New Year's Eve

One of the best ways to see the old year out and the New Year in is to get together with good friends! We visited our friends' house to have the last dinner of the year 2006 together with some foods and wines!
Tonight's special was the NHK Year-end Grand Song Festival (Kouhaku-Utagassen) recorded through Location Free by my partner. I never expected to watch that Japanese traditional TV program for New Year's Eve here in San Diego. If we were in Japan, I guess we wouldn't watch it since it's little old-fashioned. However, with our inadequate knowledge of Japanese singers and songs, we kidded around each other asking if we know of them or not, and it turned out a pleasant event.
Setting up the Location Free and a DVD Recorder at parents' house in Japan, we are able to watch any TV program broadcasted in Japan on real time basis. What a convenient and borderless world we are in!!

We didn't forget to eat Soba (noodle) and Ozouni (Rice cake soup) as we do in Japan♪

Report from Mammoth Ski

The Mammoth is the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada (near Yosemite Valley) and a little south of Lake Tahoe. We impetuously decided to spend our Christmas holiday for three nights to ski there.
It took about 7 hours on the way from San Diego, and 6 hours from Mammoth to return home. My impression of this ski resort, as an experienced skier more than 15 years, was splendid just like Happo-one in Nagano which I delight in, but with much better quality of snow. And it was also exquisite like Niseko Resort in Hokkaido but with more convenient/accessible lifts. As a whole, it was more than terrific.

☆The three favorite things which made me be a big fan of Mammoth
1. The bonfire located outside of the Mill Cafe
People gathering there were nice and funny! They were chatting with a glass of beer.




2. Mammoth Mocha
(= Irish coffee which consists of hot mocha, wiskey and whipped cream) from the Mill Cafe





3. Terrains, lifts and so forth
Extremely long-distance trails, well-considered accessible lifts and gondolas





★The worst three things for which I hope the improvement
1. The price of the lift ticket ($78/day)
2. & 3. umm... I can't think of more than one.....

Potluck @partner's company

It seems recently that a rice ball covered with a sheet of laver has been a favorite food of non Japanese people. I would hear about 10 years ago that the black color of laver looks gross for especially children who were unfamiliar to Japanese food, and in the U.S., Japanese kids who were going to school with rice balls in their lunch box tended to be a target for being bullied.
Nowadays the rice ball, however, seems to be envied by kids who confused a rice ball with a sushi, saying "You are lucky! Your lunch is always sushi!!" It's all thanks to healthy food fad.

By the way, I prepared some rice balls for my partner's potluck at his company. It has small amount of chopped beef mixed with spicy miso in it. Believe it or not, it was their #1 favorite and I was asked the recipe from his colleagues :)

Humble decoration

The more the Christmas decorations get showy in our community, the more I feel a compulsion to buy illuminations.
The other day, I invited my friends and their kids to dinner. A 6 year-old boy asked me as soon as he found no Christmas tree in my house, "where is your tree?". I was going to get one after Christmas, of course the drastically discounted one, but it's too embarrassing to say, so I opened windows and led him to see the humble illumination at the entrance! It seemed to have made him proud of his own illumination which was far more gorgeous than mine ;)

Potluck @ESL 2

Having any kind of talent looks really cool especially for those who have nothing on the ball like me, and he is the one I admire in our class.
It's essential to have a person who brings a lot of excitement to the party :)

Potluck @ESL 1

This was the last week of this year at ESL class and our class had a potluck party as most classes do it before each break. There were two potluck parties for me to attend for two days straight, so I prepared the same thing for both parties.
At an international potluck, I usually try to bring Japanese traditional food just to introduction sake, and this time, creamy pumpkin & beef potato croquettes and macaroons(a kind of sweets) were my choice. I totally forgot Macaroon is not a Japanese sweet but French. Below picture is some Ukrainian and Kurdistan food. A bowl of fried rice with peas and dill, a tomato salad, creamy fried mushrooms (?), potate with dills and apple cinnamon pastries. All of these were really to my appetite :) As for my food, everybody looked okay, but the souce for croquette was the most favorite thing for them. It's a Japanese traditional sauce called "sauce" made by one of the sauce companies, bulldog :( not by myself.....

