, so cars are going by RIGHT up next to them!

It was a sad but beautiful sight. All these boats. Each one representing a missed loved one. Some even had a picture of the departed. A grandma, a grandpa, a young son :( Some of these boats were HUGE. There was this one young guy's boat that was really cool. His float wasn't a boat at all! It was built to look like a Kawasaki motorcycle! There were pictures of him on the front and back. He was a pretty young too, he didn't look a day over 25. The bunch of guys pushing the float looked about the same age -they must've been his friends... perhaps they're a motocycle gang?

After most of the boats passed us and reached their goal at the park, we decided to head to the park too. What we saw at the park was even more surprising. This big park was filled with SO MANY boats! They were all perfectly lined up for display. Big boats and little boats side-by-side. This is where everyone lit up the rest of their firecrackers. But they werent' popping them one pack at a time, they burned piles at a time! It made my ears hurt a little, but the resulting smoke looked pretty neat -like mini mushroom clouds!

On the opposite side of the park was a big loooog pile of what kinda looked like trash. Upon closer inspection, we discovered that it was a huge mound of offerings! They were fresh-cut flowers wrapped in (what looked like) straw matting, and paper packages full of decorative sugar flowers! I had nothing to give, so I offered my head-flowers thing.

I felt sad but I felt kinda happy too. Sad because I couldn't believe how many people died this year in Sasebo... But happy because I got to see the result of family and friends working together, and a community that really supports it.

After feeling spiritually renewed, we went to our favorite bar and got plastered ;)

Onward to creatures!... now don't get me wrong folks, I am NOT a bug fan, but I feel so compelled to share this witchu guys!

Okay, so it appears that Sasebo+Summer=BUGS! As soon as summer hit, all these crazy bugs came out of the woodwork! I've had bright green stickbugs surprising me at the park (they blend in so well with the grass!). I've seen butterflies of various colors: yellow, white, electric blue, lilac, monarch orange ('cept these were smaller than the ones I've seen back home) and black ones... hmmm maybe those are moths? Yeah, there's lots of different moths too. My favorite one is this guy -which I named Mothra...naturally.

There's a lot of beetles here too. Like BIG ones. Big like the length of your palm! Japanese kids like to have them as pets... but if you don't want to go and catch them yourself, you can buy them at a store for 600-800yen! crazy. Unfortunately, I don't have any photo proof of those :( I even spotted a big reddish-brown one at the park last week but I didn't have my camera. I ran home and got it but it was gone by the time I got back! sneaky buggah. (maybe some kid found it and took it?)

Here's a fun fuzzy worm we saw near a boat harbor.

And right now, it's the season for Semi. These suckers are big, loud and kinda freaky to me. Alas, we have not been brave enough to get close enough to get a good picture of one yet. This website has one on the bottom of the page. It even has a audio sample! Just multiply that by 20 or so, and you'll get the lovely sound we hear out in the park every morning! http://www.timwerx.net/odds/suzumushi/index.htm

There was one lying in the front walkway 3 doors down (hehe) from our apartment. It looked dead. I thought "Oh hey, nows my chance to get a picture of this thing!" how morbid and odd is that?! Anywho, I run home, get my camera and run back -good, it's still there... so then I turn my camera on macro setting -ready to shoot...

...I need a stick or something to flip it over... boo. no stick in sight.

maybe I can blow onnit...

*phoooo*

The friggen thing comes back to life!! Still upside down, it starts spinning furiously and buzzing!

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!

FORGET THIS!

I run away.

Later after work, I lead daniel there to take a look at it. It's still there. Still upside down. It's not moving. I hand him the camera. He gives it back and tells me to shoot while he tries to flip it over with his shoe.

We go in closer...

Without warning, the thing starts buzzing and spinning again!

Daniel says [and I quote]: "Woah Shit!"

he leaps up....

laughing, we both run home. ...we're pathetic ;)

the next day da buggah was gone.

Oh! and on a side note, we have also witnessed a large crab crossing the road during our morning commute.

Hope u enjoyed this webisode, stay tuned for the next installment after we get back from Tokyo! We're headed there this Friday to meet Daniel's pops! :)

thanks for readin' me!

Fujiisan: Color Me Humbled!

2008-07-13T23:57:00.000-07:00

Konbanwa!

In case some of you haven't heard, Daniel and I decided to take on Mt. Fuji this past weekend. Hooo Boy, what a journey!...

First, a little background:

At 12,388 feet, Mt. Fuji is the tallest mountain in Japan. It is open to climbers for about 2 summer months per year. On the other months, it is actually illegal due to the extreme cold climate and super strong winds -winds that can literally whip people right off the mountain! They say approximately 200,000 people climb up Fujisan [what the japanee folk call it] every year!

Aaaanywho.. here's how our travels started.

After packing all the essentials, taking the fuzzies to the pet hotel, and buying even MORE supplies at the NEX (just in case), we were ready to embark on this journey.

I must also mention that for the past 2 weeks I have commited myself to wearing my hiking boots all day, everyday (to break them in). We have also been good about training at the gym -rockin' the treadmill and stairmaster everyday after work. I HATE the stairmaster.. but my biggest fear was being that one person who would slow the rest of the group down.

We went with a group of 29 predominantly young, healthy folks. This tour is run only two times a year by the Outdoor Recretion Center [OREC] on Base. Their motto is like that movie Lilo & Stitch: "No one gets left behind." And here's why I'm a terrible person: While we were all getting to know eachother at OREC, I was also scanning the group for people who may potentially be slower than me! I fixed my focus on this kinda big guy, (who looked like a much taller version of Silent Bob) who was taking out a pair of NEW hiking boots from an NEX package. SO BAD YAH!? but aside from my evil thoughts, the group looked like a fun bunch of people ;)

The first challenge: Survive the 15 hour shuttle bus ride.

During the first 2 hours, everyone was excited that they passed inspection and were on their way to hike the great Fujisan. Everyone was chatting it up, playing their nintendo DSs, ipods or reading. Daniel and I were ready too: we had a word search book, two of those "spot the differences" books, a magnetic Chess & Checkers set, a travel-size Connect 4 game, a DS, a PSP and an ipod ;)

We stopped at a rest stop every 2 hours. It wasn't too bad... at least for the first waking hours.... :\

After our dinner stop, there was nothing left to look forward to but trying to sleep on this uncomfortable bus that stops every 2 hours! :(

It's pretty safe to say that none of us got a decent night's sleep.

But then we finally reached our destination. And with the excitement, everyone got a new boost of energy. We got dressed, loaded up, and bought a plain wooden hiking stick from the souvenir shop.

