the loulogue

Bye Vegas

2011-12-24T14:59:00.000-08:00

Today we're going home, just in time for Christmas. One last thing Yasu wanted to do before leaving Sin City was have coffee at Mon Ami Gabi, the sidewalk cafe at the Paris casino. We'd walked past it many times and he was always a little jealous of the patrons, but thought it would be too expensive for us to enjoy it.

But after a facebook recommendation from one of his friends last night, he'd made up his mind, he wanted to try that place anyway! So this morning after checking out at the Imperial, and about an hour before the airport shuttle would pick us up, we hurried down the Strip to the Paris for some brunch at this cafe.

Luckily the wait for the outside patio wasn't too long, and soon we found ourselves with coffee, some delicious and complimentary French bread, and brunch right on the Strip in the warm Vegas sun. It really felt like being back in Europe, which is exactly why it was so attractive to Yasu. It was a great way to end our trip, complete with one last Bellagio Fountains show which we enjoyed from our table.

Now, we're at the Las Vegas airport where they have some pretty neat wall art of famous cities. That's Yasu hopping on a cable car on his way back to San Francisco from Las Vegas.

Our improvised and unplanned trip to Las Vegas was epic. We have lots of memories, a bunch of iPhone pictures (I didn't use my Canon at all), a vicious cold (thanks to our Eiffel Tower Ride), and even a DVD with my Vegas performance to bring back. And even though this was my fifth trip (and Yasu's second), I think we'll be back, it's just too much fun!

Gambling and Cirque du Soleil

2011-12-23T23:59:00.000-08:00

It's our last full day in Vegas, so we decided to gamble a bit, you know to make our Vegas experience complete. Honestly we were doing it to kill some time before the Cirque du Soleil show and to get some free drinks, which we heard you get when you're gambling.

We're rather risk averse so we sought out machine that let you gamble one cent at the time and we only used one machine between the two of us. The gambling itself doesn't require any skill, you just push the button over and over, and whether you understand the rules or not, you either win or lose.

We told ourselves we wouldn't spend more than $5 each on the slots, but we didn't even need that much. The machines kept making us win our points back, and by the end of the night only spent $3.90 on almost 4 hours of gambling.

That was a fun way to kill time and an easy way to get free drinks. You can get whatever you want, and we got a lot, my favorite was probably the Baileys with hot coffee and whipped cream (see picture). I got myself another one just before we left for Cirque du Soleil, saving me a lot of money because their concession stand was pricey!

Zumanity is advertised as "The Sensual Side of Cirque du Soleil", so that was promising. Before the show we entertained ourselves looking through peepholes in the soft walls in the red hallways, and saw some things not meant for young eyes... Let's say Yasu enjoyed himself!

Our seats were in the third row from the stage, which meant we were close enough to be included in the cabaret part of the show. For the second time, I found myself leaving my audience seat and in a Vegas spotlight with all eyes on me. It was another interesting experience and again Yasu found himself being loudly congratulated by the show host for being with me. It's always good to remind him!

Like the poster says the show was sexy, fun, and acrobatic. The acrobatics were breathtaking, the contortionist was unbelievable, the cabaret was really funny and the show was really not suitable for children! This really makes me want to go see more Cirque du Soleil shows! Maybe for our tenth wedding anniversary, like we originally planned?

Downtown Vegas & Hypnosis videos

2011-12-22T23:59:00.000-08:00

When tourists talk about Las Vegas they're often referring to the Las Vegas Strip with all its huge themed casinos and hotels. This didn't use to be the center of attention though, the original gambling district was Downtown Las Vegas. I've been here before and I'm not a huge fan, but Yasu has never been here before so we made sure to visit this area today.

It's kind of sad compared to the Strip, it's obvious the casinos have a hard time attracting tourists and gamblers, and it has a rather dead feel to it. Also the casinos seem more cramped and the much lower ceilings keep all the smoke at face level which made my eyes teary the entire time.

The good thing about downtown Vegas is that everything is cheaper (in an effort to attract people). I remember during my first trip to Vegas in 2004, things were cheap everywhere, even on the Strip, especially food (like awesome buffets for under $10). That has changed in recent years but not downtown, not really.

So even though we didn't enjoy downtown enough to stick around for the Fremont Street Experience(which is nice but not great) in the evening, we did have a great and rather cheap Hawaiian lunch (including crab legs!) at the Plaza Hotel.

After lunch we quickly took a bus back to the Strip, where things are a little more spectacular, which is what you want during a vacation in Las Vegas.

We ended our day with another Hypnosis show! This time I stayed in my seat to enjoy the show as an audience member and it was another ridiculously funny show. Marc Savard had unknowingly hypnotized both a mother and daughter tonight and when the mother tried to flirt with him (because that's what he had hypnotized her to do) the daughter got all upset!

And here's one more clip, this is of the show we went to with the Dutchies in June. Marc Savard had hypnotized the people on stage to believe that someone's belt was a dangerous snake. The result was hysterically funny!

Mesmerized

2011-12-21T23:59:00.000-08:00

Why did we come to Vegas again? That's right to use those free hypnosis show tickets we got in June. When were road tripping with the Dutchies we spent a little time in Vegas and Yasu, who's studying hypnotherapy, really wanted to see a hypnosis show. So we did. While at breakfast, I scored some hypnosis show tickets on my iPhone for all of us for later that night. The show was awesome, and even sceptical Guido could see how well hypnosis works and how hilarious it can be.

We had a great night and my only regret was not volunteering for the show, because I was torn between participating and finally experiencing what it's like to be hypnotized and laughing till I cried in the audience. I didn't know that participants get free tickets to see the show again and that they sell DVDs of the show so that you can enjoy your own hypnotized performance.

So when Yasu bought a hypnosis program after the show and also got free tickets for a future show, I promised myself that I would volunteer the next time. And tonight I kept my promise to myself and volunteered without hesitation and to Yasu's delight became one of the stars of the Marc Savard Comedy Hypnosis Show!

We didn't take any pictures during the show but Marc Savard's assistant did take this picture! We are all hypnotized to believe that we have 'wrong face disease' when the hypnotist said "smile" and then we all produced the ugliest face we could while posing for the picture.

Of course, I did a lot more embarrassing things while under hypnosis than make an ugly face. I convincingly played air-violin in an orchestra, vigorously played air-guitar in a heavy metal band (even backwards and with my ass), got really hot and really cold (had to hug the guy next to me to keep warm), was a Riverdancer, posed for a sexy photo shoot, was hopelessly attracted to the hypnotist whenever he held my hand, was a participant in a special lollipop sucking contest and ran screaming from a snake that was really a belt. Among other things :)!

After the show we got to take pictures with Marc Savard (check out that 'lollipop') and when he held my hand again, I was still happily mesmerized by him. He also signed my DVD of the show. I can't wait to see the DVD when we get home. And I don't mind sharing the experience with friends and family, as 300 strangers already saw me 'perform' on stage, and it was so much fun. But I may change my mind when I actually see it, hehe!

I'd seen a few other hypnosis shows before the Marc Savard show, and during one of those shows my boyfriend at the time got hypnotized into the star of the show. He did some amazing things while under hypnosis, that show was a lot of fun for me.

The whole process intrigued me and after the show I asked him how or why he did the things he did on stage, his only explanation was "Because the hypnotist told me so." That answer was really unsatisfactory to me and ever since I have wanted to feel what it was like to be hypnotized. Well, it was very different from what I expected, and now I have to give the same answer to that question.

You do the things you do on stage and act out all the scenarios he's giving you, just because the hypnotist tells you to and because somehow that seems to be the right thing to do. It doesn't seem funny or embarrassing when you do it, because the hypnosis takes your inhibitions away. It doesn't feel like you're in some zombie trance, it feels like you are super aware and really concentrated.

Earlier, I even wondered whether I had faked it, because I was so conscious of my actions on stage. But as a rather shy, self-conscious, and self-censoring person (I'm even embarrassed to dance in front of friends) I would never have done all the crazy things on stage in the spotlight in front of all those strangers without feeling embarrassed and at least laughing at myself.

I did some online research and found out that's exactly what hypnosis is supposed to feel like. Everything I experienced is typical of hypnosis. It's not some mysterious trance in which you have no idea what you are doing. It's a relaxed feeling of super concentration where you let yourself be guided by the hypnotist without hesitation or regret. I felt great during and now after the show. It is such an awesome, interesting, fun and rewarding experience! This is going to be a great memory for a lifetime.

Go to this show and volunteer, you will not regret it! It's at the V Theater inside the Miracle Mile Shopping area of the Planet Hollywood. I got free tickets for another show when I was on stage so we're going again tomorrow and I'm sure it will be just as much fun as in June, when I laughed and cried till it hurt.

Unfortunately, Yasu doesn't want to volunteer tomorrow, but I'm sure we'll find ourselves at another Marc Savard show on a future Vegas trip and maybe by then I will have convinced him to volunteer. If not, I'll just volunteer again!

Christmassy Vegas

2011-12-21T20:59:00.000-08:00

Yasu is a big baseball freak, this is no secret. When he was young he worked very hard to become a professional baseball player, but his slipped disc forced him to give up on his dream shortly before he went to university. He never gave up on his love for baseball though, so he was very excited to see Pete Rose sitting at a signing table somewhere in Vegas today.