Chrismukkah

Jewish people celebrate their annual festival called Hanukka while Christian people celebrate the birth of Jesus on Christmas.
I first learned the existence of Hanukka when I heard the word "Chrismukka" in The O.C. (a popular sitcom for teens). What a witty expression the "Chrismukkah" is! It's a portmanteau word combined Christmas and Hanukka used among non-religious families mixed Christian & Jewish background. Applying this word, they can celebrate both holidays at once :)

Speaking of the non-religious families, most Japanese people are non-religious. We take Buddhist or sometimes Shinto or Christian way for funeral ceremonies. Other than that, however, most of the families seldom touch a religious talk, and often kids are not aware which religion of background they have.
Nonetheless, we have a custom of celebrating Christmas in Japan. It's weird, but we just decorate a Christmas tree, and eat a big feast with a Christmas cake without thinking about Jesus for even a second. Parents prepare Christmas presents to their children, and couples in love exchange presents each other. But that's it. Unlike most American people, we don't make a Christmas shopping list to buy presents for all the relatives.

Farewell :(

I don't have a gregarious nature.
Although this may be skeptical to those who conceive I hit it off right after meeting friends, my partner especially believes so, this is not true. I'm not very bad at seemingly socializing at a party, but it's not necessarily that I am an open-book and feeling at ease. In addition, I have to admit that living in a small community where the number of Japanese can be easily counted is not an easy job. I tend to be reserved, humble person and sometimes cannot show my own self. It doesn't mean I'm trying to be someone else. Don't get me wrong...

Under this circumstances, I made some good friends here and as I wrote about her a week ago, a good Korean friend of mine has left San Diego today.

We first met at ESL school this summer and started seeing each other periodically.
The fact that we both were neither too presumptuous nor too shy (I guess) might be the reason for hitting it off. We liked to share our similar experience caused by not manipulating perfect English, and also liked to talk about advantage and disadvantage of living in the US as a foreigner, and of course liked to talk about an interesting fact or culture differences of our countries.

Last Friday, she treated me to a chinese lunch at P.F. CHANG'S and we chatted a lot as if time continue forever. It was a great time :)
Since she will be coming back to Denver in a month, we will be able to share our further experience over the internet but I truly felt lonesome.
I with her all the best :)

Assertive personality? or ...

I had a opportunity to join a drinking party of my husband's department. His boss, colleagues and some spouses (otherwise known as drivers) got together at Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens. We had a good time with beer & wine in laid back atmosphere :)

After dinner, the waitress came to us, cleared off the table, and asked in a casual manner as they were supposed to do so. "How was everything? Was it okay?" One of ladies from our party replied politely, "Your food was unusual for us!". Although I did not think their food was terrible, her word "unusual" obviously connoted "It's not our favorite", but I believe it's okay for customers to be candid and say straightforward to some extent.
However, believe or not, the waitress's reply was ...."Our owner doesn't expect everyone to feel that the food was 100% tasty. He embraced an innovative approach and wanted to let people know what the developed food was." She dared continue "Hamburgers and Pizzas are not only the food, and there are much more the American haven't tried and should get to know".
I couldn’t believe what just came out of her mouth. This sounded too rude for me. If it happened in Japan, the customer would have dished out the waitress and she would have been given the boot. But the lady murmured in a courteous manner.“You should put some paper to have us comment on it!” and her unresisting behavior subsided the mood as if nothing happened.

I realized afterward that they were saying, "We're not health nuts, but quality nuts!" on their card. Before upholding it, shouldn't they be decorum nuts?

Nothing more than WOW

I couldn't believe my eyes.
These are not theme parks but individual's houses.
To be more exact, the whole communities seem to be involved to create Christmas lanes!!

