STAR IN LA

UPTOWN GIRL!

Whenever I am in the US, there is something I have to buy.
That is a gossip magazine.
I buy many kinds of gossip magazines, like People, Star, US etc.
I have a pile of those magazines in my bathroom.
Whenever I am waiting my turn at the register at grocery store, I cannot help reading the magazines.
It is for my reading skill in English with enjoying looking all pictures and their fashions.
Anyway, since I always read American Gossip Magazines, I was so excited to go to Beverly Hills.
Unfortunately, I could not see anybody from those magazines, but could see Elton John’s house.
All cars in that area were nice expensive ones.
Most of female in that area were blond.
Most of female drivers in a car were looking at mirror looking at themselves at the red light.
Most of people wore sunglasses, especially black sunglasses.

The first star I saw on a ground in Hollywood area was my favorite person’s star.
Billy Joel!!
As my parents love his songs, I have listened to his music since I was a kid.
Since I love his songs, I went to Broadway to see “Movin’ Out” three times.
I also went to see it when they came to Japan.
I never got tired of going to see “Movin’ Out”
My favorite of his songs was “Just the way you are”.
If you never read the lyric, please check it out.
I was shocked when first knew the lyric when I was high school kids.

Oops! Today’s entry was supposed to be about LA!!
Anyway, LA was an interesting place.
There were many kinds of areas and lots to see.
However, I would not live there because I can’t stand the traffic there!!
It takes forever to go somewhere.
Although I was there for six nights, I still think I did not see LA enough.
Next time I would be in LA, I will research more places and would like to have more fun.
And see celebrities;)

LONG SATY IN LA

Famima!!

During my business trip, I was in LA for the longest time.
I was there for six nights.
Whenever our company sends me for research to the US, they tell me to go to LA.
I always reject it since I don’t know anything about LA.
I was in LA probably twice in my life, and both for Disney Land.
This time, I could not reject to go to LA, since I had to attend a conference.
It was actually a good one, which I wanna attend the next year too.
This time I was so miserable on the first day I was in LA.
I was the only one who was by myself at hotel in Anaheim, but all people at hotel looked so happy and got excited to go to Disney Land with all their family.
I did not have a car on the first day and could not go out at all till my friend in LA took me out.
From the next day, I got rent-a-car, and went to Down Town.
And I found this Famima!!

Famima!! came from Japan.
It is called Family Mart in Japan, which is a big convenience store.
There were a couple Famima!! in LA.
There are lots of Japanese food, snacks, drinks and magazines at the store as you can see from the picture.
It is like a Japan town in other States, but I saw American people got in just like a normal convenience store.
Still different from Japanese Famima!! but I was so happy to see Japanese convenience store in America.
I had always thought it would be a good idea to bring Japanese convenience store to the US.
Japanese convenience stores are way different from American convenience store.
How so?
Well, there is everything you would need in emergency situation at Japanese convenience store.
For example, pens, notes, stockings, tooth brush, CD-R, batteries, nail polish, rope, and of course all foods and drinks.
It was something I missed so much when I lived in the US.
I hope this kind of convenience store would spread in the US.

OUTDOOR PERSON

Hiking Day in SF

Lots of people tell me that I look like a person who loves being outside to camp or to climb mountains.
People think I am good at any sports, especially running.
I like that they think I am a fast runner because I am such a slow runner actually.
I think those people have those kinds of image of me only because I have dark skin.
I don’t like to make people disappointed if they have some sort of expectation to me.
So I had tried hard to answer the expectation, although I kinda know “Who cares…”
I had never told people the fact that I was not like a person whom they image of me.
I was a leader of YMCA when I was a college student, and took lots of kids for camping to river and to mountains.
But still never liked camping at all, so I don’t know why I did that for four years.
The only camping I loved was with my friends from YMCA.
We went for a camp by car with tons of stuff and they did all setups without me.
They spoiled me, so I made fire only when I felt like to, and I did only my favorite parts like cooking outside or chatting in front if fire.
The best part was that I did not have to walk with carrying lots of stuff!!!!!

Once I told people that I don’t care much about nature, I felt much better.
During this trip, I went on hiking with my boyfriend.
On that morning, our friend, Dan, was surprised “Yukako is going on a hike!?!?!?”
When I heard him saying it, I was so happy and thought, “How nice that people around me know what I am not good at! I don’t have to try hard!!”
Therefore, when we were in a mountain, I could say whenever I was tired and whenever I wanted to take a rest.
Before I had never be able to say such a thing, maybe I had a high pride.
Actually, I had a good time on that day. In a mountain
Hiking is not my thing to do every weekend, but I realized it is good for sometime.
I asked Ryan “What is the point to go for a hike?” then he said “To feel nature”, so I did.
I looked closer to things in a mountain, and it was interesting.
I saw many things, did echo for the first time in my life, and listened to nature sound.

HOMETOWN

My Another Hometowns

After my trip in New York, I flew to San Francisco.
I had one connection, so I flew to Denver before getting to San Francisco.
I had lived in Denver for three years, so I got very excited when my flight landed to Denver.
Although I did not have time to get out of the airport, still I remembered so many things about Denver.
There were so many things happened at Denver airport.
It was the place where I got nervous when I first went there to go to school.
It was the place where I got excited to travel to different place during my school vacation.
It was the place where I felt sad to see many friends off.
It was the place where I felt happy to see my family when they visited me.
When I lived in Denver, I had so many good memories.
I got loss when I had no idea what they were talking about at the first lecture, but I managed to graduate in BA.
I made lots of good friends, went lots of restaurants, went fishing many times, moved twice, fell in love a couple times, got four different jobs, studied a lot, and drunk a lot.
This is one of my hometowns where I feel comfortable.

