OPUS ONE in Napa - May 28

During this trip to Napa, we enjoyed wine tasting at only two wineries. One is Turnbull and another is the world-famous Opus One. Both are the winery we missed 4 years ago. All photos are from Opus One.

At most wineries, we are likely to try 3 or 4 kinds of wine for about $10 to $20 per person. At Opus One, on the other hand, the testing is stupidly expensive and 4 oz. (above photo) of Cabernet Sauvignon cost $25. I thought, to be candid, that it was not worth tasting for a person like me who could not tell the difference from other wineries. But they provided the nice space at their upstairs terrace and we were allowed to bring the glass up there and relax as much as we wanted with a perfect view of Napa valley, which, I have to admit, was worthwhile.
Don't get me wrong. It is not that the wine itself was bad. My partner, who is a sort of 'self-appointed' connoisseur mentioned the wine we tasted was really good and it became more graceful and tasty as time goes by.

Lunch @Auberge du Soleil in Napa - May 27

The bride and groom gave us not only an opportunity to attend the American style wedding but a good excuse to celebrate our own 8th wedding anniversary in Napa.

The next day, we rented a car and drove up to Napa valley. My only purpose to visit Napa was the restaurant called "Auberge du Soleil". I fell in love with this place when I visited about 4 years ago. We unfortunately cannot afford to stay there, but only having lunch in the terrace seat didn't make us broke.

This calm and peaceful place enabled us to feel like we were in paradise. Looking down at the wide spread vine yard from the hillside and sipping a glass of champagne, I was actually in an illusion as if I was not alive. This is such a restful and cosy place, and I cannot help but have a dream to stay there before returning Japan.

Wedding @Millbrae - May 26

My partner and I were invited to a wedding in Millbrae, near San Francisco.
The bride and groom are both Christian, so the celemony was genuine and solemn. Unlike our non-Christian Japanese wedding, where the couple exchange marrige vows artificially in front of God (despite our usual nonchalance toward God), their vows were real and touching. By the time they said "I love you", I was moved to tears.

We moved from the church to Westin hotel SF Airport, the venue for a party.
During the party, to my surprise, there wasn't any speeches by their bosses or colleagues and it didn't take more than 5 minutes until we headed for food. It was a sitting buffet. While we were eating, the best man and bride's maids gave a speech respectively. They, then, made a toast at the each end of their speech. No Karaoke, no "thanks letter" reading to the parents. Yet, there was a dance time. As we often see in American movies, the newlywed couple danced to the music alone for a while, then their parents and relatives as well as friends joined them. I wish I could dance well to enjoy this occation.
The wedding was very homey as a whole.


After the wedding, we checked in the hotel and hopped into Bart (train) and visited San Francisco.
Chilly was a light word to express the weather in San Francisco. Though the sky was blue, I felt like wearing a long coat with a nit cap. We gave up looking around the town because of the "too cold" temperature, and directly headed for Hunan Home's Restaurant in China Town to have dinner.
The award winner testimonials from various surveys were ostentatiously on the wall, and the restaurant was consistently crowded with approximately 10 to 20 people in line. We loved their food except one dish, Mapo Tofu. It never satisfied the stomach of us, especially my partner, the connoiseur of Mapo Tofu.

Memorial Day weekend - Let's kick up our heels

May 28th is Memorial Day, the U.S. federal holiday, and it means we are going to have a three-day weekend.
My plan is to visit Millbrae and Napa, both are near San Francisco. In order to make the most of a limited time, we decided to fly rather than driving 8 hours for one way. I'm extremely exhilarated by our happy and colorful plan :) Keep you posted!

May Gray & June Gloom

It's been chilly days lately and we cannot help but grab a jacket every morning.

During May and June in California, the overcast sky is expected to dominate almost all day and it seems to be a typical climate called "May Gray" and "June Gloom". We wake up in the dismal morning and it continues till afternoon; besides, the rain is likely to fall, but most of the cases, no rain comes down. Sometimes the sun emerges late afternoon, but next morning, however, it starts again with dark sky.

I clearly remember how much I was impressed last year to see the constant weather of May and June, and then the other type of constant weather, the "perfect blue sky" came out as soon as June Gloom had gone and it stably continued for months.