At first he was a bit shy to go and talk to the former Major League Baseball player, but with a little help from the store manager who introduced Yasu to Pete Rose, he got to have a little chat and even a handshake from this legendary player. This made Yasu a very happy man!

It's almost Christmas and as expected Vegas decorated for the occasion. And I love it!

The Bellagio Conservatory has the best Christmas display with its penguins and huge polar bears made from flowers. This place has really put me into the Christmas spirit!

The Bellagio is famous for its fountains, but they don't just have them outside, they have a bunch in the Conservatory too. Some people weren't convinced it was actually water and had to touch the water stream to believe it. What they didn't realize that this made the people behind them, also under the same arch of water, yell out because they got sprayed! That was funny to observe and too much fun for Yasu not to try. But he was nice enough to make sure there was no one behind him to get wet.

Our hotel gave us a coupon for a 2-for-1 deal on the Eiffel Tower Ride at the Paris Casino. So without really knowing what it was about we gave it a shot and it was a good thing we did, because the view from the fake Eiffel Tower's observatory of the Vegas Strip and the rest of the city is breathtaking. But the ride up in a glass elevator is a bit too exciting for me, it doesn't matter how often I've practised in Japan, it's still scary.

It is December and even though it's pretty warm in the sun during the day, when it's dark it's very cold here in Vegas, especially on top of the Eiffel Tower. Still we stayed up there for at least 45 minutes because we wanted to see the Bellagio Fountains dance from above, and we had to wait 30 minutes for the show to start. It was beautiful, but I have may have caught my first cold of the season, let's hope not.

Second anniversary

2011-12-21T11:59:00.000-08:00

Today two years ago we got married in the most unceremonious way in an Osakan city hall in Japan. My mother send us a sweet card with hand sewn felt hearts to congratulate us with our third anniversary, hmm her time moves a lot quicker than ours does!

I feel like our two years of marriage flew by, it's still weird to refer to Yasu as my husband in my native language. I don't speak enough Dutch these days to get used it, but I have gotten used to doing it in English, so that's a good sign! Whatever I call him in whatever language, it doesn't matter, I'm just glad to be with him and to share my life with Yasu every single day.

It's amazing we ever found each other, any of so many decisions we made in our lives made differently would have led to us never meeting. And when we did meet, neither of us was impressed by the other... But love grew after that one day at Starbucks in 2004 and survived years of a very-very-long-distance relationship and much more complicated challenges.

Two years ago, we chose to live our lives for ourselves and committed to each other in secret. We became husband and wife and it was the best decision we ever made. Sure we're not a conventional couple, but what's good about being ordinary anyway? We're a pair of colorful oddballs, who have a lot of fun together, much like these amazing Vegas elephants!

Vegas sightseeing

2011-12-20T23:59:00.000-08:00

We don't gamble, but we love Vegas! There's just so much to see and do besides gambling, it's like a theme park for adults with all its themed casinos and many free attractions. Today we just hung out on the Strip, checking out several casinos, walking in the warm winter sun and enjoying the sights. What a great way to spend a day, no plan and no obligations, just doing whatever we felt like.

We had lunch at the New York, New York where we found a flyer advertizing a Cirque du Soleil show called Zumanity and offering two tickets for $100. We had just decided a few days earlier that we wanted to see a Cirque du Soleil show, someday when we could afford it, like for our tenth wedding anniversary. But this offer was good enough to pay a visit to the Zumanity box office today.

It turned out that the flyers were old and that they should have been taken away, because holiday prices were in effect for the show now, but the manager let us buy tickets for that price anyway! Lucky us! Cirque du Soleil for our wedding anniversary, eight years earlier than planned, nice.

The MGM Grand Casino is famous because of its lions. Not just the big fake golden one outside but the real ones inside as well. I've been to this casino during all my other trips to Vegas, but I never managed to see the real lions. So this time I made sure to visit them, and we got to 'meet' them up close through the window of the gift shop next to the lion habitat. They were beautiful.

We were amazed at the decor at Caesar's Palace. It makes you wonder how many sculptures one place can hold, they must have the largest collection of statues in the whole state of Nevada. It made for some lengthy sightseeing.

Besides seeing other people squander money on the hundreds of gambling tables and slot machines, we enjoyed the beautiful decor of European themed casinos, like the Paris, the Venetian with its canals and the beautifully dancing Bellagio Fountains.

Another recurring theme on the Vegas Strip is alcohol. This city sure loves to party. It took me a while to get used to not being allowed to drink alcohol outside in the US, but in this city we can, which kinds of feels weird now. And everywhere they sell tools to make drinking on the move easier.

For example, huge plastic containers with straps large enough to carry it on your shoulder like a handbag. The long straw makes walking while drinking easy. They also sell all kinds of alcohol in large quantities to fill those containers, or you can just have it filled at one of the many frozen margarita vendors. And then there are all kinds of bottle openers in the form of key chains, just to make your drinking life easier.

Vegas, baby!

2011-12-20T01:35:00.000-08:00

When the Dutchies were here in June, we went to a hilarious hypnosis show in Vegas and we ended up with free tickets for another time. We didn't really want to drive all the way back to Vegas to use the tickets, but we couldn't find anyone else who was going there before the tickets expired. So I decided to check how much it would cost to fly to Vegas.

I didn't really expect to find something affordable, since we're living on a student budget. But one quick search on Expedia later we were booking a trip to Vegas for the week of our second wedding anniversary! Five nights in Vegas and a return flight from San Francisco airport was only $151 each (including all taxes and fees)! A steal.

That's how we ended up at Las Vegas airport tonight! And of course the first thing we saw was a bunch of slot machines, inviting us to gamble fresh off the plane. Hmm, no thanks...

A shuttle bus took us to the Imperial Palace in the middle of the Las Vegas strip! We love the location because we're going to have to walk everywhere. The theme of the hotel is Japan, so we feel right at home. The casino itself is a bit outdated, but the hotel part is great! The rooms are large, clean and comfortable, and we have a great view from our balcony.

Yay, we're in Vegas again! It's my fifth time and Yasu's second time, for some reason this place never gets boring.

Celebrating Yasu's 28th birthday

2011-12-13T22:31:00.000-08:00

He will forever be younger than me, but at least it's good to know that he's getting close to thirty as well. He turned 28 on Friday! Since we're living on a student's budget we're not doing birthday gifts or anniversary gifts these days, so my only gift to him was a big birthday kiss and a gathering of friends.

We went to Japantown for some shabu shabu and to catch up with some of our favorite people! Afterwards we went for some drink at a bar called Double Dutch, which was fun, but there was nothing Dutch about it ;).

At his practicum place people get to do whatever they want for their birthdays and Yasu had an interesting idea. He wanted to play air samurai. His practicum buddies were all supposed to attack him, he would slash them with his fictional samurai sword, and the others would die spectacularly. It went splendidly, and he'll forever have this hilarious video to relive it:

My mom sent us a huge box with Yasu's birthday presents and also some early Christmas presents for the both of us. Which made us both happy!

She got the birthday boy a lanyard for his keys in orange (the Dutch national color and therefore Yasu's favorite) with "Yasu's keys" written on it in Dutch. She also found him a nice tshirt with a Dutch bicycle traffic sign (Yasu really enjoyed biking around in the Netherlands) and some upside down Japanese characters. And of course his favorite snack: Knoppers.

We would have waited to open the Christmas presents until the 25th, but she was too anxious to see how we like our gifts. She ordered us some customized iPhone covers, an eleventh monkey one for me and Yasu's had a picture of me on it! She also got us the most adorable Dutch coffee cups we've ever seen, some Dutch coffee to go in it, much needed coasters, and Dutch peperkoek for me!

Katherine and Kosuke took us to their favorite sushi place tonight and treated us to the best sushi we've ever had in San Francisco.

Unfortunately, the restaurant is very much out of our normal way, but it's surely is worth a long trip on the Muni bus. This was the first time I ate sushi in America and felt like it was real authentic Japanese sushi! The sushi was so good and we were so busy eating that I totally forgot to take pictures of the food, oh well, we'll just have to go back again.

Lafayetting

2011-12-03T17:59:00.000-08:00

Today we went to Lafayette, a small town in the East Bay. Ever since we've visited a friend there last month, I've been obsessed. It's such a beautiful and peaceful place and it smells so nice, like trees, none of those dirty city smells they have in San Francisco. I guess I'm really getting old, when I dream about living in the suburbs instead of in a big city.

I've been checking Craigs List a lot, a lot! I've found some nice places in Lafayette, which we've been checking out today, but we've decided we can't really afford an increase in monthly expenses... Oh well, it was fun to imagine ourselves living in those wonderful apartments, especially the ones that have laundry and a swimming pool on site...

They also have a lot of nice shopping in Lafayette, so that's how we tried to distract ourselves from the fact that we would not be moving here anytime soon. My favorite shop was the party shop, they had loads of fun things for, you guessed it, when you want to throw a party! Like plastic tableware in every imaginable color, thousands of balloons, and even party flags from our homecountries! There were a whole bunch of Dutch flags left, guess there aren't a lot of people celebrating the Netherlands here.