December Nights

December nights made a splash!!
It's a traditional festival in Balboa park and was held on Dec 1st & 2nd this year. Thousands of people got together and enjoyed themselves with various international food, dance & music performances and various other entertainment which were provided by local companies and community volunteers. All the museums opened free from 5 to 9 pm and some small concerts were performed even in a museum. The wide-spread Balboa park were packed with exhilarated couples and families, and an appealing smell of food emanated from everywhere. Although it's still hot in San Diego and many people were wearing only T-shirts or camisoles during daytime, lots of people did not forget to wear Santa's or reindeetr's hat :)
I was especially transfixed by a tap dance group who synchronized their steps perfectly!!

Spoon or Chopsticks?

One of my friends, who I often see at Starbucks and chat about various topics no less than 4 hours a day, is leaving San Diego next week. I'll miss her a lot :(
Today, I invited her to my house for lunch.
Since our topic was often given to Korean & Japanese food, I prepared Japanese traditional food or at least common dishes today.

What drew my attention during lunch was the difference of our eating decency. I didn't serve a spoon but chopsticks to eat although the meal included a bowl of miso-soup. I didn't even notice that she wanted a spoon since it's natural for us to use chopsticks for miso-soup. When eating miso-soup, we hold a small bowl in our hand and put our mouth to the bowl to drink the soup. However, this seems to be ill-mannered for people in her country, Korea. Instead of holding a bowl in their hand, they leave it on the table and use a spoon to scoop soup.
I must have looked queer to her first.

Murphy's law

Yesterday since I moved to San Diego in April, we had the first 'heavy' rain.
The local TV & radio news alerted drivers to be careful since San Diegans are bad at driving in rain. In the evening news, they reported car accidents occurred owing to the rain, and it reminded me of the news after heavy snow accumulated in Tokyo.

I felt a little guilty, for I wanted to water my plants and came up with the idea that if I washed my car for the first time since I lived here, it would rain and rain would help me watering my plants, and I washed my car on the weekend :(

Saguaro National Park in Arizona

As it's getting near to Thanksgiving, the frequency that people, even store cashiers, ask me about my plan for Thanksgiving was getting higher. I felt as if I had to do something special in addition to the holiday shopping. That's not the only reason, but on the spur of the moment, my partner and I decided to visit the Saguaro National Park in Arizona where the Saguaro cactus is growing concentratedly.

We hit the road at 5am on the very Thanksgiving day. Seven-hour driving on the way to the park was not bad because we came across the stunning sunrise which was the best I've ever seen in my entire life.

The Saguaro National Park is located near Tucson, Arizona and it consists of two areas, Saguaro West and Saguaro East. Both of them are approx. 30 min from the center of Tucson, and also from our hotel - we booked a room at Sheraton the day before the departure and there seemed to be some empty rooms. This may not be a popular place to go during Thanks giving holiday -

On the first day, we visited the East park. The first thing we usually do at the national parks is to drop by the visitor center and ask park rangers of the best place to have lunch and the best trail we stroll. However, once looking at the park map, we realized there is nothing to ask. Cactus Forest Drive in East park is the only loop path we can drive, and it's about 1 and a half hours course. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves watching Cactus and even taking a nap for a short while.

The next day, after exploring a shopping mall to see Arizonian people striving to holiday shop and to look for bargains for ourselves, we visited West Park. Although the area of the West park is less than half of the East, there were many things to see including Desert Museum which is famed for its massive live exhibition. With its uneven landform around the West park, the spectacular cactus fields overwhelmed us. I will undoubtedly recommend the West park if some of my friends go there without enough time to spend and have to choose one.

We stayed there until sunset. Again, it's the best sunset I've even seen!!! Though it's almost the end of November and the beginning of winter, it was just like a perfect paradise-like summer weather in San Diego.