After this short stop in Denver, I got to my other hometown, San Francisco.
I had lived in SF for a year after I graduated school in Denver.
The first time I went to SF was when I was thirteen years old with my family.
Since then, my family went to SF every year, and some years, we were there three times a year.
I feel people in San Francisco are similar to people in Osaka, where I am from.
People are friendly, and look very happy.
Since my favorite uncle lives in SF, I decided to move to SF to get a job.
I drove to SF from Denver with full of my stuff.
My uncle took care of me all the time.
This is his cooking which he made all my favorite stuff.
I ran into his house mostly when I had problem.
He was there for me all the time.
He is like my best friend whom I can tell everything about me.
I miss him so much, and I wish I can live close to him in the future, and return him what he had done to me.
Now I have so my people I love in San Francisco.
This is the place I wanna be.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK

I LOVE NEW YORK??

I have been to Manhattan many times.
The first time I visited NY was when I was 19 years old.
I went to summer school at University of Rochester and my American mother (sister) took me to Manhattan.
I remember that I got surprised how busy the town was, and had no idea what was going on, since we went to so many places at the same time.
Second time in Manhattan was two weeks long stay.
I hated New York at that time, and I realized how sad I felt when I am away from all my stuff but staying at hotel for two weeks.
I was a student still at that time, and I joined seminar for two weeks with about 20 kids from all over the world.
I had to be in class at 8 in the morning till 5 in the evening, and every night we went to a fancy club or went out for drinking or got drunk at hotel room.
I remember I felt this kind of lifestyle is not like me, so I skipped one day and slept till noon and went to outlet mall in NJ by myself and spent time by myself till it closed.
I still LOVE the outlet mall.

I saw different parts of NY when I went there with my boyfriend.
He loves walking around the city and going to museums.
Neither I liked, but I tried anyway, and realized walking around the city and going to see a couple museums were not that bad.
Since we walked too much, and got tired and fell a sleep in a central park.
When we got up, it was cold and dark.
We saw MC Hammer whom I would never recognize.
This is a picture of fries we missed eating when we were there, but I happened to find this place this time.
There are so many sauces for fries.
It tastes really good and was fun!

I have to say that this was the first time I felt comfortable being in Manhattan.
After many time visits to Manhattan, I had never loved Manhattan, and it was not a place I wanted to stay.
However, I first thought, “Maybe I wanna work in Manhattan”.
I felt good when someone asked me the direction of NYC.
Perhaps, as I watched Sex and the City too much, now I feel NY is such a cool place for career women to live in.

Got really long one!!
In conclusion, there are so many memories in Manhattan now for me, and I am looking forward to making more memories there by visiting there often.
Bad conclusion… Anyway, I think I LOVE NEW YORK.

BAD EXPERIENCE

Train in a Tunnel

After I left Orlando, I went to New York City by myself.
The first day I got to NY, I took a train from grand central station to Rye city to visit my American family.
After I got on the train, it run for a few minutes, and someone corrected my ticket.
Suddenly, all the lights in the train turned off, and the train stopped.
We got some lights back, but we got stuck in a train in a tunnel.
We had an announcement saying “We had an engine trouble, and we are trying to fix it now. This train will start shortly. Sorry for the inconvenience.”
I can’t remember how many times we heard this announcement.
It never started shortly…

It was rush hour time, and the train was full, as you can see.
It got hot right away, and I felt hard to breath.
There was another announcement asking a doctor after a while.
A lady got panic because we had been there in a tunnel quite a long time.
Total, I was there one and a half hour.
I got so tired with standing whole time, and decided not to go to Rye city on that day.
It was a quite scary experience which not so many people can have.
Since then, I feel nervous when I had to go through a tunnel.
We never know what happen in our life.
I really think we have to have enough water and food when we go somewhere…

DREAMLAND

Disney Land!!

It has been a while since the last time I updated this blog.
Although I had so many things I wanted to write on this blog, I had been so busy with traveling.
I finally got back to Japan, and started working hard at my office again.
Total, I was in the US for two and a half weeks from February to March.
It was hella long business trip, but at the same time, I totally enjoyed myself when I had free time.
I was in Florida for 4 nights.
This is a picture when I was at Disney World.

I remembered that I had breakfast with many characters of Disney with my sister and my mom when I was little.
At that time, I was amazed with all the characters and I thought Disney Land is such a dreamland.
Well, it is still, but now I see Disney Land with a deferent perspective.
Like I realized there were quite old people in the parade, or I was thinking how much they would get paid to work there.
Those are something I never thought when I was little.
This is THE place I want to take my future kids, but maybe not only for me anymore.
Look how much this little kid got excited to see the parade!
I knew it was not appropriate to take picture of unknown kids, but he was too cute, and I had to take…

At the Disney Land, we were there till it closed.
We happened to see fireworks at the Cinderella castle.
It was the greatest fireworks I have ever seen.
Somehow I can’t help crying whenever I see the great firework.
I was so moved!
Well, I have to admit that I enjoyed this great holiday I had during my business trip.