And if your party requires any kind of facial wear, this was the place to get it as well. We liked the glasses:

We also found a thrift store in Lafayette, and since I've read so much about thrifting on so many blogs, I wanted to see what a thrift store was like and see if I could find us a little treasure. We came out with this little cabinet, which I intend to use as a display item in a future craft fair:

Playing shop

2011-12-02T20:59:00.000-08:00

Less than two weeks ago, Yasu told me he thought it would be a good idea for me to participate in the Holiday Craft Fair at his school. I wasn't so sure because I'd never done something like that before, so I was totally unprepared for an event like that and eleven days did not seem enough time to get ready. But the idea excited me too much not to try it!

Yasu signed me up, and I got to work. Since the craft fair was to be held on his school's campus I knew most of my potential customers would be grad students on a budget, so I wanted to be able to offer them something tiny and affordable. So I minimzed my owl design and this was the result:

The point of participating in the craft fair was to get my product and brand name out there as much as I could, so I wanted to make as many tiny owls as possible. I made even more than fit in this collage below and I was glad I did, because these babies were popular, I sold almost all of them. The four that didn't sell missed out on new homes because they were hiding under one of my display baskets during the fair. Oops! It's okay, they are for sale in my online shop now.

I couldn't just spend my time on sewing new products, I had to think about my the look of my booth as well. I spend a whole day going back an forth between Target, Michaels and the Dollar Tree for items I could use in my table display and for my packaging.

The best thing I did was buy these Christmas trees at Target, because they added eyecatching height to my display. I just added some ornament hooks to be able to hang products on the trees:

I cut up a hot pink corduroy bagpack from Japan and used my sewing machine to turn it into a money pouch fanny pack to have a convenient and safe place to keep my change during the fair. It was the first time I tried something that fancy, and I was quite pleased with the result.

As a customer I'm always uncomfortable asking people for prices, because I don't want to dissapoint them by not buying things when I can't afford it. So I always end up not asking and therefore not buying. I wanted to avoid this at my own booth by making sure everything was clearly priced, so loads of price tags needed to be written!

A great thing about selling things online is that everything stays in clean and in great shape. I didn't like the idea of shoppers' dirty fingers or perhaps children dropping products on the dirty floor. I needed to make sure all creatures were still in great shape after the fair, to be able to welcome them back to the online shop, so I decided to package every single item in a cellophane bag.

To brand each package and look it more professional I wanted good bagtoppers. Just printing my logo in color didn't look very good, so I redid my logo in black and white and it looked so much better printed on colored paper:

I printed so many bagtoppers in different sizes and spend a lot of time cutting them out, punching holes in them (for the price tags to be attached to) and finally stapling them to the cellophane bags. It took a few days but it was well worth it.

I bought a bunch of baskets at the dollar store, but my favorite baskets were the ones I already had at home. All those baskets, except the large brown one, are actually from the Netherlands and were valued enough to move with me to Japan and then here to the States. They're quite well-traveled!

I practiced my display on a small table because organizers weren't sure how large a table I would get at the craft fair:

The last thing I prepared for the craft fair was this plastic table topper to make sure people could find me online for future reference:

Then yesterday, all that stuff had to get from our place to the craft fair. We don't have a car so all of this came with us on public transportation, thankfully most of it was quite light:

I was happy to get a large table to myself, especially since I brought a rather large vinyl banner to decorate my booth. I spread out my display, added some more baskets and this is what it looked like:

It was really fun to play shop like this, and to actually see and hear people's reactions to my creatures!

It was also fun to do this at Yasu's school, because most of our friends showed up and we spent a lot of time chatting and just hanging out, while at the same time making some money.

I can't believe how much I had doing this craft fair! I was so happy there was a second day, and this is what my booth looked like today:

This was so much fun! I'm glad Yasu convinced me to do this, can't wait to do this all again!

Lassen Volcanic National Park

2011-06-04T23:30:00.000-07:00

We woke up early this morning to drive to Lassen Volcanic National Park in the north of California. And during the drive up to the National Park we encountered something completely unexpected: snow!

Wait, what month is it? Isn't it June? Aren't we in California? Well, yes and yes... What's going on? We prepared for a sunny vacation, so we brought all the wrong clothes. Well, at least we still have each other to keep us warm.

When I was researching Lassen Volcanic National Park, I had seen that most roads close seasonally because of the snow. But I had assured myself that we didn't need to worry about that, because we would be there in early summer and the snow would be long gone. Apparently, I was very wrong.

We were able to enter the park, but we couldn't get very far. We did make it to a parking lot with a little toilet house, covered in layers of snow. Of course, there was no plumbing, so any 'donation' you made, went straight into a very deep (and thanks to the cold not smelly) hole. This system was too scary for my mom, she kept imaging creepy crawlers that were about to attack her from the depth, so she didn't make a donation.

We may not have any nice and warm winter clothes with us, but we sure do have our rain coats (souvenirs from an extremely rainy San Francisco). And they certainly came in handy today, to fight the drizzle but also the cold.

This amazing amount of snow kind of ruined our volcanic plans, but feeling like we had time traveled to December was quite interesting indeed. It was surreal and a lot of fun.

I absolutely love snow and winter, but the last time I've seen snow was three years ago in Inuyama, Japan. I've been wishing for snow for three winters, two in Osaka and one in San Francisco... I never even came close. But now that it's almost summer, I finally get my snow! I was so happy I couldn't stop taking pictures! So here are some more from my iPhone:

Tomorrow, we're going to try to enter the park from the other side and see if we can spot a volcano or two, or perhaps some more snow?!

Hotwire, blegh

2011-06-03T23:17:00.000-07:00

We were supposed to spend the night at a 3 star hotel, booked on Hotwire. Hotwire promises bargain prices and guaranteed quality, they inform us that they have agents that visit hotels to check for quality and also use customer reviews to maintain quality hotels in their database. The catch is that you don't find out the hotel name until after you've paid. Oh, and it's non-refundable. But if you can book it cheaper anywhere else, Hotwire promises to pay you back the difference.

I had seen Hotwire prices pop up on other travel and hotel websites and commercials, so I wanted to give it a try. So I booked our first hotel of the trip through them. I chose a 3-hotel, recommended by about 90% of the previous Hotwire customers.

After I paid I got the hotel name, the Cordova Inn, I checked the hotel out online and obviously was not happy about the reviews, but hoped against hope that it was still somehow that quality 3-star hotel I was promised.

But at least, we got the rooms at a low Hotwire rate, right? Wrong. Booking it on the hotel's own website would have been $3 cheaper. I contacted Hotwire to get them pay back the difference, as they promised, but was told I had to request that in writing and decided it was too cumbersome for that little money, when I still had so much more trip planning to do. I already deeply regretted using Hotwire just this once! Obviously, all the other hotels were not booked there.

And tonight we arrived at the hotel... Oh my... 3 stars? Is it possible to have negative stars? It was a filthy place that homeless people use to rent rooms on a weekly basis. And to make things worse (or better depending on how you think about it) our reserved and prepaid rooms were not available.

Hotwire had been notified about this in the morning and should have arranged new accomodations in the area and contacted us about this all as early as possible. It was past 7 pm and Hotwire had not contacted me at all! What the...

So I called them myself and of course they denied everything. Here we were, with 3 people dependent on my trip planning, on the very first day and we had no place to stay even though we'd already paid for it. I was upset, more than upset. I got angry on the phone, so angry it scared my mom. I did not want anything to do with them anymore, I wanted the money back, now! And I would find a new and better hotel for the night by myself. Finally, after some verbal battling with the combative Hotwire agent, I got our money back.

Conclusion: Hotwire sucks and I will never ever be tempted to use it again. I don't like being negative on my blog, but I hope some of you who read this will learn from my mistake and stay away from Hotwire.

After this debacle we parked ourselves at Applebee's for some calming drinks and delicious food, and while we waited for our food I used my iPhone to get us a better and cheaper hotel for the night.

Wow, what a way to start our road trip. But no worries, like I said, I only used crummy Hotwire this once, so we're good the rest of the trip. Goodnight!

The Jelly Belly Factory

2011-06-03T16:58:00.000-07:00

This little pitstop was originally not part of our roadtrip, but we found a very enticing flyer about this Jelly Belly factory when we were picking up our car at Hertz a few days ago. They promised a free factory tour and free jelly beans, and it was on our way, so why not!?

The tour was really fun and we got to see a lot of fun jelly-bean-making-machines, but unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures during the tour itself. But we could take as much pictures as we wanted in the Jelly Belly shop. Also, we got to wear awesome hats, we could sample all flavors of Jelly Beans for free at the sample bar, and as promised we got a free bag of Jelly Beans after the tour.

Of course, that wasn't enough for us, we wanted to buy some more Jelly Beans for ourselves and for people in the Netherlands, Yasu bought some chocolate popcorn in their chocolate shop, and we even found huge bean lollipops in Jelly Belly flavors.

Who doesn't love Jelly Belly? It may be the only American candy I really like, all the others are too sweet for me. And when you have a variety of beans it's fun to guess flavors. There are so many flavors to choose from and the flavors come so close to the real thing. Even the group of disgusting flavors, including Baby Wipes, Barf and Boogers (I wonder if these were inspired by Harry Potter's Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans) came close to reality. I only tried Toothpaste, because I'm a wimp, but Yasu tried Barf and he said it was utterly repulsive...