Splashy cars

Here in the U.S., it's not unusual for people to put some messages on their car. Someone who wants to sell his car puts a 'FOR SALE' sign or directly scrawls the message with his phone number on the window. In my neighborhood, there are constantly more than 5 cars parked with 'ON SALE' sign on it, and most of these cars are still being used by the owners.
Also, the license plate is the other way of conveying messages. The popular type of license plate includes a heart-shaped or a star-shaped, or even a baby hand's-shaped symbol with a loved one's name or initials.
Yesterday, while driving in a mall parking lot, I ran across a parked car with a message saying "IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!" on its backside window.
It's cute and ostentatious, and I couldn't help taking a photo.
If the owner was there, I would have said to her "Good job and happy birthday!!"

Click

Adam Sandler is one of my favorite actors. In addition to being a comedian, he is also a singer, a writer and a movie director. I enjoyed 'Wedding Singer' and '50 First Dates' which Drew Barrymore added value to, but all his films are worthwhile and it's difficult to decide which one is the best.

This time, I rented a DVD of his latest movie called 'Click' which was displayed in front of the store all around the register counters conspicuously. My partner watched it on a plane and thought it's the kind of movies I would enjoy watching, so he recommended it too. He is fond of foul language but not in a strong level, and I am fond of uncomplicated comedy movies, and we both love Adam's smart sense of humor.

Here it's a brief.
Michael Newman, played by Adam, has a beautiful wife and two kids. He works hard as an architect and neglects his family. One day, he happened to obtain a remote controller with which everything can be controlled. He started using it and getting the hang of fast-forwarding the annoying part from his life. As he uses it, his life turns to be harsh to him.

After watching the entire movie, I reflected my behavior and somehow regretted just like Adam did in the story. I felt like being grateful to everybody around me.
It's teaching us "family comes first".

Thanksgiving is just around the corner

My parents are back in Japan , and now, my life came back to normal.

It's holiday season here. I don't know for sure the exact period of the 'season', but it seemed to be considered to begin with Thanksgiving (fourth Thursday of November) and end with New Year's day.
Shops and supermarkets exhilarate us with their decoration for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and TV and radio programs spur us to put in a merry mood. People talk about how they're gonna spend their 4-day Thanksgiving weekend, and it encourages us to make a plan too. We haven't decided it yet, but got some ideas ;)

10th day - Departure

My parents left SD for Japan today early morning, and this time, didn't miss their flight at LA. Overall, their first trip to San Diego seemed to be impeccable!

For my dad, the community pool & Jacuzzi was the best thing here. For my mom, everything was new and curious, so it was hard to tell what's the best thing, but I know the worst thing for her was my poor driving skill which came near to having an accident.

At any rate, I'm happy that they enjoyed a lot :)

9th day - Balboa Park

Having a curious mom is sometimes hard to handle with. She bought a cactus pear, a few apples, a box of cheese cake and a big ice cream cup at Albertsons just to try or get to know the difference between the American's and Japanese ones. However, since we ate out all the time, all these consequently remained in my refrigerator. Take it upon yourself, mother!

On their last day, we visited Balboa Park in downtown. This park holds 15 museums and San diego Zoo. While my parents were spending time in San Diego Museum of Art, I was relaxing on a bench reading a book since I visited there 3 weeks ago.

Swanky paella at The Prado restaurant in Balboa Park

8th day - Fashion Valley

My mom and I gave my dad one day off. His hobby is 'GO' which is Japanese board game of territorial possession and capture according to Oxford English-English dictionary.
During his stay in San Diego, he was bursting to fight GO, so my partner prepared a GO room for him to play 'GO' game on PS2.

His day started with a cup of coffee at Peet's coffee, swimming in a pool as usual, reading GO magazine at a pool-side table, and then had lunch at Pickup stix (everywhere is within 1 min on foot). After lunch, he came back home, took a nap and played GO. Perfect vacation!

While he was indulging himself, my mom and I went to Fashion Valley mall for shopping. She needed to buy something for my sister and brother in-law.
We bought some clothes at Abercrombie & Fitch. This is very popular even in Japan. Japanese people who started living here go there first and then notice the fact that the most Japanese have similar clothes from this shop. But we still bought some and I believe it should be no problem as souvenirs.