Here's the entry of the hike. That guy right there is Walter, our hike guide. This is the same guy we got our Kayaking Certification from. Yep, the same guy who paddled circles around us. I tell you, this guy is a machine! You will hear more about how amazing this guy is a bit.

So here we go, hiking sticks in hand, merrily embarking on this glorious adventure...

We started at the 5th Station of the mountain. This is where most hikers start since there is paved road and car passage up to this point. Since we were already pretty high up, we started our hike with a view of the morning light.. it was BEAUTIFUL! I must've sighed at least 3 times!

So there are 5 stations till the top. It took us about 1.5 hours to get to each station. It was mildly strenuous but doable..at least until the 7th station! Till then, it was a zig-zaggy rocky, dirt trail. 3 hours into the hike, we all started to realize that this hike was going to be harder than we thought. The tight group was starting to thin and spread out. Then the guide in the back, (who acted as a sweep), Charles hollered for Walter in the front. We all had to halt. 3 people had given up. They said they could go no further. Dan (The volunteer guide -who also happens to be Daniel's supervisor) took over as the lead guide while Walter went back down to escort the 3 people back to the bus. He told us that after he gets them back to the bus, he will catch up with us. He's crazy. We just hiked 3 hours and he's going to go all the way back down and come back up to meet us?! geez. At this point, Daniel had nicknamed him "The Terminator," and everyone laughed and agreed.

And with that, we sallied forth. We were lucky, it was a nice day. Cool and breezy, but still sunny. Even with a good coat of sunblock, I got pretty burnt. At the 7th station we got the first of many hot stamps. Each station has a couple of huts that serve as rest stops. At these huts, you can get your wooden walking stick hot-stamped with a design unique to their hut. Each stamp costs 200 yen (about 2 bucks). Some stations have a special 2-design stamp that they offer for 300 yen. But I tell yah, it really adds up! 2 sticks at 10 bucks each, with 15+ stamps on each stick! Cha-ching. It was worth it tho. It was patiently done the old-fashioned way with a hot coal pit and a small metal brander. The people who ran these huts also lived there during the hiking months! They even had small sleeping areas available for hikers if they wanted to sleep there -for a price of course! I ain't gonna lie, shit was REALLY expensive up there... and the price got higher and higher as we ascended! For example: bottled water: 400yen, Cup-o-noodles: 600yen!! Oh, and a small can of oxygen (yes, they had those): 1,300yen!

Nearly every station, we stopped to "refuel." We both had camelbacks full of gatorate and a backpack full of beef jerky, powerbars and gel packs. The gel packs were surprisingly tasty -like fruity, chopped up jello! It made up for the powerbars -bleh. I really wasn't feelin' those but I knew I had to eat. Walter told us that even the fittest of hikers can collapse due to lack of intake. So I gulped mouthfuls of gatorade and choked a powerbar down at every station. Speaking of Walter, he caught up with us at the 8th station!

It was pretty much the same stuff until the 9th station. But it got colder and colder and we lost sight of all "green life" down below. Now it was just rock, pebbles, ice and CLOUDS! Our walking sticks were pretty full of stamps at this point -all we needed was that final stamp from the hut at the top! We were exhausted. Everyone gathered together to rest one last time till the final frontier. The last stretch was a DOOZIE! It was nearly 3 times as long as the trek from the 8th to 9th station! It was pretty funny tho. When you reach the 9th station, the hut that sits there blocks the view of the trail to the top... so every person who walked around the hut to see it, let out a big sigh or a classic: "Holy Shit!"

Needless to say, at the 9th staion, someone decided to give up and Walter had to escort yet another person down. But this time, he decided not to come back up and join us -I mean, we were almost there!

I can't even begin to say how hard this was. Physically AND Mentally. We were moving SOOOO SLOW. It was discouraging how much futher we had to go, even tho we had already made it this far, there was still this monumental stretch of nothingness. It would feel like we'd walk forever -then when you look back to see how far you went, you'd realize that the 9th station was still RIGHT THERE! Waaaah! When we reached the halfway point, we felt a mixture of relief and dispair.

Then there it was.. the gate marking the end! We summed up the last vial of strength and FLEW up the last "zag." It felt fantastic. I wanted to jump up and down and do a dance,.. but all I could muster was throwing my arms up and giving a big toofy grin.

It felt weird to be up at the top. There was so much activity! But even with all the hustle and bustle, I could really see how spiritual all this could feel -With the cold, thin air, the sky all misty white ...and our endorphin-filled bodies... ;)

We quickly got our last stamp. It was perfect: A simple "Top of Mt Fuji, ALT. 12395 ft" burned with a thick circle around it. It was still warm when they handed it back to us... yes, I had to touch it to believe it :)

We decided it would be a good idea to eat something up there so we took a seat in one of the shops. The seating was weird. The whole area had about 4 rows of long wooden boxes. Each one was covered with tatami (japanese matting). People sat on both sides of the rows. There were no tables. You just had to hold your food with one hand and eat with the other. The food was EXPENSIVE too. But that was to be expected. We ordered a Miso Ramen to share. It costed 800 yen. It was delievered to us in a small bowl, filled with barely enough ramen for ONE person! And it tasted a lot like the Sapporo Ichiban, 65 cent ramen that you can buy at Longs! ...But lemme tell yah, after eating nasty powerbars and guzzling 2 liters of fruit punch gatorade for 6+ hours, it was the tastiest instant ramen EVAR!

[Oh! by the way, remember the "Giant Silent Bob" guy? yah, well he was pretty much ahead of us during the ENTIRE hike! That'll teach ME to judge by appearance!]

After resting up at the top for about 45 minutes, the group gathered, took a quick swing over to look at the crater. We found it amusing that this big ol' crater had only a few skinny metal posts and some flimsy rope to keep people from falling in!

Then we began our 3-4hr descent. This was WAAAAY easier, since going down is a different trail. The trail was mostly pebbly and dusty. Which means it pretty much sucked if you had people in front of you. We all felt like Pig Pen from Charlie Brown.

Even tho it was easier that going up, walking down a trail covered with loose pebbles had it's own challenges. But within the first hour, we learned to tolerate having little rocks in our shoes and perfected our "slide-step."

The first hour's decent was pretty bleak. Just a red and gray trail against the white sky. But we did stop to play with a wall of ice!

[Side note: You may notice, that there are no pictures of JUST daniel. That's because it's pretty tricky operating a camera with gloves! Not to mention, I DID earn the nickname "The Destroyer" since I was a wee child, so we didn't want to take our chances...But I DID manage to get a shot of him during the warmer parts of the hike -but that one came out too dark! poor guy. Aaanywho, moving on...]