Even though we're not little kids, we felt like little kids in a candy store, actually being in a candy store. Loved it!

A wine education in Napa Valley

2011-06-03T13:59:00.000-07:00

Just about an hour north from San Francisco (by car that is) lies Napa Valley, and its wine country was first on our road trip agenda this morning. Our destination was the beautiful Robert Mondavi Winery for two very interesting tours.

First, we had a Wine Tasting Basics class at 10:00! A bit early, but it was the only time they offered this and we wanted to learn how to read wine labels, how to smell, taste, and describe wine, and to know why wine is swirled. We were lucky we were the only ones to sign up for the class, so it was a private session!

He taught us how, when and why smell wine, he told us how to judge a wine's age from it's color, and he taught us how to taste wine. We learned to use a kind of air sucking technique, with wine in your mouth, that makes the wine dance on your tongue and brings out so many more of the flavors in the wine. The result always surprised me, and even though you may look and sound weird doing this, I'm convinced this is the best way to enjoy your wine.

It was an enlightening experience. I used to believe I just liked the really sweet white wines, like Moscato, and was actually dreading tasting dry white and red wines. But I learned how to taste wine, and I really enjoyed the red wines as well. I was finally able to appreciate the fuller and more complex taste of a red wine. I've changed, I ~~think~~ know I like all wine now, even red!

This Wine Tasting Basics was so much fun, even Yasu joined in and really enjoyed himself, and he detests the taste of alcohol (any and all). I really recommend this tour to all wine novices, like us. I learned so much and it's a great way to start a day of tasting wines in Napa, which is probably why they offer this so early.

It's amazing how tipsy you can get after just a few sips that early in the morning, but minutes after our tasting class ended we were scheduled to join a Signature Tour and Tasting (yes another tasting), so there was no time to do something about the tipsiness.

This tour was an in depth winery tour with a very knowledgeable tour guide all over the winery grounds. The tour started with some history about Robert Mondavi and his winery, which sounded quite intriguing, but I had a hard time focusing after my morning wine sipping session. I was very happy to go outside for some fresh air and to visit the baby grapes in the breathtaking vineyard.

This tour was very well organized and we learned all about how these baby grapes finally end up as a bottle of wine. And I was happy to learn that nobody's feet were a part of the grape squashing process. Because it's June, they're not actually making wine right now, they just have uncountable barrels of red and white wine aging in the cellars.

This tour included another educational tasting of wines... yay! This gave us another chance to practice our new skills. And they even gave us a little piece of pizza, to be able to taste how much better red wine is with food, because it gives the tannin something else than the inside of your mouth to grab on to.

By the end of the morning I had tasted seven different Mondavi wines (three on the left in the tasting class, and the four on the right after the winery tour). They were all really good, but my favorite red wine will be Cabernet Sauvignon, and even though I feel I can drink any white wine, Moscato will always be my number one!

After the last tasting, we tried taking some more pictures on the beautiful grounds, but Yasu not being used to alcohol, especially not seven different kinds that early in the day, turned into a Dutchie shrinking monster. So we decided it better not to go to other Napa wineries anymore...

Instead we thought it better to get some food into our bodies, and a lot of it, so we went to Black Bear Diner, for a truly awesome lunch with great service.

After a mind-clearing lunch we feel we're up to continue our road trip! Next stop, the Jelly Bean Factory.

San Francisco on wheels

2011-06-02T21:59:00.000-07:00

Sightseeing by car is a completely different story than sightseeing on foot and by public transportation. A car gives you the freedom and flexibility to go wherever you want whenever you want, and you get to discover new places you would have otherwise never encountered or thought of seeking out. And of course, this way of traveling is much nicer on your feet.

We had planned to hike the Golden Gate Bridge the day before, but the weather put a stop to that. So to make up for that we started our day on the other side of the bridge in Horseshoe Bay, where we had a little photo shoot with the bridge. It's a very beautiful area across the bridge in Marin County, and it's hard to believe it's so close to the city.

After we crossed the bridge by car and paid the high toll, we made our way to Japantown for a yakiniku (grilled meat) lunch at Osakaya. Ever since Yasu and I first had that lunch last year and posted a picture on facebook, my mom had wanted to eat that. We like Osakaya's yakiniku so much that it's somehow impossible for us to have a meal at any other restaurant in Japantown. Somehow the memory of their yakiniku keeps pulling us back into their restaurant. We even had Yasu's birthday party here and tried to convince as many people as we could to try the yakiniku. I'm happy to report that the Dutchies enjoyed it too.

After lunch, we drove to one of my favorite places from our last road trip in 2006: Twin Peaks. I hadn't been there since and I was so happy to be back. I really wanted to show Yasu the amazing view from the second-highest point in San Francisco, right in the center of the city. We were not dissapointed.

You can see far and wide from Twin Peaks and there is so much to see that it's hard to leave. Having lived here for almost a year now, I can now recognize streets and buildings. I was amazed to see how long Market Street really is and I could see all the way to the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero from there.

San Francisco is huge and there's a lot of city here, but there's also lots of nature, especially compared to big Japanese cities. And what I love most is that there are so many beaches near and in the city. Yesterday, we made a quick stop at Aquatic Park near Fisherman's Wharf. Today, we paid Ocean Beach a visit. It's a long beach (5 miles / 8 km) that stretches all along the west side of San Francisco, and it's so pleasant and peaceful there. We should come back here someday when it's hot (if that ever happens in this city).

Something else we'd done back in 2006 and wanted Yasu to experience is driving down crooked Lombard street. Many people think it's the crookedest street in the city, but that honor belongs to less well-known Vermont street. Last time I drove down Lombard Street and making the turn from Hyde into Lombard was quite scary, because I really hate steep streets. I wanted to go back but I couldn't because there was a line of cars behind me ready to follow me down that crooked and beautiful street. So I powered through and it wasn't that scary after all, because of all those turns. This time Guido drove Lombard Street and I just got to admire the pretty houses and flowers.

Our last sightseeing stop by car was Coit Tower. This was new for us Dutchies, Yasu already visited and climbed the tower last year during a school trip. We didn't climb the tower because we were running out of time, Yasu had to get back to school on time for his evening class. But we did enjoy another beautiful view from the top of the hill and I finally got to take some decent pictures of this small tower.

Then we discovered the downside of driving in San Francisco. It's when you're in a hurry to get someone to a school that's located near busy Market Street. Traffic there is just terrible especially in the late afternoon. Yasu would have been at school and back a dozen times by BART (that zooms by underground), but by car... To make a long story short, Yasu was late for the first time ever. And while Yasu was being studious at school we were having dinner at IHOP.

Tomorrow we go on our first (mini) road trip, up north in California. So it's time to pack our suitcases!

Dutch tourists

2011-06-01T23:59:00.000-07:00

After lunch we had some time to kill before we could pick up our rental car, so we took a bus back to Fisherman's Wharf. It's the most touristy place in the city, which is probably why we enjoy hanging out there so much. Playing tourist, even in the city you live, gives you this perpetual feeling of vacation and who doesn't love vacation? Of course, the Dutchies are really on vacation and don't need to pretend they're tourists, they just are!

We enjoyed a little pit stop at Ghirardelli Square to get some free samples of chocolate in the Ghirardelli store. I'm not a big fan of Ghirardelli chocolate, it kind of tastes like Belgian chocolate, which is too sweet for me. But my sweet mother loves sweet Belgian chocolate and therefore also liked Ghirardelli. She's definitely taking some of their chocolate squares home with her.

We also got some real cupcakes (as opposed to my amateur cupcakes) from Kara's, because I can't let my mom leave the country without ever tasting a professional cupcake. Mine are made from mix boxes and way, way, way too sweet, Kara's cupcakes are just right. But apparently to my mom they all taste good, even mine :).

After our chocolate overdose, we resumed our touristy ways and my mom made some slightly intimidating new friends:

We already rode the famous cable car yesterday, but San Francisco has more special trains full of tourists, of course I'm talking about the F streetcars, that go all over the Embarcadero and Market. I always love taking that train (yeah I wasn't kidding when I said I love to play tourist) and of course I had to take the Dutchies on one too, especially since we still had valid Muni transfers.

This time we got to ride an Australian train with benches facing each other (like on Japanese subways) and with separate compartments, fun! We got off at the Ferry Building for one more picture with us acting as Dutch tourists, before we picked up our wheels at Hertz. Hello, Ford Escape! We're very happy to meet you :).

After fighting our way through San Francisco traffic (the only downside of driving) we picked Yasu up from school and found ourselves a Red Lobster restaurant (with the help of our trusty iPhones) which we could have never visited using public transportation. Why? Because Guido was craving crab (affordable, not the expensive ones on Fisherman Wharf) and because we really wanted exploit the fact that we had our own wheels now! The Dutchies treated us to this delicious dinner:

We have one more day of sightseeing in San Francisco (by car this time) ahead of us, before we head out on our first road trip on Friday!

Palace of Fine Arts

2011-06-01T11:59:00.000-07:00

This morning we paid Yasu's school a little visit. We had to be quick because Yasu had a very early morning class, so we totally forgot to take pictures, but the Dutchies got to see all the important spots in the school, including the cubicle where he works part time.