The photo is our lunch at UNO Chicago Grill. My mom said she wanted to eat something like American food, and again, she couldn't stop laughing at the big size of plate of salad.

7th day - Wild Animal Park

Whenever I go to a zoo, I feel sorry for animals. They have to behave in front of human beings (which is slightly different kind of animal) without escaping out of cage, they have to show any kind of idiosyncrasy and they need to answer a call of nature in front of gallery.
Wild Animal Park is a little different type of zoo. Their purpose is to protect wild animals and they have enough land to rear animals. Animals can move all over the place and it should ease animal's stress. (Some animals such as gorilla, lion are being kept in limited small spaces, though)
The railway called 'Wgasa Bush Line Railway' is going around the park and we can take it to see the animals. It's about 60-min. course and a guide explains the animals' nature and so on.

There's no end to what we want, but I wanted to see animals up close. The park provides a special tour which allows you to go closer to animals, but it costs $130 additionally and I gave it up this time :(

6th day - Free time & Carlsbad outlet mall

Attending a tennis class Saturday morning, I decided to leave my parents alone. My dad's morning routine is to have a cup of coffee at nearby Peet's coffee and to go to a pool in our community. He looked happier when he was swimming in a pool than doing anything else.

My mom likes to take a walk around my house seeing plants and flowers. She poured water with watering pot over plants around my townhouse (but still common area). It's not required actually because controlled sprinklers water periodically. Everybody knows it, so my neighborhood must have wondered at her behavior　＾＾; 　Anyway, they seemed to have enjoyed their free time!

In the afternoon, I took them to the outlet mall in Carlsbad for shopping, then to Costco to show them how everything is big, and also to buy some chocolate box. A little bird told me that the chocolate from Costco is delectable plarine just like Belgian chocolate. It was not a very delicate flavor, but pretty good for the price :)
One of the food I wanted my parents to try was Vietnamese. They can eat it in Japan of course, but it's different. The restaurant in Japan is neat and the customers are Japanese. Here it's more like the restaurant in Vietnam. Vietnamese waiters serve dishes with plenty of fresh leaves and most of the customers are Vietnamese family. We can feel authentic Vietnam.

5th day - Joshua Tree National Park & Palm Springs

Most of the seeing spots we visited were 15 to 30 min. away from my house, and today, we extended our trip to Joshua Tree National Park. It lies 140 miles east of Los Angeles and 175 miles northeast of San Diego. It took 3 hours driving from SD.
I've read somewhere, maybe on the internet, that once we stepped into this park, we would feel as if we were on another planet. And it was true. It seemed that dinosaurs were about to appear from the behind of rocks.

BTW, can you see a person standing on the top of the rock in above photo? With plenty of not-too-high rocks, this park seemed to be a paradise for rock climbers.

What mesmerized me was the concentrated area of beautiful cactus called 'Cholla Cactus Garden'. It was so cute that I couldn't stop taking pictures. However, when my partner came close to the cactus, he got into hot water. A small piece of cactus was folded down and clung to his right knee. The harder I tried to pull it away, the more it's stuck. We struggled to remove it from his knee at the front of the sign showing "Cactus is hazardous! Keep away from them!"

4th day - Old Town, Coronado, Point Loma

Old Town is the place Spanish first settled in California in 1769. 'The Old Town State Park' was established here and the heritage is being preserved. There are some historic buildings, museums, Mexican restaurants, souvenir shops. Since we visited there in early morning, the park was peace and quiet. Unfortunately, we didn't come across Mariachi guys. Only a few elementary students were visiting there for a field trip.

Next place we visited was Coronado island in San Diego bay. There is an old luxury 'Hotel del Coronado'. It's set in famous movies, and notable guests such as actors and presidents stayed there. The hotel is facing the Pacific Ocean and the Coronado beach is stretched just in front of the hotel. I wish to stay this hotel in the future without worrying about any costs ^^;

Lastly, we drove to Point Loma which is a head of a peninsula. Spanish explorer, Juan Cabrillo arrived here in 1542 when he first came to California. There is his statue overlooking San Diego bay, and on the top of the hill, a lighthouse is being preserved. It was actually used in old days.
From Point Loma, we could see almost 360°of ocean. It's too beautiful for words in the twilight.
We stayed there until sunset, and when driving back home, we got lost in darkness. Being at a loss somewhere on I-5 or I-8 (freeway), I was almost crying....
But other than that, it was a perfect day for tourists.

