PEANUTS

Fun Restaurant

I am in the US on business now.
This is gonna be 16 nights business trip in the US.
It is like a dream for me!
I just wish this was not on business but my vacation.

I was in Florida for 4 nights to join a conference for pet products.
Global Pet Expo was held at Orange County Convention Center in Florida.
It was close to Universal Studio, so I found this interesting building upside down.

One night, I went to family restaurant.
Their symbol was peanuts.
Look how messy it is on their floor!
There was a jar of peanuts on each table, and people can throw them after eating on the floor.
This is impossible in Japan.
America is interesting, although I have lived in the US long enough, still I found lots of new interesting parts of America.

HAIR STYLE

CRAZY HAIR STYLE

This is my friend's hair style which he did for our friend's wedding.
He goes to medical school, and will be a doctor in the future.

I think his style was cool, but he said he was going to shave all his hair after the wedding.

Ahhhh.... I am too sleepy to write something nice tonight.
Gotta go to bed...

ST. VALENTINE'S DAY

Valentine’s Day

Today is Valentine’s Day in Japan.
I went to a department store to get tons of chocolates for my co-workers.
In Japan, there are two kinds of Valentine’s gift, one is obligation chocolate, and the other is real love chocolate.
I went to buy lots of obligation chocolates and felt silly to spend money to buy those.
Also I wonder if they would be happy to get those…
Especially, in Japan, there is White Day, which is the day men who got chocolates on Valentines, have to buy something back to those women.
I give 7 bucks to 25 bucks chocolates to them, and they will give me back more expensive stuff.

Valentine’s day in Japan is the day when girls can tell their loves to boys.
Therefore, boys don’t buy anything on that day.
I remember when I was 9 years old, I went to a boy’s apartment to give a chocolate, and his mother answered the door, and felt embarrassed.
When I was thirteen, that was the first time I made cookies by myself, and failed.
I cried and asked my mom to let me try again, but she didn’t.
I had to give ugly cookies to a boy I liked.
When I was sixteen, I went to a boy’s bus stop to wait to give a chocolates and a gift.
I knew he had a girlfriend, but I gave them anyways.
Two years ago, my American boyfriend gave me a Valentine’s gift.
That was the first experience for me to get a gift from a boy on Valentine’s day, and I felt weird, but was happy.
There are lots of stories about Valentine’s Day in my life.

WEDDING

MY FRIEND'S WEDDING

It was my friend's wedding last Sunday.
I have been friends with both of them since I was 14 years old.
We always hung out within a group and the bride, another girl and I were only girls in boys.
Three of us dated with a couple of boys in the group, but she was the only one who decided to get married with one of them.
They met when they were 14 years old, and fell in love when they were 18, and dated for 10 years.
They broke up for one year in those years, but now they got married.

They were so cute and that was the best wedding ever.
Lots of people were moved and cried during the celemony.
The bride was the cutest that I ever seen.
My friend gave a speach, which was really nice.
Other friends did performance, which was really funny.
It was like a reunion, and all of us felt really happy to see thier happiness.

After the wedding party, we held a private party for them.
I was one of the people who plan for the party.
We got together one a month for the last 6 month.
This is a pic from the party.
We did MC, and I was so nervous about the role since that was a party for 80 people.
However, it went well, and seems like everyone had a good time.
After the party, we went to Karaoke, went driking, and went anohter drinking...
It was such a long day, but was really happy day.

GLASSES

My New Glasses

Since I have bad eyesight, I usually wear contact lenses.
I wanted to wear glasses when I was a little kid.
I thought wearing glasses is something special.
However, once I wore glasses all the time, I hated it.
I started wearing contact lenses, and did not care about glasses anymore.