By the way, I finally registered myself in Spanish course in the summer semester at the college I go everyday for an ESL class. My lack of any certification of Spanish language led me to a class of novice level. But considering the blank I haven't studied it, I believe it will be advantageous for me to review all the grammar for the short period of time during Summer. The class starts on Jun 20 and ends Aug 1, Monday through Thursday, 3 hours a day. Unlike ESL classes in the U.S., we require to pay tuition fee when we study most of the other languages. Even though the tuition fee is for a song, I need to buckle down to the class. I won't be able to play hooky.

I hope, until then, June Gloom will be gone and the glaring sun will bring me "Latin mood" for the fresh season.

From my class again

One of today's subjects at my class was 10 minutes writing (below is mine) using two words belittle & diffident which was a review from yesterday. I believe I am relatively getting used to writing in a rushed manner. Woe is me! It takes me far more time to update my blog.
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We shouldn't belittle diffident people. Every kind of groups such as families, companies and classes is likely to have shy people who are unable to express their opinions or ideas, and people who never feel it difficult to be assertive tend not to understand hesitant people. These hesitant people, however, are not deliberately trying to be timid, but it is their nature. Therefore, confident people should not humiliate shy people, but should respect their character and try to facilitate the relationship.
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What I am studying

articulate, acquiesce, diffident, laconic, subjugate
delineating, conciliatory, scanty, belittle, bombastic

Above are the words I learned in my ESL class yesterday. I sometimes wonder if these words are truly useful and worth memorizing. Can these be understood by even native speakers? Since I seldom encounter these words anywhere, I am being a bit weak and skeptical. Maybe, there should be plenty of other words that I should retain before these. Having said that, it helps me stretch my knowledge at any rate.
The following is the story I wrote using these 10 words during the class, for which my teacher gave us approx. 30-40 minutes.

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Not everyone feels comfortable to deliver an articulate speech in their native tongue, let alone in English. To be acquiesced by the audience, however, there are some tips for speakers.

First, they have to look like they are confident and persuasive. Even though the trait that they have is diffident and laconic when it comes to speaking in public, showing it to the listeners will be a big loss.The speakers are expected to subjugate the whole lecture or presentation.

Secondly, delineating what is going to be said in the speech at the very first stage is significant. It helps speakers look conciliatory, and at the same time, diminish the insufficient feeling of the audience which might be caused by scanty information or poor explanations.

Lastly, if the speech has to be done in a foreign language, what we have to think about is not the language itself. No matter how little confidence they have in the language, what they have to do is convey the message. The straightforward message that speakers have in their mind is what counts.

To sum up, by following all the advice mentioned above, speakers will be succeed. Audiences do not come to your speech, in most of the cases, in order to belittle you or give bombastic criticism, but come to listen to what they are interested in, so, be confident!
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Shopping Paradise?

"Las Americas" is one of the outlet malls in San Diego, which locates adjacent to the U.S. and Mexico border, and it is a 40-min driving from our house. The freeway I-5 enable us to reach all the way to the border, but shortly before passing it by - to be accurate, at the last exit in the U.S. side - we have to get off the freeway. Due to the proximity, most of the shoppers and the clerks look Mexican, and more than 90 percent of the conversations we could hear in this area is Spanish.

It was last Sunday that I visited Las Americas for the first time. What excited me was not only Spanish conversations I overheard, but we were also able to look over the scenery of Tijuana from the parking lot of the mall. Not everyone is strung up about thinking of Mexico, but I am. I regretted myself not having taken even a single photo of Tijuana. It must have been a good picture to put up here....

Despite the fact that we've got the information through my partner's coworker that the outlet mall was for the birds and nothing to attract us, my eager to buy shoes led us to this place, and it turned out pretty lovely to me. We initially visited there just to see what it was like. I'm really greedy when it comes to the touristic places, and preferably wanted to find a nice pair of shoes for the wedding party on the coming weekend.

