Pimpin over the world

I took some time to organized the new photos I put up and update some info about the current status. Then I realized how lame it is that I never kept up with writing journal on this thing. Probably because I still have that problem of being consistence. Any way, here’s the updates on the past few months.

         I just recently got back from camping with high school friends at Fri Douglas camp ground over the memorial weekend. It was the first college retreat with my high school best buddies. The trip overall was a wonderful experience. We drove about 1 hr east of WWU and reach the camp ground. The camp ground is locate right by the glacier river and not far from the Artist point. We set up the camp and leave the pack some light gears with us to go off on the hike. By the time we reach the Artist point, we realized the mountain was still cover with snow and we don’t have any proper hiking gears with us. That didn’t stop us. Reed had a pair of hiking boots and the rest of us has tennis shoes or cross country shoes on. I didn’t put sucks on because I knew ahead that it will get wet and stay icy cold throughout the hike.  We pretty much hiked the whole mountain with our poor gears but it was a hela of fun. We ran into some snowboarder who we later took some jump shots for them. At the peak of mountain, we ran into a couple and the guy just pop the question right before we get there. He had roses ring set up and bottle of wine and cracker/cheese for the follow up. The whole thing was just romantic and great. Probably gona be one of mine to do list in the near future.

       We rush/jump down the mountain with freezing cold feet and rush back the camp site to get the fire started. We had hard time to get the fire going until some old guy brought us some dry woods over and help us light up a good fire. The dinner was 40% great and 60% failure. The meat BBQ works but the rapped potato didn’t work at all. We end up just eating whatever we can get our hands on from the snacking bag. Played some card games and burn “fact and Crap” until everyone was exhaust. We slept in until 11 the next morning since we couldn’t get out of the place b/c of the “ski to sea” event at the first place. Clean up the place and start another fire to burn all the trash. By the time we got out of camp ground it was around 2ish. Stop by the A&W on the way home. It was a great ending for our trip.

       That was the memorial weekend for me.

Back to couple weeks earlier. I started to learn play guitar and became really addictive to it. Getting better and better now, with full hand of calluses. Can play few songs but mainly just mess around with the major courts. Sherry bought me a mini guitar as soon she heard me start learning to play guitar. The little thing works great and handy but a bit too small for my fingers, I still love it tho.

       Major events in the past few weeks: Piccadilly dance, kayak at brother Joc’s house with a big feast afterward, early com final( I A it),  and play a but of tennis.

Well, that’s all I can think of at the moment. Maybe will update it some other time. =P

June 24 Saturday sunny

It was the first day we saw clear sky on the whole trip. Our day schedule was mostly shop for what we left out on our list. We pretty much did all we want to do for this trip. Peter found the camera lance he wanted; we went to hot spring town and shopped around Tokyo city; we explored the areas around Tokyo and visit couple other cities. We tasted most of the food on our list. Sushi was not one of them by the way. 

We decided to take the day off to sleep in. By the time we woke up it was 10 am and we left for lunch around 11am. While we were hunting for good restaurant, a small food sample window attracted our attention. The samples look delicious but they turned out nothing good in real object. Our afternoon was spent wondered around Shinjuku JR station. Tons of people were out on the street on Saturday afternoon. We were impressed by how crowed the game stores were. People would spend their money crazily on a single slot machine or game. One of remark was a multiplayer game that played by cards on the sense board. The computer would scan the card characters and transform it into a battle game scream. The game involved high technology designed, cards tactic and many other elements. I can not image how far the Japanese had pushed the game limited on modern world. Other game like battle gear 4 also made me stop for a moment to observe it. It used mostly real car models to race in the game and has amazing graphic designed. Another noodle restaurant attracted our attention while we wondered on the street. The restaurant was full packed with customer and looks very stylish. It has old sign out side and the store was not newly model but it was full of people. We figured it must be famous or had a good reason that attracted customer into it. Since I was nearly full, we only ordered one bowl of noodle to try it out. It was rich with flavor out of swine bones.

It was nearly 6pm as we headed back to meeting hall. I had a headache from different extreme temperature. Hot from outside and cold from air conditioner. I didn’t remember much of that night but I heard Peter went to the fellowship meeting 15 minutes train rides from meeting hall. He did not tell me the detail of it. All I know was there were people from 15 different countries at the fellowship. I start writing journal at 11pm and now its past 2am in the morning. I wish to write more details but my headache is butchering me. Our travel will come to an end

June 23 Friday cloudy

     I woke up at 7am in the morning due to the lack of sleep last night. Peter had already taken two hot spring baths since 5am. At least that’s what he told me. I kind of hanged around the bed and wouldn’t get up till he told me breakfast is coming at 7:30 and I better take a bath before it arrives. I did it with half sleeping head and almost draw myself in the bed tub. The breakfast was all set up in the living room when I got out of shower room. It wasn’t as pleasant as I thought it would be. On the table, the main dish was a grill fish, side dishes include from green vegetable to unknown object. I swallowed most of them without thinking and left leftovers to Peter. I lie back to bed after breakfast and let Peter be in charge of packing. We took pictures with the server old-boson and left the hotel around 10:00am. Hotel waiters bawl politely to us to say goodbye as we get on the hotel transport bus. One remark was that we saw some high skill 90 degree bus turning on the way to station.