So here's a couple pictures taken when we finally DID see something worth shooting!

On the right, I call this a picture of "mokomoko clouds."

And below is a panoramic shot of the view below, once we got out of the "whiteness."

When we hit solid(er) ground, Dan told us that we just had one more UPHILL stretch to overcome and we'd be back to our bus. He called it the "Heartbreak Ridge." How appropriate. It was about a mile more. The sun was low (it was going to set soon) and blaring directly in front of us as we trudged along. Then all of a sudden, I started to feel queazy. I couldnt look ahead because of the sun, so I looked down at the rocks. But then the rocks started to vibrate. My tummy was starting to hurt. Uh Oh. Since I drank all my gatorate during the descent, I didn't drink or eat anything on the way down -big mistake. The awful feeling in my gut escalated pretty quickly and it was hard to even think straight. ARRRGH, not now! It was so frustrating. More than ever, I wanted to finish this. We were WAY too close! I couldn't stop now! Daniel still had some gatorade left, so he gave it to me. He told me to hang on to him and focus on something other than the rocks. So I walked behind him, holding on to his backpack for guidance and directed my attention to the lush greenery on our right. Even if I felt lousy, it was quite a sight. It felt a tiny bit better. All the while there was a mini battle in my head: One side, whining like bratty children -asking me to stop and rest. The other side sounding like a drill seargent shouting that I'd be a complete wuss if I listened to them....but the next thing you know,.. we had made it to the parking lot. Thank the lawd!!!

Since we had "conquered" Fujisan faster than expected, we were treated with a trip to an onsen. But during the ride, my queaziness turned into full-blown dizziness and nausea. I've never felt so messed up. Then it got worse. My vision was blacking out. With eyes wide open, I could barely make out anything in front of me. This mixed with a light head (that felt like it was going to disconnect and float off ...) and a heavy, painfull churn in my belly, pretty much freaked me out. Daniel tried to tell me that my body was just experiencing over-exhaustion and I needed to calm down and try to relax. Two guys, Kurry and Cai, who sat close-by who happened to work in the medical field, heard me talking so they got up from their seats to check on me. And folks, lemme tell you how lady-like I am: When they asked me various medical questions, I responded with: "I dunno guys, but I gotta either puke or take a crap -either way, something's gotta come out!" NICE. :\

When we reached the onsen, Walter told me that this exact thing happened to another lady 2 hikes ago. He said that I just needed to eat carbs. I told him that I ate a couple of powerbars and stayed hydrated, but then he said that either I didn't eat enough or maybe my body wasn't taking the powerbars well. Hmmm...come to think, before this hike, I've never had a powerbar! Nor have I ever drank so much gatorate before! He reenforced his previous comment and said "Trust me, you just need carbs." Daniel dug thru our bags and found a tuna & crackers set. He ripped it open and gave me just the crackers to eat. (Tuna sounded so disgusting at the time.) There were about 6 crackers in the pack. By the 5th cracker, I felt 70% better! wow. Magical crackers! I was well enough to take advantage of the onsen. Now THAT felt GREAT. After we got out, Daniel bought me some sweet bread that they sold there. It almost seemed like I felt better and better with every bite.

After that, I was an eating machine. It was funny, Walter just happened to be passing by everytime I had food in my hands. He commented, "Wow, you're really taking my advice to heart!" he started laughing around the 4th time he saw me and said: "Man, I'm impressed!"

On the bus ride back, 3/4ths of the people were sleeping... and the rest of us were challenging eachother in Connect 4! :)

Well I guess that's it guys! I hope you found this blog informative and useful -in case you should feel so compelled to take on Mt Fuji too! Remember folks: Bring carbs, liquids, cold-weather & rain gear and LOTS of yen and determination!

And now I leave you with this fine discovery at one of our rest stops: SPAM Curry!

Oh, and to the right of it is WHALE Curry... yikes.

much love, me

Working with Grown-Ups

2008-06-19T05:27:00.000-07:00

Hullo tharr Misters and Missies!

Well golly gee folks, things have been just plain crazy 'round here in these parts!

Just lookit what I've been up to:

I got me certified to breathe with the fishies...on their.. um..."turf" I guess you could say? Yes, 4 days (2 whole weekends) of intense training! Nah, it was actually pretty fun! But there WERE some parts that were pretty: ugh-I-don't-wan't-to-do-THAT-again!
The cool thing was, the scuba-sensei (who is an american -for those of you may have wondered...) said that our group was his rockstar class. He said we catch-on super fast! yay us! The first day was pretty shitty tho. We had this one lady in our class (about my age) who was a total downer. It's not because she just couldn't get things as quickly as the rest of the class -but it was the fact that she complained CONSTANTLY! She couldn't do the mask-off, mask-on underwater thing and kept sucking pool water up her nose. (We all know how much THAT hurts!) But after maybe her 3rd attempt, she decided to take a break and sit on the side to calm down. The whole time she sat there, she kept saying she was a retard and making all these random excuses. So I sat next to her and tried to encourage her. After all, I somehow ended up being her scuba buddy (that was a big mistake). I suggested she just try to relax and I told her that I understood how frustrated she must feel. I even told her nobody minded waiting for her, I mean we're a team right? (I know I would probably feel small-kine shame for making the rest of the class wait for me!)...Then she turned to me with her eyes rolling and said, "Uh, yah,..look...I know what you're trying to do, but you're SO full of it!"

Ooooookay! bizatch. :\

Nah nah. just kidding.... sorta ;) Of course, after that snippy remark, I decided to leave her to her misery.

After another unsuccesful attempt, she had completely given up and quit the class.

So then I got a new buddy -Doug. He was kinda on the quiet side, but 100x better than my last buddy!

From the 2nd day on, we whizzed thru the next 3 classes and ended about an hour early on each day :) One of the many cool things about scuba class was that there was a fellow Hawaii guy innit! Cheehu! He was SUPER nice too! Every morning he brought starbucks coffee for everyone and everyday he took pictures of us in training. Then he'd email them to all of us by the end of the day! We plan to all go scuba-ing as soon as the weather clears up. Right now it's been raining non-stop for the past 3 days. They say it will keep raining for the next 3 days (maybe longer!)! People say that in Sasebo, it's pretty typical for it to rain for an entire month during the summer! It's also muggy as heck. bleh.