While we were sneaking through the school, the skies outside burst open like never before. Sadly, that rainstorm put an end to our plan to hike across the Golden Gate Bridge and back, but we quikcly came up with a new plan. And so we hopped on a bus to the Palace of Fine Arts.

We didn't learn much about the history of this beautiful building, but we sure did enjoy walking in the park surrounding the Palace, taking pictures and admiring the beautiful neighborhood it's located in.

We were very happy we seemed to have left the rain downtown, and we kind of contemplated our bridge hike again. But our feet were killing us, so we quickly decided to find a place to lunch and more importantly sit down. Tonight we're going to pick up our rental car so we'll just drive across the Golden Gate Bridge again.

Walking the Wharves

2011-05-31T23:59:00.001-07:00

After walking in that dreadful rain all morning we wanted to be inside for a bit. Guido and I bought some new shoes, because our old ones had holes in the soles and our feet were soaked, and my mom bought some salt water taffy. We've never seen taffy in real life before, let alone tasted it, but all the barrels with all the pretty candy were very enticing, so a lot of taffy was bought. Then we tried some and decided we didn't like taffy much at all. So the bucket of taffy is going back to the Netherlands as one of many souvenirs.

When you're at Fishermans Wharf, clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl is kind of a must. So we headed over to Boudin's Bakery, the most famous sourdough bread bakery in town, to share some clam chowder in one of their sourdough bowls. The bread was very sour, which surprised me a bit, because I've eaten a lot of sourdough this last year, but none as sour as Boudin's. We all liked the chowder, but my mom didn't like the sour bread. The sourdough bread bowl I had last year wasn't sour at all, it just tasted like french bread. Just, so you know :).

And after lunch my mother finally got to see the sea lions at Pier 39. She had wanted to see them last time we were here, but for some reason we didn't or we forgot. And we were so close last time, we didn't even realize it. These sea lions don't do much, yet they're fascinating to watch. They sleep or rest all piled on top of each other, even though there is so much more space on the other floating docks. Others are climbing on top of the pile of sleeping sea lions trying to find themselves a spot too, and get loudly barked and sneezed at. Some more active sea lions are diving and swimming or are (play) fighting and pushing each other of the floating docks. We could have watched them forever, we might visit them again tomorrow.

The one bread bowl of soup, didn't fill up the Dutchies' stomachs completely so they bought themselves some yummy fried fish at Pier 39, while waiting for Yasu to finally join our sightseeing and rain-coat wearing party.

Next on the menu was a chocolate factory tour and tasting at TCHO. We're very happy that the tour was free, because it really wasn't worth it. We spent about an hour watching a PowerPoint presentation and trying to listen to the presenter. But it was almost impossible to understand him, because he didn't speak loud enough and when you did hear him he spoke way to monotonously and quickly. He wasn't very good at keeping his audience's attention. So we didn't really learn much, the factory itself wasn't in production that day and we were only in the factory for a few minutes, and didn't see anything too interesting. We tasted a few pieces of chocolate, but you can taste that for free in the shop too, so I wouldn't really recommend this tour, or rather presentation. We did however enjoy taking pictures with the hair nets we wore those few moments we were in the factory.

Our feet were getting pretty tired from all the walking and the Dutchies were feeling the jet lag. We were trying to find a nice place to have drink and sit, but we were walking down Market Street and nothing really suited our European desires. We finally opted for a frozen yogurt shop, because I've been wanting to try frozen yogurt for a very long time and because the Dutchies were really fed up with walking. I actually really liked the frozen yogurt's tartness, such a refreshing change from all the overly sweet ice cream they have here in the States.

After our little frozen yogurt dessert came dinner, a little backwards I know, but it's vacation so anything goes. We took the Dutchies to our favorite Japanese restaurant, Tokyo Express on Fourth and Mission. The food is very authentic, except for the American sushi rolls of course, and not too expensive. And they serve mugicha (barley tea)! Something I can't get enough of, and it's free!

Wow, day one of sightseeing is over, and our feet are killing us already! So naturally we're very happy about picking up a rental car tomorrow evening, but first we'll have to endure one more day of sightseeing on foot.

San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park

2011-05-31T11:59:00.000-07:00

We're planning on visiting several National Park during our upcoming road trip, so we purchased ourselves another National Parks Pass, like last time. With that pass four people can enter all National Parks without paying the per person or per vehicle entrance fee. And there happens to be a small National Park in San Francisco, right where the cable car dropped us of. Great opportunity to use our pass for the first time. With out pass we got to board all the historic vessels of the fleet at the Maritime National Historic Park.

It had started to rain, hard. But we were not going to let the rain stop our sightseeing, so we bought ourselves some nice raincoats just before all the boat fun. Climbing on and off board of historic ships may not sound too exciting, but it's actually pretty interesting to see what those sea monsters look like on the inside and to imagine people working and living there at some time in the past. I'm glad I never had to work on a ship, but that doesn't mean I don't like to play pretend.

I think my mother would have been a good seaman, or rather seawoman, because she really enjoyed playing with the ropes and kept wanting to climb to the crow's nest.

I think I might have been good at being seasick, because the boat's movements kept making me nauseous and light-headed, even though it was docked. Also hanging of the sides probably didn't help much.

Meanwhile Guido was practising his creep-in-the-window act in the ship's tiny port hole windows. He's definitely improving.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to inspect all the vessels on display at the Historical Park, because we have so many other things planned for today. Yasu is still in class, so he missed all this, I'm going to have to take him here someday soon as well.

Riding the cable car

2011-05-31T09:59:00.000-07:00

The San Francisco cable car system is the world's last permanently operational manually operated cable car system. The cars are pulled along by cables embedded in the street, and they are a famous icon of San Francisco. And we totally forgot to ride them the last time we were all in San Francisco.

So this was first on our list on our first day of sightseeing in San Francisco. It's pretty expensive to ride the cable car, $5 one-way, so we chose to ride the longest route, the Powell-Hyde line, which took us all the way to Fishermans Wharf. Obviously, this line is very popular and there are always very long lines at the turnaround points.

One way to avoid the lines is to board one stop away from the turnaround, like I did with Yasu, but then all the good seats (the outside benches and standee spots) are taken and you get stuck in the crowd inside the little room on the back of the car. The other way to avoid lines is to come really early or really late. Seeing as the Dutchies are still jetlagged, making getting up really early easy, and Yasu had his first class of the semester in the early morning today, we all decided to get up before seven and head downtown before eight. And it worked! There were just a few people waiting in front of us and we could have gotten on the first cable car leaving the turnaround, but it was the wrong line. But this made us first to board when the Powell-Hyde car came around! My mom took a seat on an outside bench and Guido and I took standee spots, in front of her.

It was a completely different experience from last time, it was really exciting to hang of a moving vehicle while going through the beautiful streets of San Francisco. But it's also a bit dangerous, especially when you're standing at the head of the car. The gripman commanded me to keep my eyes on the road at all times for my own safety. Just a tad of danger only adds to the fun anyway, right?

The Dutchies have arrived!

2011-05-30T23:59:00.000-07:00

I woke up very excited this morning! Because today was the day I got to pick up the Dutchies from San Francisco airport! I have been busy preparing for our road trip with the Dutchies for weeks, and I was glad the time was finally there for it all to start. In the arrivals hall at the airport they have TV screens showing people walking from luggage claim to the arrivals hall. I found myself under one of those big screens, tirelessly craning my neck to look intently at it for about an hour, when they finally popped up on the screen, the Dutchies!

After a warm hug, some welcome kisses, and a quick cry (of happiness) we took off on the BART to go home. The home they've seen through many Skype conversations and pictures on Flickr and were about to see with their own eyes for the first time. And also the home that had a large batch of fresh colorful cupcakes waiting for them to welcome them to the States.

Cupcakes wasn't the only thing I prepared for them, there was also dinner with way too much garlic (yummy but stinky) and a nice and firm airbed waiting for them on the floor.

After the Dutchies refreshed in our tiny bathroom, settled in our small apartment, we all filled our stomachs, and a quick grocery trip to the local Lucky, we turned in early for our first day of sightseeing in San Francisco tomorrow! I'm so happy they're here and that our trip can finally begin!

Guido's almost American birthday

2011-05-21T11:50:00.000-07:00

Guido is turning 46 today! Congrats Gui, hope you're having a fantastic day.

We congratulated him with this card depicting him at several restaurants in the States during our 2006 road trip. I thought it would be fitting, since he loves to eat and he'll be doing the same next week, when he arrives here with my mother for our 2011 road trip! And I'm planning on baking him that cupcake in the middle of the card as a late birthday treat!

Cooking practice

2011-05-20T19:14:00.000-07:00

When the Dutchies are here in little over a week, I want to welcome them with a nice home cooked meal. And I want to impress them with something they've never tried before. Guido is quite an adventurous eater, so I'm not worried about him, but my mom can be quite picky and strict about what kind of foods to combine in a meal. Some of the things I've cooked since we've moved to the States sound downright scary to her, and others just weird. So I kind of want her to try something scary and weird like that and I really hope she'll like it.

So I'm practicing some new things this week and I hope to find some good menu items for their first night here. Tonight, we're having Tomato Peach and Basil Salad, and Roast Beef with Slow-Cooked Tomatoes and Garlic.