Our Friday schedule is to use the travel deal to explore around the local area. The travel deal came with unlimited transport vouchers to use bus, ship, sky train for local area in three days. Due to the limited of time we had, we didn’t stop at any bus stop but went straight to the pirate ship dock. The pirate ships were remodel modern ships with old style pirate ship looking. There were at least 4 different ships in the dock. They took passenger across Lake xxxxxx. On the ship, there were different class of deck, we tried to sit in first class but were only allow sitting in second class. It was fun to be carried by a pirate ship, tons of elementary school kids were on board with us. We past by another pirate ship while sealing towards destination. I realized our ship would sink if we can actually fire cannons to each other because we had no cannons to against the other ship.

 The ship stopped at the north side of the lake so we could transfer to next bus ride. I had to carry our heavy backpack while we were searching for the bus stop. The transport bus took about 20 minutes to get us to sky train station. We saw hot spring coming out from the side of mountain and a quick peek of mountain Fuji. We gave up to climb the mountain because the whether was too cloudy to see anything. We stopped at two local stores to get something to eat before we left for the sky train. The local store had those funny looking glutinous rice balls. Peter and I pretty much order everything in store and share with each other. The sky train ride was the greatest ride in whole day. We ridded by ourselves in a 10 person capable carriage. Tons of pictures were taken with great view. It was hard for me to image the ride only took 7 minutes of our whole trip. I wished we could have stay on there longer. It was ground train transport’s turn after sky transport. The ground train moved slowly over 20 minutes of our ride. We met some travelers from Taiwan on the train, nothing was spoken between us probably because we used English to communicate and they didn’t. That was our quick explore of local hot spring town. We had to rush back to main station to met Brother Mark’s mother and have lunch with her.

       Brother Mark’s mother cooked a delicious lunch for both of us. We had lots of dishes original from Taiwan. We said goodbye and thanked her for all the hospitality around 4pm and start heading back to station to catch Romancecar. Amazingly, we had the sits in the first carriage where sits are usually sell out in the train. We were wearied out by our tiredness after rushed through so many places. Luckily we didn’t miss our stop even we were asleep most of the ride. We had to prepare to attend young people’s meeting after arrived the meeting hall from 36 hours of traveling. Gladly, the meeting started with serving curry for dinner then had the meeting. I didn’t lie on my bed until 1pm that night, not even had the strength to write journal.

June 22 cloudy

      Peter woke up early in the morning to attend the morning revival with other brothers. I woke at around 9:30am and lay around till he came back and said we had to get it going. He and other brother were doing some research for the hotel that we are staying tonight. They went through two of them because the first one wouldn’t take credit card but cash. The second hotel was located at Hakoneyumoto- the famous town of hot spring. We packed our one day cloths and equipments into Peter’s REI backpack so it ended up with probably around 18 pounds total. Since Peter is a better photographer than I am, we decided that I will carry REI backpack and Peter will carry his camera bag. We headed out the door by 11:00 am and walked to Shinjuku station. We had to stop by another electronic store because Peter forgot to buy a camera safeguard lens.

By the time we arrived main station and figured out how to get to Hakoneyumoto, it was 12:00. We met this Chinese lady at the information counter and bought our Romancecar tickets from her. We didn’t know each other’s language at first, until Peter whisper something at me and she realized we speak mandarin. She gave us two fans as gifts before we left for the ride. On the train ride, we had our first time to look at all the pictures Peter took on his laptop. The ride took about an hour and a half to reach destination. One thing to mark about the ride was we tried to buy some snacks from the trolly lady and she got confused and didn’t know what to do. We both gave each other an eye at the moment.

It happened that we got off at the wrong station and the station director had to rush us back to the same train before it takes off. We arrived the finial stop with full condition and excitement. The finial station was not a big place but full of tourist. We went straight a head to the hotel for check in because a friend of ours was waiting at somewhere else for lunch. It took us about 15 minutes all up hill to the hotel, with my 15 pounds backpack. The hotel’s name was “Orange”- could either mean the color orange or the fruit orange, I think.