Since I was eighteen, I started caring about glasses.
My old boyfriend was such a fashion freak so he always tried to be fashionable.
One day, he took me to one cool store specialized to glasses.
He did not have bad eyesight, but he wanted to get one, so we decided to get one for each.
Since then, I never bought my glasses at any other places.
I fell in love with the store with the variety of their collections.
Since I realized the first one were too fashionable for me and were not useful for my daily life, I went back there a couple years later and got another one.
On the next day I got them, my little puppy bit my glasses and I could not wear them anymore.
I really liked the glasses, so I went back there and bought exact the same one.
Since then, I had not been to the store for about 5 years.
I went back to the store the end of 2006, and bought this pair of glasses.
Soon after I got in, the owner asked me, “Oh, you came back from the US?” and he remembered my name!

I like the store because of their collection, and moreover, I like the married couple who own the store. They provide special service to all their customers.

MY GRANDFATHER

Lots of Good Memories with Ji-Ji

My grandfather passed away on February 3rd.
I was really sad, but last three days I was remembering all memories that I had built with him with his remain.
Since I am the second daughter in my family, there were a couple years my parents had to concentrate on taking care of my elder sister.
So I went to my grandparent’s and since then, my grandparents were like my parents for me.
They took me to many places, and we shared a lot of things.
When I said, “I like Cookie Monster!”, he went to the US and bought all Cookie Monster goods he found, although he never knew the character and he could not speak any English.
When I said, “I am collecting (toys or character goods, etc)”, he was the one who went to as many toy stores as he could and got them for me.
He took me to local public bath and made me to take bath with him till I became 8 years old. I felt embarrassed to take bath with all men, but I was happy when he introduced me to all other people proudly.
He wanted to take me to everywhere, so when he got a scooter, he gave me a ride, although he never had a license, and it was illegal two persons getting on one scooter.
I loved sleeping on his stomach; it was big and very comfortable.
I was so happy when he was laughing when I talked about myself.
He loved watching me doing many things.
The last thing I showed him was Hula dance.
He laughed so much, but enjoyed watching it.
He scolded me only once.
I remember that he was trying so hard to be patient about the argument I had with my sister, but we never listened to him.
I remember that I was so sad to see him being angry and sad, so I never wanted him to be disappointed with me since then.

When I was thirteen, it was a difficult age and I was not willing to spend my time with my grandpa.
And when I was fourteen, he became sick, and he got disabilities.
I regretted how I felt about him.
I started going to see him to the hospital, and since then, I decided to be as close to him as possible.
As I wanted to be close to them, I chose to go to the university where was very close to their house.
I really really have loved my grandpa, and he loved me so much, too.
When I decided to go to the US, he was really sad but never said no.
The last time I talked with him on the phone was one week before he died.
We talked about my work, and his voice sounded very fine.

He was really nice to all people. He was such a loving, giving, person.
I want to be like him.
Although I could not give him back what he did for me, but I promise him that I will love people like he did, and will be a giving person to my children or grandchildren like he was.

Became a long one, but wanted write how great my grandfather was on this blog.

FONDUE

Miso Cheese Fondue

I went to Kyoto last night for “Settai”.
“Settai” is a part of business in Japan that you have to please customers with drinking alcohol and eating food.
Some suck, but the other, I can have a good time with my customers.
Last night, I was with nice people and very relaxing mood.
I ordered “Japanese Miso Cheese Fondue” at the restaurant.
Since except cheese and bread they use something you can’t find in the US, it is very hard for me to explain what it is like...
But I just wanted to show how unique their food was.

Last night, my customers told me that I was very different.
They said they felt jealous what an exciting life I am having.
I wonder how much I am different from other people.
I am satisfied with my own life very much and I feel myself lucky, but I don’t think my life is that exciting like other people think.
I have been busy and have been tired lately.
But if other people really think that I am enjoying my life more that other people are, and if they see me such a happy person, I want to be proud of myself.
It tells me that I did not show my fatigue to other people!

Anyway, I had a good dinner with those people although it was a part of work.
And last night was the time I was thinking about my life.