Anywho, here's a couple of scuba shots:

On the left is Doug holding the jelly I gave him. We all had fun with that poor little thing! On the right is me, trying to walk on the pool floor :)

Anywho, I better move on to the next subject -lots of things to cover!

So if you haven't heard, I got the job in marketing! Hooray!

But first, I need to tell you about my last days at the youth center!

I gotta say, it was tough. I really grew attached to those kids! :( But as my parting gifts, I decorated a door and a wall in the center. The wall took me two nights to put together. Halfway thru, I was pretty unhappy about the way it was turning out: The paints weren't opaque enough, the paper that was lining the wall wrinked as I painted, and my jungle concept really just wasn't working out... but hey, I couldn't just stop right there and forget the whole thing right?

This is how they both turned out:

On the last day, the kids surprised me with cards they made in the craft area. They were so cute! They were made with contruction paper, markers, and whatever else they could get their hands on! One kid, Jimmy, actually made me an orange-and-blue contruction-paper camera! Okay, I couldn't really tell it was a camera -he had to tell me! ;) The messages inside each card were adorabe! "Miss Maggie, I like you! I hope you have fun at your new work." "I will miss you Miss Maggie! You are my favorite staff" One kid, Jordan, drew a picture of me holding a suitcase and leaving a bunch of sad kids... it made me chuckle. I asked him, "Haccome I have a suitcase?" and he burst out laughing ,saying, "Oh yeeaaah! Miss Maggie, you don't have a suitcase!" (as if I was the one who drew the picture!) So silly :) But after I collected what looked like a big 'ol pile of colorful scrap paper, I felt a little watery wiggle in my eyes :~( ...It was close! but I didn't cry. On the last night, I made ice cream sundaes for 2 of my co's and I, and we talked-story till about 11 p.m. Man, I'm sure gonna miss them too!

Onward to my new job! I started my full-time posish this past monday. Lucky for me, they were in full swing working on their next bi-monthly Showcase magazine. Allison, my boss is REALLY cool. In the beginning I was a bit apprehensive/worried because she is so strong minded and set in her ways, but lo and behold, by tuesday, she was asking me for my opinion on layout design and actually taking my advice! woah. Consider my mind blown. The magazine production process went smoothly and was sent to the presses right on time. I'd like to think that I helped make that happen :) also, in my humble opinion, I'd say it's the best looking one yet! ;D I also got to design ads and posters -pretty much the way I wanted- and helped put together the big employee party!

The party was pretty darn impressive. They had it at the ballroom on base. All the tables were laid out and decorated REALLY classy-cool like. The theme was Rock-n-Roll. They had rock music playing, prizes, and free food and BOOZE! As soon as we settled in, Daniel had a whole pitcher of beer handed to him! His comment on that: "I love this party!" And they had the awesomest game evar. A DDR competition! Imagine watching grown-ups jumpin' around on those dance pads!...fun right?! (the party was for peeps 18+ only). On that same token, it was no surprise to me that the DDR champions were the ones who work at the pre-teen/teen centers!
Then we had the prize drawings. There were some great prizes. It looked like everyone was winning something -except us. It came down to two prizes: a Japanese Doll in a glass case (which we crossed our fingers -hoping we WOULDN'T win it!...thankfully, we didn't. -whew! heehee) and a purty white vase with a simple, elegant painting of Mt. Fuji onnit. Daniel REALLY wanted that one. I did too. So I focused all my concentration on it. I imagined them puling a name out of the box...

But alas, some other lady won it. Waaaaah. :(

Then there was a surprise drawing -the grand prize! And you can guess what happened: They called my name!
WHAT?! Fo' REALS?! AWESOME!!!
The prize was a giant grill....Every carnivore's DREAM! Holy shishkabob. I stood up, took many-a-bow and gleefully skipped to the front stage. They now have a picture of me hugging the giant box. Then, after the euphoria subsided, we realized that this fantastic grill was just too big for our apartment! I suggested to daniel that maybe we should let someone else win it. To which he responded with, "NO WAY!! That thing is OURS!!!" ...sheesh!

The thing just barely fit in the back of our Wagon R. He returned it the next day -and got us a gift card :)

And now we reach last night! John, Megan's hubby (both buddies from Hawaii) is in Sasebo for the next couple of days. So we met up with him and took him out to our favorite bar: Yakkyu Gushi. MAN did he stick out! But the folks at Yakkyu Gushi took him in with open arms :) We all had SOOOO much fun! John is such a good sport. In the spirit of learning the language, he pretty much repeated EVERYTHING we told him to say! Two local regulars met up with us and things got even sillier. They actually could speak a pretty good amount of english, so they taught John some silly slang phrases to tell the owner, bartenders and random patrons. It was TOO FUNNY. By the end of the night, John had made friends with nearly everyone there -but thoroughly forgot ALL their names ;D

Today we had a BBQ/potluck at the house. We invited a bunch of Daniel's co-workers and their families. Good times. We played Wario Smooth Moves, Wii Play and Rock Band. Oh and one made Thai Curry! I've been craving it ever since I had it in New York! I was in heaven! Next time I'm inviting MY co's (new and old) over for a BBQ!

Whooooweee, well folks, that's it for me!
Thanks for stoppin by! but mainly, you stay classy...!

Is it summer already? Sure feels like it.

2008-06-04T17:05:00.000-07:00

Howdy!

Alas, the hot days have arrived. Yesterday it hit the high 80's. Nasty humidity. I was out playin' with the kids -trying to move as LITTLE as possible... but still broke out a sweat! ewww. And tho I have grown to adore these kids, man, they sure get stinky after a hot day!

This past weekend was perfect tho -bright out, but nice and breezy. We went kayaking again. The breeze was good and bad. Good for the obvious reason of not dying from the heat, but bad because we had to fight against it to get to where we wanted to go! We paddled to a little island where you can camp. It was BEAUUUUUUUTIFUL! They even had a bathroom!... and someone was nice enough to leave a nice hibachi there too :) Oddly, no one else was there, so we felt like castaways. We joked about the "LOST" monster sneaking up on us as we ate our musubis and drank our Aquarius (japanese energy drink). Here's our view:

The camera's software didn't do such a good job of seamless photostiching, but you get the idea!