Three waiter ladies came out before we even step 10 feet close to the door. I still wonder how they even knew we were there; you can’t really see people at the front gate from the front counter. The room was nice and packed. Right in side the door is a bath room with a hot spring shower & bath room. To the left, is the main living room where we had our dinner and slept in. A little front towards the living room is a little setting room with paper door separate from the living room and window view of mountains outside. It was a gorgeous room. Before we even settle down, an elder waiter came in and served clean up towels and green tea for us. It was a custom of hotel I guess, other wise it would be embarrass for young people to receive such hospitality. We took off with light pack equipment and headed to the meeting location. It was only two stations away but we were an hour late dude to our train schedule.

The friend we were meeting with was the next door church brother’s mother. She had this little Chinese pastry store by the train station so she hosted us a good late afternoon snacks. We couldn’t ate too much of it partly because she wouldn’t let us pay for it and we will have our dinner at 6:30 again in the hotel room. We stayed a while and got some information about our next day rout. On the way back to station, we took a short walk around the small town for pictures and hoping to get some fresh air. Well, we did get some good pictures but the air wasn’t good at all, it was pretty much as same smell as the Tokyo city.

Tons of local special were outside of Hakoneyumoto station. We stopped by to find some gift for our grandparents. The snacks were awesome tasting, some of them are local made only and we couldn’t decide if we can bring them back to Taiwan in full shape. We left the store with a cute toothpick container with a samurai head on top of it. On the way up hill back to the hotel, Peter and I started talking what my dad did to the house when mom was gone each time. It was my first time to hear the wild side of my dad. He re-painted the house while mom went to Shanghai without consult with her. He re-furnishes the entire wall because my sister’s rabbit bitted a few spot on it. He re-do his bathtub because he didn’t like it. All those things happened when ever my mom went out of town. It was fun for me to hear about it because I had similar record in a way just like my dad’s.

Peter went out for hot spring bath after we settle down in the room. I choose to stay and see if I can hock up internet with his laptop. Surprisingly, our wireless internet worked. I took a hot spring shower right before our room dinner serves came. The bathroom was amazing! I was fully satisfied of what the hotel has. The dinner was even better, when I came out of the shower and it was all set up in our living room. At least over 8 small dishes for each person, it was Japanese style to have small side dishes and a huge bowl of rice. Of coursed, Peter took tons of pictures before I touch anything. I enjoyed having a good photographer alone on the trip and told him that maybe one day he should give up his engineering and work for a travel magazine or something. Again, I was fully satisfied with the dinner. It will take a long time to describe every single dish I had, but to tell you the truth, the beef was the best. The beef was cooking while we were eating other dishes on the table. It was fresh and most importantly, we get to put our own dressing on top of it.

As we stuffed our belly button up full, we turned on the TV and hoping to find a good program that we can understand. Unforgettable, we saw this show that we used to watch in our childhood. I think it has been on the TV for a long history. It was a show that the host company would hold up all sorts of competitions to search for champions. I thought it was a very educational program and serves a positive attitude to watch. The series was about remodeling hotel for competition. Three companies were involved and each has a crew of workers. The show contained such a good value that Peter and I talk about it hours and hours later.

We went out for the hot spring bath out side around 9pm. It was a pubic bath but there weren’t much people in it. I was glad. I discovered what I call water drum while I was in the bathtub. I drummed around those wooden buckets while they floated on the surface. Each of them make sound depends on how much air was in it. It was lots of fun except Peter got tire of it and called for stop.

That was our day and now it’s past 1am in the morning. Our room became really cool after the worker came in and fixed the air conditioning. I am still high from a cup of caffeine I had earlier. But still, I’m gona call for a end for today. It’s “Friday” already. 

June 20 humid & cloudy

      We woke up at 6 am just to be the early birds that go out for hunt. When we stepped out the door, we realized that we only had 570 yen left with us. We spent all the money exchanged from the airport at bus transportation and last night shopping. Luckily we could buy some simple breakfast with remain changes. We decided to explore the area until the bank is open.

First stop was to our bus stop where the banks are. On the way through there, we found some electronic stores that are getting ready to open. We assumed it wasn’t the peck traffic time because not much of pass-bys were on the street this time. It didn’t take us long to cross the huge section showed on the map, I thought partly it was because the map over exaggerated the distant. Second stop was the city hall. The building was an impressive grand sight- two set of round structures extent from the middle to the top of the building and a round ring configuration surrounds the building at the bottom. The plaza wasn’t crowded at all; me and Peter took turn to take pictures of each others and recorded a short video footage. The third stop was the Shinjuku central part right by the city hall, the park seems like has a large territory but turned out was another over exaggeration. We discovered a torii (temple) right by the park name 熊野. After the city hall exploration, we decided head back to the bank and get some money to get more breakfast. Sadly, all the banks were not open till 9 am and we arrived early. We had to sit out and wait for it to open for another 30 minutes.