The dressing for the salad was a tiny bit scary to me, but I made it just as described and it's delicious! I have no idea how the roast beef will turn out, as I've never roasted a beef before, I'm not sure I bought the right cut of meat (it's so confusing) and I'm using that roasting pan for the first time.

I kind of feel bad for Yasu, though. He's doesn't really like tomatoes and, like my mother, he doesn't think fruit should be 'cooked' with. But I'm trying to expand his culinary horizons, by just exposing him to things he thinks he doesn't like. Thankfully, he's being a good sport about it.

When I first got to Japan there were loads of things I didn't like, like miso soup, barley tea, curry rice, and more. But my taste changed over the years I was living there and I now love the things I used to hate. So that's what I hope will happen with Yasu. Besides he absolutely loves tomato salsa with his nachos, so I think him not liking tomatoes is just in his head and I'm trying to make him realize that. And I also used to think that fruit was just to be eaten as it is, but every time I eat a meal with fruit cooked into it, I love it. It gives the meal something extra and surprising.

Yasu is almost home from his seminar and then we're going to have dinner! And after that, I really have to get back to booking hotels and reserving a rental car for our road trip! So many things to do before the Dutchies get here!

Roadtrip planning

2011-05-15T20:31:00.000-07:00

In two weeks my mother and her husband will be landing at San Francisco airport! I'm really looking forward to their visit and we'll be spending most of their time here roadtripping! Yasu's busy summer semester will start right when my the Dutchies arrive, so we kind of have to plan around Yasu's new classes, as he can only miss each course once.

So we're actually doing two roadtrips, a long weekend trip and a whole week trip. I've been trying to plan a nice trip with new things to see, because us Dutchies already went on a major roadtrip through and around California in 2006, but Yasu hasn't so he's curious to see some of the same things we've already seen.

It's quite a challenge to come up with a trip that isn't an exact repeat of our last trip, has a nice variety of sightseeing and doesn't involve too much driving, and -oh yeah- we're on a budget... After four days of puzzling on Google Maps, comparing surrounding States and National Parks, and checking hotel prices I've finally come up with two routes.

First up is the long weekend. The plan is to drive up to Napa, take in a winery tour and tasting, and then drive on to Sacramento and spend the night there. The next day we'll drive up to Lassen Volcanic National Park and stay there until the next day when we slowly head back home.

Then Yasu has to attend classes for two days and after that we're on the road again. This time we drive up to Reno, spend the night there and spend the next day exploring Lake Tahoe, and hopefully do some canoeing. At the end of the day we head to a hotel in the middle of nowhere, on our way to Salt Lake City, two States over. I expect we'll arrive there in the afternoon and we'll spend 24 hours there and head for Bryce Canyon National Park in the evening.

The next day is reserved for admiring all the beauty Bryce Canyon has to offer and in the evening we'll drive to Vegas. We'll one day in Vegas, and two nights because hotels are cheap there, before a day of driving through Death Valley National Park into Sequoia National Park. On our last day we'll check out the giant Sequoia trees before driving back home.

So, what do you think?

Borders' loot

2011-03-31T23:27:00.000-07:00

I love Borders. I mean who doesn't love a huge store with thousands of books and magazines? Yasu and I can easily spend hours there, collecting books, sitting down somewhere on the floor and picking/reading our favorites.

But Borders isn't doing well and recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. To make a complicated story easy, they're broke and closing stores, not all of them, but many, and the one we frequent in San Francisco is included.

It's really sad, but it does mean a liquidation sale. Everything is on sale, even the fixtures, and this is my loot from today, everything was 50% off!

Three Jefferey Deaver (my favorite author) novels, four maps (I love maps, can't stop looking at them), three books about sewing softies (for inspiration, maybe some new sewing techniques and pattern tutorial tips) and most excitingly two web design/html books!

I've been getting more and more interested in this kind of stuff ever since I started blogging and have been trying to tweak my blogs. I really want to learn how to do more than tweak and build stuff from scratch, well I've got to begin somewhere! The Dummies version is quite old, from 2000, but has a lot of the basics, easily referenced, the Web Design Demystified is very new, from this year, looks interesting and also covers CSS.

I wish I had had more time today to also check out the cooking section, because I'd also like to learn more about cooking. But we're going to another Borders that's closing soon tomorrow, so I hope they haven't sold out of the cooking books yet.

Steep streets

2011-03-31T21:45:00.000-07:00

I know everyone knows San Francisco is hilly, I've known ever since I watched Full House as a child. Still it still impresses me when I'm walking down, literally down, a street.

It doesn't picture as spectacular as it looks in real life, you'll just have to visit me to see it for yourself! What also doesn't show well on a picture is how arduously steep these streets can be when you're walking uphill.

The best way to see how steep a street is to look at the front of a house and compare how much lower on side of the house goes than the other.

The first floor on the left turns into a basement on the right and the second floor on the left turns into the first floor on the right.

There are countless pretty street and house views in this city!

Button fun

2011-03-30T12:52:00.001-07:00

These past couple of days I've been having fun making new buttons for this blog (see right sidebar) and the eleventh monkey blog. Buttons are images that other people can share on their blog, usually in the sidebar, to link straight to blogs or websites they like and want their readers to know about.

It has taken me a while to figure it all out perfectly and delete unneeded parts of code, but I ended up with an HTML code that really works well for me. It allows me to show a message to people who hover over 'grab a button' and most importantly to adjust sizes quickly without resizing and reuploading images.

If anyone else wants to make a button and let other people share that on their blogs, but doesn't know how to code it, here you go:

Signs of spring

2011-03-28T20:09:00.000-07:00

It's been really rainy and really sunny lately, real spring weather I'd say. I love the numerous rainbows this weather is creating.

Signs of spring are sprouting everywhere. Previously bare tree branches are starting to show little green buds and cherry blossoms are popping up everywhere too.

I wasn't really expecting to witness a seasonal change here, though. Especially since the temperature surprisingly reached 27°C (81°F) a few days in early February. I just assumed the weather in this part of the world didn't follow the rules of the each season. But spring is definitely in the air!

YakiniQ

2011-03-25T23:59:00.000-07:00

Oh, how we love Korean barbeque. We loved it in Japan, we loved it most in South-Korea, and now we love it in the States. Galbi, bulgogi, kimchi and chap chae, we had all this delicious stuff and more tonight!

We had to wait for a table for a about 50 minutes, but that wasn't a problem because we had a lot of catching up to do with Bradley and Hannah anyway.

We had this all-you-can-eat do-it-yourself barbeque meal YakiniQ in Japantown, Korean barbeque is called yakiniku in Japan, and we know it wasn't the last time we dine there. We already have plans to return there with some Japanese friends and I know as soon as my mother sees this blog post, she'll be asking to go there when she and her husband visit us in two months. And that's just fine by me!

My toolkit

2011-03-16T12:14:00.000-07:00

This is my current Lateral Epicondylitis & De Quervain Syndrome toolkit. Things keep being added to it and I actually have forgotten to photograph some items, like my green latex theraband for physical therapy and Yasu's baseball for painful spine massages against the wall.

In January the doctor officially diagnosed me with Lateral Epicondylitis, more commonly known as tennis elbow and De Quervain Syndrome, or thumb tendinitis, as I like to call it. My arm and wrist had been hurting for months before I realized it was caused by my constant sewing by hand for eleventh monkey and before I finally got diagnosed.

The doctor told me there and then that the most common treatment was an injection with the steroid cortisone. But he told me that cortisone is pretty serious and you can only get it 3 times in your life in the same spot before the muscle atrophies or something scary like that, so he wanted me to try physical therapy first. I wholeheartedly agreed, because the whole injection idea had me panicked and I'm extremely scared of needles. I had also just finished taking 5 pills a day for almost 4 months for my stomach problem, and I didn't want to burden my body with more scary chemicals if it wasn't really necessary.

So I started weekly physical therapy: strengthening exercises with the theraband, ultrasound heat, painful massages, and most importantly and disappointingly a 6 week break from sewing. I got a hot and cold gel pack for my thumb/wrist and elbow. It can be made hot in the microwave for heat therapy and cold in the freezer for treating pain and swellings.

Treatments and my sewing break were improving my De Quervain's and I got this thumb splint to prevent my thumb from making certain movements while sewing that would make my De Quervain's reappear.

Even though one problem seemed to be taken care of my elbow was only getting worse and I was experiencing newly acquired nerve pains all over my right arm, and those were making life (especially sleeping) a lot less comfortable. My physical therapist was advising me to go and get a cortisone injection and combine it with more physical therapy, I still didn't really like the steroid idea so he asked me to get a second opinion from my regular physician.

The day before my appointment with the doctor I tried some light and short sewing again, using the thumb splint and being extremely careful. It went well and I was so happy to be sewing again... But during the night my elbow and arm started hurting, like it never had before. It was excruciating. Everything I did hurt, even sitting down and writing, all I could do was whine and cry.

The doctor told me to get cortisone injections, and the pain was so unbearable that I didn't even want to protest anymore. He also told me to get a tennis elbow strap to put pressure on my elbow, which helps a lot more than I thought it could.