On the beach, there were lots of baby crabs scurrying about -digging little holes, evading the mellow tide.. I caught a really tiny one...cupped it in my hand, and ran over to show daniel -who was snacking on Pretz- in the semi-grassy area. He said "cute." And instead of putting it back where I found it (like we are all taught to do), I set it free right in front of me. But what happened next,no one could expect! As soon as that little crab hit the ground, a bug, shaped SORTA like a tick (except not as bulbus -and it had patterns on it's back) attacked it! It was a little smaller than the crab's body (sans the legs). It mounted the crab and looked like it was putting it's feelers (or whatever they were) between the gaps of the crab's shell! The crab went crazy, flipping over and spinning around, trying to get it off. It was horrifying!... but oh so fascinating! This was some crazy National Geographic s#it! But then the guilt set in, and I felt really bad for the crab (after all, it was MY fault the crab was even THERE to begin with!) so I got a small stick and separated them. But it was too late. It was curtains for the crab...and the weird bug high-tailed it outta there. To make matters worse, Daniel thinks my "stick maneuver" actually killed the crab :( I felt really bad.

On the way back, fatigue started to set in. My shoulders and arms were pretty had-it. When we hit a big area of deep aqua ocean, Daniel suddenly said, "woah..." I stopped paddling and asked him what was up. He quickly responded, "uh,..Don't stop paddling until we get close to another island..." EEEK! What did he see?!?!?! my mind was racing. Was it a shark? A scene of JAWS popped in my head. Oh gawd Oh gawd.... I forgot all about my tired arms and hit my second wind. "Just look straight ahead maggie!" I kept telling myself. I finally slowed down when we reached shallower waters where I could actually SEE the bottom! I still dont know if Daniel was just messin' with my head to motivate me to keep paddling... damn that guy.

Here's a map of our course:

Moving on...

Guess what? I got the marketing job! yay! I start tomorrow. But I gotta tell you how I found out! So my boss, Tina brings out thnext week's schedule for Ms Ruth (our lead) to review. I casually take a peek and notice I have NO hours next week! What the?! I ask Ms Ruth what was up with that, and she tells me. "Uhhh, maybe you should talk to Tina.." Were they planning to let me go? Confident that I didn't do anything wrong, I casually asked Tina. She responds with: "Aww man! you saw the schedule?! um.. yah, expect a call from marketing...you got the job, try to act surprised when they tell you okay?" Apparently Alisson (my future boss) and Tina are pretty tight -they have been discussing me ever since I applied to that job! So much for being discreet! Alisson wants me to start right away, and Tina isn't ready to let me go -so they compromised. I'll be working both places in the next week. Mornings in marketing, and affernoons at the youth center.

I'm really gonna miss the kids and my coworkers :(

Of course, I'm SUPER stoked about my new job :)

Anywho, that'd be it for this post! Oh, oh! and I'm taking scuba classes for the next 2 weekends! They say the waters here are a lot like Hawaii -lots of tropical fish! wish me luck!

Have a great week folks!

Back in the motherland

2008-05-25T23:25:00.000-07:00

Yello!

It's been about 2 weeks since I've been back, lemme fill ya in on what I've been up to.

Well the first obvious thing is WORK. They've been kind enough to give me MORE hours to make up for the weeks I've been out. Today was no exception. While pretty much everyone else on base is out -celebrating Memorial Day, I've been chosen to work at the Teen Center! What teen is going to come to the teen center? I ask myself and lo and behold, not a minute after I think this, in walks two boys -ready to play PS3. The teen center is actually pretty cool. I don't really have to DO anything! I just gotta hang around and make sure they don't do anything bad -like play Halo (apparently playin' it will getcha kicked out of here) or making-out (you know teenagers and their "raging hormones!") Plus if I get bored just sitting around, I can play pool, check my email or type up my blog! ;)

Anywho I gotta tell ya about how it's been at work lately with the littler kids. You know, the kids I USUALLY work with. It has been surprisingly GREAT! And I'm not even being sarcastic! On the day I got back, the kids were all shouting, "Yay! Miss Maggie's back! We missed you!" They even fought with eachother to hug me first! haha silly kids. Oh, and they've been REALLY easy to manage! What's up with that?! I dunno if my trip gave me new perspective or the kids have just started to really trust me and are no longer trying to challenge me, but they've been great! I mean sure, they still misbehave at times, but it's like not a big deal anymore. All I need to do is be really straight up with them or just give them "the look" and they straighten right out! wow. Who knew I had that ability! It's a trip, even if I have to be "unsweet" to them at times, they still like me? Everyday they want to play a game that I make up or request me to help them with their homework! weeeeird.

But then I started wondering about that marketing job. How come they havent called me yet? Did the position get filled? Then I thought, man, I'm really going to miss these kids if I DO get that job!

After about a week, even Daniel started asking me what the deal was with the marketing job. I had no idea. I even emailed the HR lady (who also happens to be from hawaii) asking her if I needed to adjust anything on my application to just get SOME kind of response! But apparently she was on vacation.

Then a couple days ago, daniel suggested I get started with my own little t-shirt design collection and try selling them around town. I thought this would be a great way for me to still be able to do a little design work (and make some extra monies) while I'm working at the youth center. But sure enough, that same day, I finally got the call from marketing.

They wanted me to interview THAT DAY. More precisely, in 1.5 hours! I calmly and happily agreed. Then I hung up and flew about the house like a tornado. I had to quickly gather whatever (dated) portfolio work I had, take gir out to go pooping, took a quick shower and dive into my closet -to find the most interview-worthy clothes I could find- and make it to the interview at LEAST 5 minutes early (cause it just looks better that way, don'tcha think?) I made it there 10 minutes early and walked slowly up the steps to the building so that I wouldnt be out of breath when I introduced myself.

The interview went pretty well, I'd say. We talked and discussed my (again, dated) work and talked sommore. The interview lasted for an hour-fifteen. Two people were there to interview me. Alisson, the lady from hawaii, and the accountant guy, Dan. I've heard a lot about Dan. I heard he was kind of a jerk. But I guess I was lucky, he seemed alright to me! I think he tried to stump me a couple times tho -with technical questions and such... but psshhh whatever, ain't no thang! ;D

After it was over, I asked Alisson how many other people they were looking at, she said they had 10 other applicants to meet. But an hour-fifteen long, that's a good sign right? But hey, I didn't have time to think about that, I had to get work! I had 15 minutes to grab lunch and speed over to the youth center. I didn't have time to change clothes.

When I walked into work, Miss Ruth and Miss Yoko took one look at my "get-up" and knew right away where I had been. "Why are you dressed up? Oh, I know, you went to an interview huh? Waaaah." They're so funny. For every sign, decoration or idea I come up with, they'd say, "See? why do you haftu leave?! we need you here! maybe you can work both places?" I told them that I don't even know if I got the job yet, but they seem pretty certain that I did. :\

New Subject: Asian Pacific Heritage Month.
So apparently that's the theme for this month. Last Friday, a bunch of teachers and staff dressed up in their "cultural" best. Miss Yoko and Miss Seika wore japanese yukatas. They looked REALLY cute. Miss Ruth wore a pretty chinese dress. Miss Anita wore a traditional filipino outfit and Miss Crystal wore this fantastic indian outfit (bindi-on-the-forehead kine). A bunch of teens and other staff dressed up too. They even had a bunch of Hawaii people dressed up! It was then, that I was faced with a decision to make. Dress Japanese? or dress Hawaiian?

