Monthly Archives: October 2007

I told my mom I wasn’t sure I wanted to go with her to see Hikone castle, but it was such a nice day I decided to go. It was a nice family outing with my mom, sister, and aunt. I’m not sure what made my mom decide to go to Hikone, but it could have been a death march. It was a beautiful 70°F, but in the summertime it would have been awful. I think we had to climb at least 20 stories to get from the base of the castle to the uppermost room. Keep in mind that the picture is of the main castle building, and that … Continue reading →

What’s weirder than pulling into a Japanese rail station and seeing a giant golden Goddess of Mercy? Maybe it’s going to your cousin’s house and seeing 3 cousins and various kids of theirs for the first time in 16 years! We weren’t going to stick around, but they invited us for dinner and told us we could meet our cousin’s kid’s fianceé. So we stayed for seafood pizza from Domino’s and sushi. Check out the squid and shrimp. Here’s a picture of my two eldest Osaka cousins (brother Kimikazu and sister Kyoko). That’s Kyoko’s son on the left, and her grandson (the son’s nephew) on her lap. The son was … Continue reading →

Funny how I didn’t end up with any pictures today, seeing how I took a few with demo cameras at the store and even got yelled at for taking a picture in the store with a friend’s camera. We’re in Toyama today, visiting family friends. We ended up going to the electronics store to get an ethernet cable, going to the mall twice (once for ice cream), and going to eat sushi on a track. I ate so much sushi for lunch that I couldn’t eat dinner. My sister swears that I pulled the same stunt on a trip to Japan back when we were kids and I wouldn’t eat … Continue reading →

My mom and my sister left for parts north of Tokyo, or at least north-ish, to visit friends. I decided that if there were going to be just all women there, I’d go by myself to my old neighborhood in Osaka instead. This also meant that I could visit with people from my old job and about ten of us went out to dinner at a yakiniku restaurant. We did the traditional exchange of business cards even though my cards are wildly inaccurate at this time. Most everyone is a manager or even above. The tall guy second from the left has lived in the US and I keep in … Continue reading →

And what am I doing? Hiding in my hotel room. Things have changed in 15 years (my hotel room, for example, has a desk in it and isn’t just the size of my bed) but I remember things don’t open until 10 or later. In any case, I’m not brave enough to get on the train during rush hour with all my luggage. I have my laptop bag, a carry-on-sized-bag for my clothes, and a carry-on-sized-bag for all the presents I brought. As any good Buddhahead knows (and my Korean friends as well) you have to bring a lot of gifts for all your friends and family. Maybe that’s why … Continue reading →

After fifteen years, I finally made it back to Japan. But it took fifteen-and-a-half hours of sitting and my ass always hurts after I fall asleep sitting up. I’ve only been asleep for three or four 10 minute stretches, once on the plane and the rest on the bullet train. It wasn’t all that easy to find the hotel, either. The map was cartoonish and the roads were small and not well marked. Just like the Japan I’m used to. It’s now 6:30AM US time and I left the house at 11AM yesterday. I better get some sleep while I can.

I’m trying to post from my PC, which I only use because it’s all I got. The keyboard I’m using is this old eMachines POS that I got back in the 90′s and really, I’m not sure why I still have the thing. It was the new hotness last Christmas, but now it’s just a computer. I built up a “game machine” but I never did play any games on it. Come to think of it, I still have two unopened games for the PSP I no longer have. Huh. I didn’t have to spend too long on hold to do all my insurance stuff for the break-in, and I’m … Continue reading →

Thursday, at work, I noticed that I couldn’t get to my laptop over the internet. I thought about it for a second, whether I had it in “power saving” mode, and I realized that someone probably stole it. Unfortunately, I was right. Sometime during the day, between 8:30AM and 3PM, a burglar came and threw a brick through the glass in the back door and broke into the house. They also pulled off and broke a storm window, but didn’t go through that window. They stole 3 Mac laptops which were all the working Macs in the house. They also took my mom’s old coins, a handheld ham radio, and … Continue reading →

I guess I wasn’t too busy, but I wasn’t too happy, either. Someone threw a brick through the back window and broke into the house. So far I can tell they took 3 Mac laptops, my mom’s coin collection, a PSP, a bunch of watches, and a laptop backpack. I’m taking the day off work to call repairmen, etc. What fun!

I find that I’m much more likely to ride public transit to work when I have something to read. And that’s even though it’s so loud that I can’t read sometimes. Today it was too loud because there were lots of kids going downtown to see the US Women’s Soccer Team play an exhibition match. I moved away, but they were all through the light rail yelling at each other. I’m not sure what the point was, but it would be like, “Ashley! Ashley! Ashley! (then another joining in) Ashley! Ashley! Ashley! Come sit over here!” Then someone in another part of the group would start with another name. Then … Continue reading →

Dave the Trainer was going on and on about the chiropractor who was teaching some exercise class this weekend and I had to tell him just how little I thought of a group of people that eschewed the scientific method. Basically, I think they’re a bunch of loons who make things up. I thought about it for a while, wondering why I was so against them and I realized a couple of things. I don’t like people who believe in a lie, and this includes certain core beliefs that many people share that I do not. I also don’t trust my medical care to people who did so much worse … Continue reading →

I was told last week by someone that they would call their sister and tell her before they wrote about her in a public forum. I’m guessing they’re either very close to their sibling and call them all time, or they don’t have much of a sense of humor. In any case, here’s some more secrets about her. Well, I’m even exaggerating more than I usually do, because it’s no secret that she has a sweet tooth. And my brother-in-law only likes things made of chocolate. So that means she eats EVERYTHING HERSELF. And she’s tiny. Well, she runs a lot (and I mean a lot) so she burns it … Continue reading →