Contrary to our mere expectation, the outlet mall satisfied us with a lot of appealing prices with quite a few of discount. I found a nice pair of mules from Hush Puppies store for $20. (Not $200) The price showed $39 and it was not until I signed my credit card that I perceived the mules were further discounted . Moreover, my partner got a luck in the same way I did. He was supposed to pay pleasantly $80 for the jacket he liked, that was 40% off the price, and he regarded it was a bargain at the moment. At the check out counter, however, he was charged only $30, which was somehow discounted more than that. Furthermore, all the products from "Bath & Body Works" were 70% discounted and such.
The original prices in general are not that expensive throughout the U.S., especially compared to Japan, and I, almost every week, enjoy shopping even at original prices, let alone outlet prices!!

May I squawk about something?

Our garage door has broken about a month ago. The remote controller went out of order and the controller button installed on the wall didn't work either. But I never imagined it would take such a long time until it's completely fixed.
As soon as I first noticed something wrong with the garage door, I called my landlord and asked him to come check it. They came over the following day to examine it and mentioned they would be back in a few days. Even though my landlord is not a professional electrician, he is versed in electrical work, and in most of the cases, was adept at fixing by himself and wise enough to avoid the expensive cost to hire an electrician . That has been the case up to this time.

As he promised, a few days later, the landlord came with all the equipment and began his work to fix it. In spite of his great amount of effort, however, it ended in vain. He remarked he would find a solution anyway. No matter how I waited for his call, no message reached me, so I impatiently called him to urge, saying how it was causing serious inconvenience for us to live without automatic shutter.

Ten days later, he showed up with a different kind of machine from our current one, which looked somewhat cheap to me. Also he brought his son for help. Despite their three-hour attempt to exchange the machine, it just made the situation worse. Now no response came to the door at all.
Eventually, he hesitantly made up his mind to call for a electrician.

Some days later, the electrician visited my house to see the situation, and concluded that the machine should be replaced to a new one, not to the cheaper one but the same kind as the current one. In the end, he came back today with a new machine and fix it perfectly. It seemed to be a piece of cake which took him only less than 30 min.

When I write this down here in one page, it shows a trivial incident.
Not to mention the time they actually worked at my place and kept me from going out, however, both my landlord and the electrician stood me up one day respectively, from which I was extremely furious about their rudeness. Moreover, I needed to expose my car at a visitor parking space for more than a month, and it was my job to manually open and close the garage door for my partner, since he cherishes his car and desired to continue to park it in a garage.

It had little bearing on their competence of fixing it; nevertheless their reluctant mind and low motivation prolonged their job. If it has happened in Japan, it won't take more than two days until it's fixed. Ah... sigh...

Lastly, there is one thing I have to express my thanks to them. They gave me chance to stay at home and that's one of the reasons I did update my blog this often lately ;)

Information source

Apart from the Internet, there are several ways to obtain news about Japan in the U.S., and I'm trying deftly to use every means in order to keep up with Japanese news and trends.

First, a cable TV is the most likely simple method to get in San Diego. The program we contracted with the cable company provides approx. 100 channels. Only one channel out of a hundred is an Asian channel, and various Asian countries such as China, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, and of course Japan share the channel. Fortunately, 3 hours of golden time on Sunday night is allocated to Japan, and we can enjoy watching Japanese sitcoms. During the last cycle, for instance, "My wife is having an affair this week" and "Tokyo Tower" were aired.
Also, 7 to 8:00 am in every morning is a time for NHK news. It facilitates us to see what's going on in Japan. But despite the accessibility, I don't visit this channel frequently, for the information is inordinately finite.

Secondly, we own "Location Free" sold by Sony. Once this device is set up at home and a hard disk recorder is located in somewhere, Japan like a house of parents, it enables us to watch and record any TV programs through a PC. Yet, to spend time more efficiently, I try not to use Location Free. In other words, if I started using it, I surely won't be able to tear myself away from the PC screen. Thus, I deliberately haven't learned how to manipulate it.

Third, there are two kinds of Japanese free magazines, which anyone can take from the shelf of Japanese supermarkets. One is called "Yu-Yu" and another is "Lighthouse". Both magazines provide us not only Japan's news but also the useful tips to live in the US. To be more specific, the features of the magazines vary from "Beer garden in San Diego", "How to walk in LA", "Let's go fishing", "watch Major league" to "Kid's education", "about Immigration" and such like. Even though almost all my Japanese friends read these magazines, a bit past information sometimes irks me.