He also prescribed me much-needed painkillers, he wanted to give me Ibuprofen, but my stomach doctor told me to never take those again (and my stomach hasn't healed completely yet), so he gave me Vicodin, a strong narcotic (which doctor's in my country aren't even allowed to prescribe) to help me survive the pain until my appointment with a hand doctor.

But the Vicodin didn't really do the trick, it just made the pain a little less and only for a short time, problem was that I could only take 4 pills a day. That night I sat in bed (because lying down was too painful) whining, crying, waiting for time to pass to be allowed to take another Vicodin and trying to catch some sleep. Yasu and I both had a terrible night of no sleep.

Waiting a week for the appointment with a hand doctor wasn't an option and my health insurance agent advised me to go to the emergency room. They gave me Percocet (even stronger than Vicodin), which made me incredibly stoned, because I'd taken a Vicodin two hours earlier (they knew), I hadn't eaten or slept and I have low blood pressure. It made the pain bearable but it also made me giggly, talkative, superbly dizzy, and cry (not sure why). It was an interesting experience, but I decided not to fill the Percocet prescription they gave me, it's too strong and scary a medicine for me. I did get the Tylenol the hand doctor told me to get for when the pain I'm trying to kill would be too weak for a Vicodin.

The hand doctor was very clear and positive, he told me I needed three cortisone injections, one below my thumb and two in my elbow. I had a huge panic attack when he made me lie down and showed me the needles. I couldn't breath and couldn't stop crying, and I wished hard that Yasu was there with me and not in class like he was at the time. The doctor suggested me to come back the next day with Yasu, but I knew I couldn't stand the anticipation which would make everything worse.

So I did what helped me in the past at the dentist, I turned on my iPod and focused on the music and sang along (very badly). And the doctor went ahead with the very painful shots which made my singing louder and more off key but a couple of minutes later he was done! And the effect was immediate! The Novocain in the shot made my arm numb and so much less painful and me happy.

He gave me a huge bag of ice to hold against the injection areas and told me to rest and start physical therapy again next week. My elbow is extremely stiff and he says I may need another injection for that in a month, I hope not. He also says that I'll be back to sewing soon... I truly hope so.

One more tool for my kit is the wrist brace the ER gave me. To make sure my arm rests well, especially at night, because I tend to cramp my hand in weird positions during the night, which makes the morning pain even worse. Sometimes I wear both braces and strap at the same time and it make my arm look like a robot arm ;).

Right now, I'm doing everything with my left hand, like eating, writing, typing, brushing teeth and hair, getting dressed, etc. It's difficult and sometimes frustrating but my right arm won't bend well and can't be used for now, so poor Yasu has to do almost everything for me. But most importantly, what I can do is sleep, with a little help from Vicodin, my strap and wrist brace. And so can Yasu :). We slept so incredibly well and long last night!!! It was like heaven.

This could have been an expensive condition, luckily we have excellent health insurance from Japan that's paying for everything. Not just the steroid injections or doctor's fees, no literally everything, even for my over-the-counter Tylenol, my braces and my bi-weekly bus trips to the physical therapist. So it's all good :).

Disco colors

2011-03-13T23:17:00.000-07:00

This is what I did this weekend with some cake mix and gel food colors:

Pretty and tasty :).

For Japan

2011-03-11T21:36:00.000-08:00

Devastation in Japan

2011-03-11T15:16:00.000-08:00

Last night before we went to bed we read about the huge 8.9 earthquake in Japan, it had just happened and the Japanese news reported two deaths. It was already bad news, but this morning we woke up to this:

Absolutely terrible. I have been watching, reading and following the news ever since I got up and I have contacted my friends in Japan to make sure they are all okay (so far so good). My heart is breaking for Japan, the images and screams in the videos make me cry. So many people have died, so many houses and businesses have been destroyed. And it's not over, Japan is still experiencing aftershocks and completely unrelated quakes even, like the 6.6 quake in Nagano a couple of hours ago. I'm worried another quake will hit Osaka soon. Let's all hope for the best, my thoughts are with all of you in Japan.

Home haircut disaster

2011-03-10T23:59:00.000-08:00

After that successful haircut I gave Yasu with the Flowbee, I got confident and impulsive. My hair was so long and it was just getting in the way of everything, so two nights ago I decided to try it on myself... Yeah, bad idea. Of course, my hair was way too long and way too soft to be cut properly with that thing. I even helped it by cutting about 15 inches off with scissors but basically it was an immensely stupid idea.

There was no fixing it, I ended up with completely uneven hair, chunks out of it in really funny places, but my hair was shorter. Obviously, I was really upset and wondering what had come over me an hour earlier, but my sweet husband told me I was still beautiful. "Thanks darling", but I already knew I was going to a professional salon the next day to fix it.

So yesterday I told the hairdresser to cut whatever he thought would look good on me. I wasn't really pleased with it though. I mean of course it was better than what I had done to it, but to me it was just so-so. I know I should have said something to the hairdresser, but for some reason I never do. Too shy, too polite, too stupid, I'm not sure, but it's a disease I've had for many years. I often end up going to another salon for a second haircut a few days later to fix this problem. Yeah, there's a reason I always let my hair grow long, I'm not good at getting my hair cut the way I like.

But this morning I got to style my hair myself and I'm happy to report that I do like it now:

I will not be going to another salon for that customary second haircut like I planned last night. I'll probably let it grow really long again before I get another haircut, but for now my hair is nice and short and no longer in the way!

Another birthday

2011-03-09T23:15:00.000-08:00

There are so many people and all of them have birthdays once a year! Today was Bradley's and we went to a sushi bar near school to celebrate that. We were really happy Bradley chose a Japanese sushi bar for the occasion, because we were in need of a fix of Japanese food!

We had some delicious sushi, tofu, salt-baked mackerel, octopus and Yasu had his much beloved katsu-don (fried pork, onion and egg over rice). Without a doubt, food is what we miss most about Japan! I also had some umeshu (plum wine) and the waitresses talked to me in Japanese and I understood them and answered them! Succes.

The food pictures were a bit dark, so when I tried taking pictures of the lovely people at the table I used flash and the pictures were too bright. Conclusion, my Hipstamatic app is not suitable for evening pictures.

Samantha (Anna Leah's roommate), Bradley, Yasu, me, Hannah & Anna Leah (Hannah's younger sister).

Flowbee

2011-03-07T11:59:00.000-08:00

Living on a student's budget one needs to be frugal. So we've purchased a Flowbee so we can cut Yasu's hair at home. One of his classmates has one and told Yasu all about it. We looked it up online and the website looked a bit suspicious, especially since all the pictures they use are from the eighties or something and that just doesn't look good anymore. But after watching some videos on Youtube of happy customers using it and the raving reviews on Amazon, we decided to go for it.

It arrived today! We were anxious to try it out but weren't sure it would work with our little and quite weak dirt devil. The manual says it needs at least an 8 amp vacuum, and ours is only 1.25 amp, but we're pretty stubborn and tried anyway, and it worked!

The dirt devil sucks the hair up into the cutting device and the attached spacers make sure all the hair gets cut at the same length. The vacuum also sucks up all the cut hair right leaving you with no mess at all! Yasu's hair is pretty thick and was pretty long when we started so it took me about an hour (guess this would have been quicker with a stonger vacuum) but I did it, I cut Yasu's hair at home and it looks good. Actually this Flowbee haircut is the best haircut he's gotten since we got to the States!

Now he can have his hair cut more frequently so it will never be that long again, which means quicker haircuts, because the long hair was the hardest to cut. And he will never be covered in hundreds of itchy hairs after a visit to the hair dresser again, and spread them all over the apartment, I really hated that, I could never understand why hair dressers here don't use some kind of special dirt devil to vacuum the customer after a haircut. And most importantly those hair dressers will never be able to give him a bad haircut again that make his head look like an upside down pyramid.

And this is what he looked like this morning with his hair all gelled up, handsome and happy!

It went so well, I'm seriously thinking of doing this to myself...

Presentation in drag

2011-02-28T15:28:00.000-08:00

Remember when Yasu and I were playing with a wig and a pair of huge glasses? Well, we got those in preparation for Yasu's presentation about psychotherapist Virginia Satir at school today. He's really excited about it because her work is one of the three fundamental models of NLP. And he wanted to make sure his presentation is fun and interesting for his classmates, so he's dressing up as Virginia Satir to teach a small part of a seminar as her.

He's probably doing the presentation right now as I'm typing this and I hope it's going well! Good luck Yasuhiro Satir!

Birthday board game fun

2011-02-25T23:59:00.000-08:00

Today Jenny turned 26 and she invited a bunch of people to her place to celebrate that with her.

She'd baked a huge chocolate cake and decorated it beautifully with delicious frosting, which we all helped her eat.

And she'd also organized some activities: board games! Yay, I love board games, especially with a large group. We played 'Cranium' and 'Apples to Apples', two games I'd never played before but they were really fun.

Yasu and I are so glad to have such a nice circle of friends here in SF. We really need to hang out with them more, lots more.

Catching up

2011-02-22T21:41:00.000-08:00

Almost 4 years ago I moved to Nagoya, Japan and was trained to be an English teacher for AEON. And one of my fellow trainees was Eric, from San Francisco. After a year in Nagoya, he moved back home and he's still here. And tonight we met him to do some catching up!