After discovering that my japanese yukata was practically an advertisement for Asahi Draft Beer, I had but no choice to wear the bright flowery pareo/sarong/lava lava (whatever you want to call it) that I had bought on a trip with the girls in Maui years ago. Boy, did I look weird. I, of course just HAD TO topped it off by placing a pair of bright orange and yellow, fake, easter lilies on my ear. Cheeehu! Strangely, the outfit was well recieved by japanese AND hawaii-folks alike! whew!

There were a bunch of neat performances there too. They had some Hula dances, a tahitian dance, the Ukulele club (yep! an ukulele club! -daniel is thinking about joining it) played "Surf," a Filipino stick dance, a Morrocan (I think?) dance and a couple others. They had a bunch of yummy foods too. I brought mini spam musubi -they were well recieved (especially by the hawaii folk!) I focused my apetite on the pancit, spring rolls and kinako mochi!

And now we come to this weekend. Kayaking class! The weather was really shitty this weekend. Overcasty all day and frequent showers. But even with the crappy weather, they didn't cancel the class. Although we pretty much already know how to kayak, over here, you need to be "officially certified" in order to even rent them. But even with the cruddy weather, it was SOOO much fun! At the edge of Sasebo, there are all these little tree-covered islands scattered about along the coast. We weaved around these little islands and took in the sights. The sky was like a light gray/white so the scenery looked lush and kinda dreamy. Plus it was nice and cool since there was no sun beating down on us. The first place we kayaked to was a little bay-like area surrounded by three islands. There, we were trained to recover from capsizing. I in particular was pretty proud of myself since I was ahead of all these buff, macho military boys. But of course, after we had our lunch on one of the islands, my wimpyness kicked in, and I trailed behind everyone on the way back :( But Daniel was sweet enough to hang back with me and cheer me on so that I wouldn't give up. Whatta guy! But man, my arms were like cabbage! A quarter of the way back, I started thinking about the yummy bananas-n-creme flavored Muscle Milk I was going to reward myself with when we got home. I'm such a dork.

When we finally made it back to port, the instructer guy, Walter (who, by the way, has to be like in his 60s, blew us all out of the water -he was SUPER fast and had to stop a bunch of times for EVERYONE to catch up! dayum.) Anywho, Walter picked up a jellyfish that happened to be floating by and said that these were pretty harmless. He then handed it to one of the guys. It was slimey... there was all this gooey mucusy stuff dripping from it -ew. But I wanted to hold it too! So I eagerly put my hands out. He plopped it in my hand. Weeiird! Felt like what a silicone boob would feel like! About the same size too... but slimey :\
But then, after a few seconds I felt a bit of a tingle! A prickly, rather stingy kind of tingle! EEEK! I told Walter, "Uhm... I think this thing CAN sting! cause uhh.. I feels it -it's not nice!!!" He replied, "Oh, well then, I guess you have delicate hands! Yeah, some people say they can feel a little tingle!" Guhreat. So I gently tossed it back into the water and watched it drift away.

That's it for this maggie post! Catchu later!

The Rock to the Big Apple

2008-05-17T00:19:00.000-07:00

Yao!

Hello my friends (and family)! I made it back to the motherland! Lots of things to share so this email's gonna be a doozy -get your e-bookmarks ready!

Still experiencing some delirium: On account of the jetlag, and sheer disbelief of actually travelling so far on my own -yay me!

Yes, the journey was tumultuous (okay not really, but what a great word, no? sounds like tumbling, and munching on a whopper -not the BK kind, but more like the malty, chocolate kind that heather had on our NY trip... ANYWHO, moving on...)

In any case, it was a mixture of excitment and exhaustion! But it was definitely LOOOONG.

The idea of traveling so far, on my own, kinda made me nervous.. but hey, I did it! *scratch myself on the back* (far better than any pat, I'd say)

Here's what I had to do:

With an overstuffed suitcase and duffelbag, I...
1. Caught a train to Hakata: 2.5 hours.
2. Then lugged my crap down to the subway and rode the subtrain to Fukuoka airport.
3. When I reached the airport, I grabbed the shuttle to the international terminal... only to be told that I needed to go back to the terminal I came from :\
4. Once there, I checked in my luggage (what a load off!) and caught the plane to Narita (tokyo): 2.5 hr flight.
5. Then I had 7 hours to fry in Narita.Too paranoid to leave the airport, fearing I wouldnt be able to get back, I decided to stay inside. My strategy: Do everything EXTRA SLOW. First thing I decided to do was shop for some omiyage...that only took 30 minutes. *sigh* hooboy,.. this was going to be a LOOONG 7 hours!
That's when I decided to eat. Plus it would be nice to be able to put down my heavy, laptop-loaded backpack! I ordered an overpriced, "instant-tasting" curry. I took my time and savored each bite (even if it wasn't all that tasty). I took slow sips of the complimentary water... I stopped mid way and decided to try and prolong my meal by ordering a starbucks specialty drink. I stop eating to wait for my drink order to be ready -Dammit! such speedy service! It was ready in seconds flat. Oh well. I continue to eat tiny bites of my curry, sipping my mocha, till I finished both. I cautiously looked at my watch...Sunnuva B! only 30 minutes have passed!?!?! What the?! Waah.

I walk over the the shopping area to see if I mightve missed anything...nope.
Oooookay,.. now what?

Ah ha! let's see what daniel's doing!
*ring ring*
"Hi Daniel! whatcha doin?...Oh, you're ACTUALLY working?!...Whatcha doing after?...Oh that's right, the baseball game! ah okay, well, good luck on the game! bye poopie!"

elapsed time: 3 minutes...argh.

I know! I'll plug in my laptop and check my email and surf the net! Brilliant!
*roaming around the entire terminal*
boo. no phone jacks. But there ARE power outlets!

So I spend the remainder of time watching a couple of movies we had downloaded in the laptop: "Enchanted," some of "Bee Movie" and the final "Die Hard." not much of a selection.. but better than nothing!

[Now boarding flight blah-blah to Honolulu]

YES! Finally! ...I was the first in line.