3rd day - Del Mar vs La Jolla

<***** Del Mar -------------------------------- La Jolla *****>>

We started our tour from 'Del Mar' & 'La Jolla' today. Both Del Mar/La Jolla are names of a city respectively and located next to San Diego along the Western coastline. Both has its ravishing beaches and sophisticated restaurants and cafes. It's hard for me to choose which is more beautiful, but for my parents, La Jolla seemed to have lead because of the seals lying about. Moreover, one of my mom's hobby is painting and the galleries in La Jolla were beckoning her. Any guide books introduce La Jolla but no mention on Del Mar. Therefore, you will see less tourists in Del Mar.

We had lunch at my favorite place, George's at the Cove (Be careful! This page comes with music) .
My mom couldn't stop laughing looking at a big plate of salad she ordered. Blood will tell.

2nd day - SeaWorld

If only three grown-ups go to SeaWorld, do they enjoy themselves? No worries! We did...
My parents and I went to SeaWorld today which is the world famous adventure park. We haven't even gone to Tokyo Disneyland together, so I was wondering if my dad could have fun himself in this kind of amusement park. It turned out to be okay except one ride attraction called "Shipwreck Rapids®" by which we were soaked to perfection.
In SeaWorld, we can see various kinds of show, and the highlight is Shamu show (killer whale). "Soak zone" where you will be highly soaked lies in front. We took seats on the last line of the soak zone and were prepared to be soaked to some extent, but it's quite something. My mom bailed out before Shamus come to our front. As a whole, we had a grand day.

There was another big event today. It's Halloween :))
Since I did not decorate the outside of my house, the children who knocked our door saying "trick or treat" were only two :(
There are three big bags of candies left over ...

Visitors

My parents are visiting from Japan and are going to stay here for 10 days.
They arrived at the SD airport safely, but with 2 hours delay. It is the first trip to abroad for my mom and the 3rd for my dad, and both of them don't speak English, so when it comes to an overseas travel, they are novices. Here's what happened.
In LA, they had to change to domestic flight to San Diego, but their airplane didn't wait for them lingering over an immigration & a baggage claim, i.e. they missed their flight.
It was the kind of superhuman strength that had my 100%-Japanese-speaking dad communicate with a person from United Airlines and obtain two seats for the next flight.
It's grateful for small mercies ;)

2006 World Day

One of the things I was impressed by this country is the number of the adult school where you can learn anything you want at reasonable price, and if what you want to learn is English as a second language, they give you various kinds/levels of classes for free and have open-door policy. One of the reason they can operate that way is the U.S. Government supports them. They want immigrant to learn English to meet vocational demands and let them work as a part of the nations.

I'm attending one of English classes every morning and this class is for people who want to take a TOEFL test and go to university. However, more than half of the students are wives who joined husband's job transfer and most of them are not in a serious vein in learning English. It means, I guess, that they are not going to take a TOEFL. Even so, we are welcomed by the school ... (I hope so :))

Let me come to the point... Today was '2006 World Day', the biggest festival of the year in my ESL school. Everybody brought his/her national food and some students performed a fashion show and a live entertaiment such as their dances and songs♪ I was amazed to see quite a few people had a talent performing in front and a great number of people had their traditional clothes here. When you think of Japan, what kind of song is you think the most suitable? National Anthem? No way!! Maybe, the easiest way to show JAPAN is Bon-dance in Yukata.

Food is a zest to attend the international festival. Doubting if non-Japanese could taste Dashi (soup stock) & Mirin (sweet sake for seasoning), I cooked Shinoda-maki :(
At least the appealance was pretty :)

It was a blast!!