As soon we got our U.S dollar exchanged, we headed for the east-side station for shopping. Crows of pass-bys and employees were seemed at each red light atop on the way towards station. It was amazing that we tried to walk opposite direction against them. A way to describe the sight was that those employees were like the quite water stop by the water gate at each red light and flood like mad men when the light turns green. We reached the east-side department stores but none of them were open till later in afternoon. We changed our plan to shop at the electronic stores first and go out to have some lunch. The electronic stores were full of camera and computer accessories that we don’t know if we can afford buying them all at one time. The high light of the shopping was one of employed tried to sell us a cannon camera- model IXY 800 with special offer. He said if we buy it right the way the price would be around $380. I was shocked how low the price was and hinted to Peter that we should get it. The employee sensed the price he gave us in English was unusual low, so his impression changed into a nerve shocking. He ran into the back counter seek for help and came out with a memory card and tried to higher his price with “better deal”.

We decided to walk out the store with empty hands and do some market value homework first before we actually buy something. We took a short train ride back to home. It was fun to try out the JR system and not to get lost. We had lunch at this small light repast restaurant by the station. The ramam was wonderfully done. We ordered soil souse and miso flavor, both were great choices. The soup was so rich with flavor that it deeply hock on my tongue and lead on none stop attacking until I finished the whole bowl. Peter wished to order more noodle because it was free but I stop him. I told him that in order to have a delicious food trip in Japan; we have to eat the quality of food, not quantity. He laughed and agreed. It was the smallest bowl in the menu that I ordered but I was stuff full. We came home and start preparing for the afternoon round. Funny how it was, we fall asleep while we lay on our bed tried to figure out the rout. By the time we woke up it was 2 in the afternoon so we had to rush out on our feet to catch the train.

     We headed back to electronic stores just for the hack of it to see if we can find better deal this time. Both cannon IXY 800 and Sony T30 were very attractive to us. By the time we left the store it was another half hour past. We catch the train and head down to Shibuya where most of young people hang out in the city. It was another amazing place you can hardly describe with words. Literary, it was million of people walking on the street at the same time, more and more of them just keep showing up from the train station like us. If your impressions of Japanese are short height, white skin, black hairs then you are totally wrong. We saw all sort of hair color, cloth style or even skin color at the plaza. Hair colors with orange, white, red, purple, gold, silver hair color were all over the place. Cloths in gangster, mini short cut, long dress, old, punk, newly made style suppressed mine eyes. Japanese are not all short too; many of them were over 185 cm at least. Anyway, it was something new to my impression of Japanese. The first building we entered was called 109. We had no idea that it was a department store sells items mostly for female only; it wasn’t fun until we noticed that we were surround by all women and staring at us. We left the department store for our own good and wonder around the area. There were mostly design cloth stores or fun centers. We spent our entire afternoon there till 8 pm then we start searching for dinner. One thing remark the whole shopping area was that no one shopped in the big department store like Gucci or Boss but unfamiliar brand stores.

Our dinner was at a Japanese-style grill restaurant where no one would know its existence unless they receive a direction card or notice it was underground. Surprised us that it was almost packed. We ordered a little bit of stuff without clearly know what we think that we are ordering. All the dishes were over price except the goat grill. The goat meat was perfectly done and nicely seasoned. We had fun watching the couple set across us drinking sake and got really drunk. They pretty much chucked down the whole thing that contain nearly 40 % of alcohol. Not only that, we witnessed they had a glassful of beer before they order their sake. I’m guessing Japans are really good at over drinking during week time. We also noticed that there are a lot of heavy smokers; generally, Japanese would smoke 4 cigarettes during dinner. That’s the conclusion after having dinner and lunch at restaurants that has a small nonsmoking area instead of a small smoking area. Businesses support smoking in the public and has no opposition for second hand smoking. The only law that limits smoking is not smoking while you are walking. We got home after 10pm and the house door was lock. We used the public phone to call for help and turn out alright. By the time I start my journal it was near 11:30pm. Peter planed out the rout for the next day while I’m wrote the journal.

June 19 humid & sunny

A totally of nearly 18 hours of flight and transport, we finally has arrived Tokyo Japan. The agonizing humid weather charges into us right off the plane. I took off my pants and switch on my shorts right out side of the boarding gate. The bus took nearly two hours to get to Tokyo city from the airport. Brother Mark and Mozomu gave us a ride from the bus stop to meeting hall after we received our packages.

The meeting hall had a simple shower room and a small room that was set up with two folding beds. We quickly unpacked our small luggage and went out for a quick shopping at the convenient store. It was like back to our own country but with a different language spoken. The store has pretty much everything we need for the night; towel, map, and snack. The casher had a confused impression of why did I respond in English. Around 10 pm, we finished or at least thought we finished our preparation for the next day and went to bed. Good lord, the room was hot and fill with unbearable humid, never the less, we fall asleep after all that weariness from the flight.