I sat next to a really cool local guy on the plane. He looked a lot like what bruce lee would look like, had he lived to his late 40s-early 50s.
It almost seemed like we became good friends! We even switched ipods during the last 2 hours -turns out we have similar musical taste! ...But alas, we had finally landed, and it was like: "Hey man, have a nice life" We gave eachother a hug and that was that. It's so weird how that is yah? but hey, I wasn't about to tell the guy, "Eh yo, here's my number, call me sometime!" :\

Walking thru the HNL airport felt really weird. I felt like a tourist. Everything was so... Hawaiiesque! hehe.

My mom was trippin' when she saw me. She couldnt believe I was actually home. But that didn't stop her from trying to feed me every 2 hours!

It was great touching base with friends and family -it was a bummer that I didn't get a chance to see all my special peeps tho :(

...But I DID get to eat Big Kahuna pizza and LOTS and LOTS of poke and kalbi!!! mmm mmm!! heavenly!

After just a couple of days on the rock, me and my girlies hopped the plane to the big apple!! Omigawd we were so excited!
Since our flight was at 10-something at night, we donned our brand-new bright, patterny, sateen PJs, and boarded the plane. So comfy! The girls were prepared, Sarah had an ipod full of music and video, and some activity books to keep her occupied. Heather had a HEAP of current magazines. Alls I had was a dying ipod shuffle :( (I used it a lot during the train ride and flight to da aina). Heather was kind enough to share her mags with me and I made do with the plane's crappy radio stations. But hey, crappy music is better than listening to a screaming baby! (We had one sitting right behind us.) After clearing thru heather's library of magazines, I felt very "in-the-loop" on hollywood and fashion! ;)

We reached the big apple around 4-something in the affernoon.... all of a sudden our PJs seems a tad out of place ;D But no matter, we were in freakin' New York! EEEEE!!!

We reached our hotel, the Hampton Inn in Times Square. We were excited to meet our fourth, Leslie -who was waiting for us in our room. Then, there she was, our unit was complete. She was wearing her PJs too! The resulting scream of excitement shook the walls! ;)

It almost felt like we hit the ground running -there was no time to waste! Each of us quickly clamied a corner of the room to throw all our things. Then we got ready and went out to our first night on the town! Joined by a couple of Leslie's friends -who were staying for just a couple more days- we hit up a fancy place called The View. It was a rotating restaurant/lounge at the top of a hotel. It was quite lovely.. But EXPENSIVE!! The specialty drinks were about 18 clams EACH! Compelled by curiosity, we each ordered one. It MUST be really tasty right? By reaction, it seemed the one I ordered tasted the best. I forget what it was called, but it was like a smooth creamy milkshake.. but even then, NOT worth 18! I couldnt help but hear the sound "cha-ching" everytime I took a sip! But hey, the view was killer, and the company was fab -so I suppose it was worth it. But then, when we got our bill, we were shocked to see that on top of the expensive drink, each of us were charged an additional $7 for cover! hu-whutt?! dayuuummm. That's the last time we're coming here!

So here's a break down of some of the stuff we did up in the Big Apple...

[Warning: The following activities will not be in chronological order,.. as that would require organizing my thoughts.. and all y'all know maggie stories are always a big mess!...kinda like a quentin tarantino movie...except without the "making-sense in the end... :\ ]

Okay here goes:

The Whitney Museum. First some background: At the airport whiles we were waiting for our taxi to wisk us away into the magical land of Times Square, our FABULOUS PJs caught the eye of the guy in front of us. He seemed to appreciate our spirit. Turns out he is an artist! (go figure)... More precisely, a painter. He then told us about The Whitney Museum. He said we came at a great time. The Whitney Museum was having their special Biennial event. And so Sarah and I decided to check it out while Heather and Lele went to the Little Mermaid broadway show. [side note: Many of you know, that I am a HUGE fan of the Little Mermaid, and may be wondering WHY I didn't go to the show! After some thought, I can only conclude that perhaps seeing a live-action rendition of a beloved classic didn't do it for me? anywho, continuing on...] Sarah and I caught a taxi to "uptown" and walked in, not knowing what to expect. The place was wonderful! We started at the very top and "oohed," "ahhed," and "what-the'd?" our way to the bottom. I was really glad we went. Unfortunately, when we were pau, the little gift shop on the bottom closed. They had a lot of really cool stuff! :( that's okay, there was still MoMA! When we got back, Lele and Heather were raving about the show. I felt a little bit of regret not going to see it, but felt really good to have gone to the Whitney!

MoMA. (Museum of Modern Art) I just gotta say: Holy S#!t. This place was amazing. Here I was, expecting something similar to the Whitney...only to get slapped in the face with a reality check. It was like the Whitney on crack! Or for those of you who don't do drugs, (drugs are bad kids, don't do it.) It was like the Whitney on...um...Red Bull? A few notables about the place: Once you step off the elevator onto the 3rd floor, you are consuming by a yellow light. It was so yellow that you'd swear the walls were painted bright yellow too! But that's not the cool part. The yellow light turns EVERYONE innit to grayscale! It was so cool. We tried to take a picture of the gray people but they looked yellow on our screens! So does it have something to do with the way our eyes percieve? Then with my gray arm, I took my cell phone out of my bag and looked at the screen -the screen was still in color! whaaaat?! Is it because of the LCD/LEDs in my phone? Woah, duuuude, Science!

Another really great installation was a big room filled with colorful light. In the middle of this room was a rotating device surrounded by panes of glass in a variety of colors. It filled each wall with bands of ever-changing color. The best part was the interaction of the viewers with this piece. People were taking pictures of their sillouettes. Some were even making shadow puppets. I tried to get a shot of Sarah's sillouette -taking a picture of a couple- who were taking a picture of their sillouette... it didn't really work out. But it was fun seeing people of all ages playing in this room :)

We only had a few hours to spend there so we had to pick the exhibits we most wanted to see. We chose the illustration floor, the architectural floor and the special exhibits. We also made a special trip to check out the painting floor. Every floor was spectacular in it's own way. We joked about how awesome it would be if we accidentally got locked into this place overnight. Then we started saying stuff like, "yah, but they should leave on their lights..." and "oh yah, it would be good if they had food too..." the whole conversation got pretty silly ;D

The whole experince reminded me why I got into the design field -and how much I missed it! Even still, I felt a sense of renewal. We even got to see some classic paintings by Van Gogh, Monet and a heap of other painters that I remembered learning about in Art 101!