Furthermore, there are, as far as I know, two Japanese DVD rental shops in San Diego. One of them is 5 min. driving from my house and is operated by Korean owner, but they lend Japanese movies and sitcoms at their shop, and their selection is satisfactory and quite new. A DVD rental costs $1 and many of my Japanese friends take advantage of it. Being lazy myself, however, I hate to go return the DVD I rented, and so, I'm not a regular customer of this shop.

To sum up, nothing can defeat the Internet.
Thank to the Internet, it's come to possible for us to get anything we desire. Nothing cannot be retrieved from computer. And moreover, thanks to my partner who admits himself a "nerd" and PS3 which can be connected to Internet and show the image through TV, we are enjoying "華麗なる一族 - Glorious Family??-", without any efforts of downloading. Recent technology and Nikkan(日刊) YouTube enriched our dinner time.
While I thank it, however, I feel at the same time that we had better forget about Japan for a little while, and better enjoy "American" life!!

Hello from Romania

As far as I'm concerned, I've known nothing about Romania, even the location. Are there any common image out of this country?

One of my classmates at ESL school delivered a presentation during a class. She is in her mid 50s and left her country about 10 years ago, so the idea might be a bit too traditional, but it extremely stimulated my interest.

She introduced to us what it was like to live in a communist country. They lived in a same type of apartment that was provided by the government, and had same kinds of furniture.
The salary depended on their occupation, which meant everyone was known by others how much money they earned.
Moreover, they waited in a long line for more than 1 hour to get a lip stick, of course only one type of color of the lip stick for every women.

She admitted, however, it was not necessarily a happy and peaceful time; nevertheless, she never felt envious or jealous to others. The communism kept them from a feeling of disparity between the well-off and poor people. The situation has been changed, but she reminisced about her old days through the presentation.

The above photo is of the food she cooked for this day. It was my first experience to have Romanian food, but all of them were so palatable that we could not help bringing some leftover back home :)
This country has been added to my "I should go" list.

Palomar Observatory

Palomar Observatory is a world-famous facility for astronomical research. The research at this observatory is still active, yet during a day time, it is open to public and the visitors are allowed to enter and see the huge telescope through a panel of glass - you may not think that it is a telescope... it is that big...
It was one of the places my partner wanted to visit. We made a simple lunch box and took a short trip of 1.5 hour driving to the north of San Diego county, where it is located.

It has been continuing a scorcher day in South California, but here at the top of the Palomar Mountain of altitude 5618ft, the cool breezes prevailed and I could barely stay without a jacket.

Looking up a huge telescope and being content with all the exhibisions that covered all of my queries, I came to know the interesting story about astronomers.

Contrary to my own belief, astronomers do not spend most of their time using with telestopes, and they typically use it only a few days a year. Most of the time, they do prepare in order to make the most of limited time. The preparation includes researching, gathering data and analyzing it, from which they will be able to determine which day would be the best timing to use the telescope in terms of the weather and the observsing target itself.
Furthermore, the astronomers need to win the right to use the telescope. They compete with each other by proving how useful and feasible their observation is, and TAC(Telescope Allocation Committee) will decide and allocate time to the group who acquired the right to use it from a small possibility.

One problem they are currently facing is the light pollution that is threatening this observatory with urbanized surroundings. In addition to the lights from LA and San Diego, nowadays, the casino resorts seem to have been developing in this area by leaps and bounds. It didn't appear to me much of a threat in comparison with the global warming, but still it might not be long before the telescope has to be moved to the other location.

Mingling with Korean friends

Whereas some of my classmates from an ELS school have no kids and got plenty of their own free time, many others are a mom of either preschooler or elementary school children and having a hectic day. They usually go back home straight after the class, pick their kids up and stay with them all in the afternoon. Besides, play dates and home works make their day more strenuous.

Nevertheless, they enjoy, once in a while, their limited time between the ESL class and a pickup time only with their adult friends and try to make the most of it.
One of my Korean classmates, who is also a mom of two, invited me over the other day. It was a lunch gathering of her Korean friends, so all five ladies excluding me were Korean.

With a great amount of Korean style side dishes, she prepared "Shabu-shabu" which was a Japanese style hot pot with thinly sliced beef and vegetables. It surprised me a lot. They eat a typical Japanese hot pot just like we do without any taste of spicy "hot".
Even though I was aware the Shabu-shabu was popular in Korea, I did not expect they cook it. Moreover, she offered me two kinds of dipping sauces, "Goma-dare(Sesame sauce)" and "Ponzu". Nothing was different from our style. Good grief!

As soon as we ate it up and enjoyed a dessert from COSTCO, they were dispersed to puck up their children.
I, on the other hand, directed to a house of one of my Japanese friend who also invited me for a tea break. I'm also having a hectic day every now and then ;)

Laguna Beach

If I was asked to choose a word for San Diego, I would say a "Paradise".
Weather wise, especially, I would not be able to find any better places than San Diego. Furthermore, it is unassailable that a number of beaches are tempting me enough to give out the word.
Having said that, I know there are bunch more beautiful places in the world, and last weekend, I found the other paradise in OC, Orange County.
It is Laguna Beach, a little north of San Diego, maybe 50 min. to 1 hour drive from my house depending on the traffic.
This small sea coast town captivated me at first sight. I fell in love with it in no time. My partner said that the incomparably perfect weather helped me to be a big fun of this town.

The streets were lined with shops and art galleries, and by and large, there might be nothing to write home about.
If I dare say my favorite part, it's the rich ambiance of the town.
Can you see the small picture (left)where people are indulging themselves in playing Volley ball and basket ball right on the beach? They should be one of the happiest kids in the world.

Cinco de Mayo

In Japan, May 5th is Children's day. We observe the day for Children hoping their growth and happiness.

Being in San Diego, however, my partner and I joined Mexicans and Mexican descents to celebrate "Cinco de Mayo."
"Cinco de Mayo" means "May 5th" in Spanish, and it commemorates the victory of Mexican forces who prevailed against French forces in the Battle of Puebla on May 5th, 1867.
It is not the so-called Mexican Independence Day, but here in the west coast of the U.S., people have a magnificent party on this day, rather grand celebration than that in Mexico.
As for us, we wanted nothing but authentic Mexican food and mariachi; therefore, we headed for Old Town historical state park, the prominent venue of Cinco de Mayo festival, and got down to Tacos shops. The order which comes out of my partner's mouth is always "ALWAYS" Tacos Carne Asada (BBQ Tacos), and today he enjoyed it again.

In the center of the park, a big stage was built up for a band, and cheerful people got carried away dancing to the rhythm of Mexican music. Though asked my partner to go in front to dance with me, I was ignored by him. He just wouldn't be caught dead dancing by his friends.

Once we got out the state park, we were astonished to see the bars and restaurants overcrowded with inebriated people having a can of Tecate or a glass of Margarita. It was because, according to California's law, no alcohol is allowed in public areas, so if people wanted to wet their whistle, the only way is to enter somewhere in the property.

My Cinco de Mayo did not end until late at night.
One of our neighbor was having a party. They live 5 houses away from my place, yet even from that distance, I could hear the dancing music from their house. My partner and I went out to see what's going on out there. What we saw was mirror balls shining through the blinds and some guests hanging around the door.
If it happened in Japan, it should have been the matter of the arrest. But nobody, even the next door neighbors, seemed not have called the police.
How come they tolerated the racket? They should have been invited to the party.

In short, Cinco de Mayo is an excuse for a blowout, still I love this culture :)

Hello again ^^

It's been almost three weeks since I last updated.
Sorry for the readers (if there is any...), I just neglected this blog.
A lot of distractions have been taken up my mind.

But during this period of time, I did nothing special. On top of the daily chores, such as doing housework, going to school, having lunch with my friends etc etc, I just pampered myself by reading a lot of books (most of them were Japanese novels), going for a jacuzzi at around the time of sunset, and eating as much Haagen-Dazs -pistachio flavor- as I wanted.

Now that I regained enough energy, I think I will come back here more often :)