Needless to say, I wish I spent more time there, and I'd definitely like to go back one day! When I got back to HI, I proudly sported my MoMA shirt. To my surprise, I got a couple of positive comments, and got into 2 full blown conversations with random strangers about the place! I guess MoMA has inspired more than just lil' ol me ;)

City Tour. This was a lot cooler than I thought it would be. We got to ride on the top of a double decker bus. The guy "narrating" it was a NY grown guy. As informative as he was, he wasn't stuffy or boring. Too bad long bus rides, subways rides and car rides make me sleepy! I dozed off for a couple minutes in between.. But then we hit the Brooklyn bridge -WOW. I was wide awake. The sun had just come down, so the sky was a really cool soft gray-purple. We all stood up -on the moving bus- and took pictures. Just standing so high off the ground and flying across that bridge made me feel kinda like a superhero. By the time we got to our mid-point stop, it was totally dark. It was perfect. The place we stopped at was this huge pier where we could see the whole city skyline all up in lights. *sigh* Even with all the excitement, on the way back, I dozed off again :\ terrible.

NBC Studio. We got to see the Conan Obrien studio and the SNL studio! Both were a whole lot smaller than what they portray on the t.v. screen!

Maddam Tussaud. This is the place to unlease ur inner model. It's fun, hamming it up with people you are never going to meet -or would actually LET you pose that way with them ;D
My favorites have to be: Lele & Tina Turner (or Lenny Kravitz -I'd say it's a tie), Sarah & Biggie Smalls, and Heather & Johnny Cash :)

Ripleys Believe it or Not. Lots of bizarro, silly things in here. But the one thing that got me baffled was the shrunken heads exhibit... how do they get them so small?

The Daily Show. We waited in line for about an hour or so, anxious, hoping we'd be able to get in. The line was pretty long. The building was old and TINY... and not to mention, in middle of nowheresville. But it didn't matter, this was the Daily Show!! Then a staffer came out and passed out tickets to the chosen 100-200 people. Lemme tell you, there was a sizable level of "stoke" when we got handed ours! But that's nothing compared to when we actually got in! We were somewhere in the back-end of the line, but when we loaded up in the studio, we ended up in the 2nd row! Talk about luck! Before the show, a comedian that came out to entertain us. He was particularly fond of Lele -it was hilarious! They went back and forth, ending with Lele giving an audience member a hair consultation! (long story) And then the man himself, Jon Stewart came out. He is AWESOME. Such a witty Mofo! (sorry, I got excited) He took some questions from the audience before the show.

It went something like...

[Lady in audience:] "Jon, what do you write down on your paper during the show?"

[Jon:] "I just scribble,.. okay, I'm actually writting a letter to oprah.. no really tho, I just scribble..mostly just squares because I can't draw...I draw a square within a square...within a square...then I write 'I suck' underneath..."

[Guy in audience:] "Jon, my friends and I have had this ongoing debate for years, maybe you can help clear this up. Which one? Oreo Double Stuff or Regualer Oreos?"

[Jon:] "Personally, I think Double Stuff is rather hedonistic, so I'd have to go with the original..."

Pongsri and Blue Chili. Two restaurants worth mentioning. I am now a TOTAL fan of Thai food. Both Thai restaurants. Pongsri was more traditional thai. I had the Panang Curry -it was SO spicy! -but I couldnt stop eating! Blue Chili was more of a swanky, modern Thai-fusion place. The place served Thai food AND sushi. Each of us ordered a different Thai dish -and everyone of them tasted fantastic!

Booze and Booty Shakin'. After our costly experience at The View, we decided it'd be wisest to get some drinks in our system BEFORE we headed out. On some nights, we even snuck in a flask! Classy! With that said, we ended up checking out several bars/clubs ranging from upper-crust, bourgeois to casual pubs. The neat thing about all of these places is that we never had to pay cover! At some places, people were lined up outside, and after chatting it up with the bodyguard, we were let in! That's enough to inflate any girl's ego! Okay, there was ONE place that charged us cover. They gave us entry for half price. That place was the worst. The crowd was not very friendly,.. and the guys who WERE friendly -were TOO friendly -ewww. Not to mention the overload of spinning lights and seizure inducing strobe lights! It didn't even seem like the lights were moving at the beat of the music! -it might as well have been speed metal playing in there :\ Trying to make the best of things, I went over to the DJ booth to see if I could make any requests -only to find myself standing in the front row of a quickly escalating fight between 2 DJs! I shoulda been worried or something, but I was fascinated! I stood there, with my eyes glued on the situation like I was watching reality TV. Not until a security guard had to push me aside to break it up, did I actually snap out of it! We left shortly after. Of all the clubs/bar we went to, I'd have to say that my favorite was the G Lounge. This was the place that seemed the most pretentious upon first glance, but the bodyguards there were the most friendly and made us feel really welcome. One in particular even came upstairs to buy us a double order of drinks! The main club was up on the top floor, but the smaller, more intimate lounge on the lower level was better. Better vibe, better music. The weirdest thing we noticed in there was the little hot tub in the middle -woohoo sexay! We went out nearly every night. Each one a different experience. But like Vegas, what happens in NY, stays in NY! So as courtesy to my girls, I think I'll have to leave it at that. ;) (oh stop, I'm a married woman!)

Ray's Pizza. This was our last stop nearly every night. Lele (Leslie), lovingly nicknamed it Ray-Ray's. They had tasty pizzas and fantastic garlic balls (perfect for a late-night snack!). The fellas running the place were an odd bunch -but fun nevertheless. There was one young fella in particular we adored. A charismatic, "barely legal" (teehee) boy named Kimi. This place became our regular late-night stop. I think we had him trained pretty well too. He is known to be totally stingy with the ranch sauce (many people who visited that place probably never even KNEW they had ranch sauce!) but by the 2nd visit, as soon as we came in, he would quickly scurry to the back and grab us TWO ranch dippers! Haha good times.. and delicious ranch-dipped garlic balls! (ahhh yes, it's the little things in life...)

Favoritest part of the trip. With all the great, exciting things we did on this trip, it's tempting to try to decide which one was my favorite. I would seem obvious to say MoMA or maybe the Daily Show, but as I sit here, finishing up this "novel," I have come to realize that the best parts never left the hotel room. Just the four of us, eating, boozing, and joking around -while getting ready for a night on the town, to the rythmn of whatever was on the radio- were hands down, the best parts of the entire trip.

Well, that's a wrap for this episode!

Thank you guys for keeping up with my silly life by reading these gramatical nightmares!

Much love,
em

2008-05-11T19:28:00.000-07:00

furnclaws japan adventure blog is now online. Yeah!!!!!