We had dinner with him in a small Vietnamese restaurant, its interior actually made me feel like we were back in Japan, in one of its many little Asian restaurants. Or maybe it was the company, one being an actual Japanese man and the other a man I've only known in Japan.

We had some tasty Vietnamese food (which surprised me because Vietnamese in Japan tastes rather bland) and they actually gave us one of those typical paper take away boxes, Yasu and I have only seen in the movies. Which we found pretty cool and picture-worthy, and I think Eric found us a little weird. He's probably right! It was really fun to see him again.

Waiting

2011-02-21T16:57:00.000-08:00

On Friday we get this note slipped under our door from the building owner. Telling us that they're coming to inspect our apartment Sunday morning between 9:30 and 10:30 with an official inspector. It doesn't say what they're coming to inspect, which made me slightly nervous so I spent Saturday cleaning the apartment, just in case.

We got up early on Sunday, to make sure we'd be up and properly dressed, the bed was made, and the dishes were done when they came to inspect. We waited... waited... waited... and waited...

It was way past 10:30, but people are always late here, so we waited some more. I didn't cook proper lunch because I didn't want to make the stove dirty (I cleaned hard on it the night before) and we thought the dreaded inspectors could show up any minute. No one came, all day.

We did hear a lot of people working in the hallways yesterday, so we assumed that whatever they came to inspect wasn't necessary anymore or whatever. We didn't call to check with the building owner, because he's a slightly intimidating ex-cop.

Then this morning at 9:35 AM, when we're walking around, just awake, half-dressed, the building owner, his wife and the inspector show up, wanting to come in!

Yasu: "We thought you were coming yesterday?"

Building Owner: "No, today! Check your letter!"

Louana (hiding half-dressed behind door): "Can we at least get dressed first?"

Building Owner Wife: "Ok, we'll check apartment 303 first."

They left and we hurriedly got dressed, made the bed, did the dishes, checked the letter... Turned out they did write Monday, but they also wrote February 20, yesterday's date. And waited, waited, waited. It's almost 5 PM, and no one has come....

Intercepted ramen

2011-02-19T20:36:00.000-08:00

Yasu received a care package from Japan today, it was supposed to filled to the rim with his favorite instant ramen. But he wasn't the first to open it, US Customs was. And they took out 15 packages of instant noodles and 3 packages of dried snacks, making the box quite empty and light.

[Care package from Japan, only half full]

We had no idea sending instant ramen would be a problem. Last year, when Yasu was in the Netherlands and I was still in Japan, I sent him a huge box full of instant ramen and other goodies and it all arrived without a problem. And the only thing the Japanese post office tells us we're not allowed to send abroad are things that contain milk.

[My care package for Yasu last year]

So it was quite disappointing to see that this time so much had been taken out and destroyed (or perhaps eaten by customs officials) including some of his favorites, but they did leave 7 instant ramen boxes for him and they make Yasu happy too!

Look-a-likes

2011-02-18T15:11:00.000-08:00

They say married people start to look like eachother the longer they are married. We've been married for a little over a year:

Seems like we're already getting there.

A day in pictures

2011-02-17T23:59:00.000-08:00

Took the Muni bus in the morning.

With my new umbrella.

Because the rain was relentless.

Went to see my physical therapist to work on my tennis elbow and thumb tendinitis.

Had to sit up (because my low blood pressure always makes me dizzy when I lie down) when he stretched my arm, hurt my elbow to loosen the tendon, treated me with ultrasound heat (machine on the left table), and when he put a huge heat pack (on the chair/bed) on my arm.

Waited in the waiting room for a letter of recommendation for a thumb brace.

Bought this thumb stabilizer at CVS.

Hung out at Starbucks with a new book by my favorite author.

Enjoyed a view of the San Francisco rain and the movie theater while talking to my little brother (in the Netherlands) on iPhone Facetime (love the free WIFI at Starbucks).

Met up with Bradley and Hannah.

And my husband.

For a huge American dinner at Denny's.

And an interesting and slightly scary movie across the street.

Had a great day.

Juan's cooking

2011-02-13T23:50:00.000-08:00

Juan, Yasu's Spanish friend from school, invited us for lunch today!

He made us creme de asparagus and a potato and codfish dish from the oven:

Much fancier than I expected when I thought about lunch, and he made it all from scratch (we actually watched him do it) and it was so good! Especially the soup, and I don't like soup, was very tasty. Thanks Juan for a delicious and fun afternoon.

Early sakura

2011-02-10T22:11:00.000-08:00

Look what I spotted today in front of my friend's house:

Sakura a.k.a. cherry blossoms! In Japan cherry blossoms are a big deal and people celebrate these cute little white flowers with festivals and picnics, usually with lots of people, lots of food and lots of alcohol. I've celebrated the sakura three different times when I lived in Japan (2008, 2009, 2010) and it was always in the first week of April. But here in warm and sunny San Francisco cherry blossom season apparently is in early February! Yasu and I want to organize a hanami (flower viewing) party under the cherry blossoms in some park, but we're not allowed to drink alcohol in public here...

Happy birthday Gy!

2011-02-09T00:00:00.000-08:00

My little brother is turning 20 today! Yeah, that's right he's more than 10 years younger than me :). Oh, how I wish I was still that young sometimes. He's just turned adult, in Japan, but he's got one more year to go in the Netherlands.

He'll always be my little brother, his nickname is actually "The Little One", but he's not so little anymore. Still, I thought I'd honor his twentieth birthday with a selfmade card with loads of pictures when he was still little. Here are two of my favorite pictures of when The Little One was actually little:

Doesn't he look adorable with his huge shovel and sitting in the kitchen sink?

Happy birthday, Gyano!

My Super Bowl commercial top 3

2011-02-07T22:39:00.000-08:00

I really enjoyed watching the Super Bowl game at a friend's house yesterday. Two weeks ago she taught me all about the rules, so this time I knew exactly what was going on, when I was paying attention that is, because we were talking way too much! Girls...

I was also very excited to see the special Super Bowl commercials. I heard they are supposed to be a big deal and I'm a big fan of funny and interesting commercials. But again, we were talking too much and the gist of most of the commercials were lost on me. So tonight I watched them all again online, yeah I'm such a commercial nerd. I was pretty impressed by most of the 66 (!) original Super Bowl commercials, and I even have a top 3!

# 3: The Pug Attack by Doritos

The running pug looks cute, but I was scared the bully was going to hurt him with his mean trick. But the pug is super powerful and puts that bully in it's place and eats his Doritos.

# 2: The Saluting Beaver by Bridgestone

Oh my, that beaver is so cute. He's cute when he's almost run over, he's cute when he salutes the driver for swerving around him, he's cute when he saves the driver's life 6 months later. But he's the cutest when he does that fist-to-chest bump!

# 1: The Darth Vader Kid by Volkswagen

I even got this commercial when I saw it live on TV, because the tiny Darth Vader was so adorable even us stopped talking to watch him in action. I love his reaction when he thinks he starts the car and how he looks back at the house to see if anybody saw him do it.

There were also numerous commercials with famous Americans in them and of those I liked this second commercial with Eminem the most (he also starred in some ice tea commercial).

I like this commercial because of the impressive shots of Detroit, the drama of the commercial and the music. Oh, and I think Eminem is cool and I love his music.

Can't wait to see next year's Super Bowl and all its commercials! What a fun American pastime.

Repeat student

2011-02-06T10:32:00.000-08:00

Look what I did, again.

Small book?

2011-02-04T21:18:00.000-08:00

Doesn't this look like a small book?

Actually the book is a normal-sized book, the letters are just huge. It doesn't look as impressive in this picture as it does in real life, so I put a regular book with regular-sized letters next to it, so you can compare:

It's a large print edition of one of Jefferey Deaver's recent books. Yasu brought me this from the library, and it surprised me, because I've never seen such a thing. But I really like it, I can read the book from across the room and I'll be turning the pages so quickly I'll probably feel like a speed reader.

I love the library here, it's totally free and they allow you take out so many books, CDs and DVDs. Now, I've got all Harry Potter books in audio version. Of course, I've read all seven books at least twice, but you can never read Harry Potter enough, right? And now I can 'read' them while I'm sewing or organizing pictures for my blog. Awesome.

Eating a lucky direction roll for Setsubun

2011-02-03T14:27:00.000-08:00

I know these pictures look weird but we're actually following a Japanese tradition here.

It's Setsubun today, which is the day before spring in Japan (even though I'm sure the weather will still be pretty wintery in Japan tomorrow) and the Japanese celebrate that in several ways. People love to throw beans (mamemaki) and to catch and eat their age in beans, a tradition I tried a few years ago in Inuyama, to scare away evil spirits. That was an interesting experience, but I much prefer the lucky direction roll (ehomaki) tradition. Basically you buy yourself an uncut sushi roll, and eat it completely in silence while looking in the lucky direction, determined by the zodiac symbol of that year.

Last year, Tomomi inspired me to try it, simply because her makizushi (sushi roll) looked so yummy. But of course, we didn't eat it in silence, we love talking too much, and we had no idea what direction to look in, but we didn't care because our sushi was delicious.

Today, I stopped by Japantown after my appointment at the physical therapist and bought an uncut sushi roll for Yasu and me to lunch on at his school. I did know the lucky direction this year (SSE) but we forgot to check our compass because we were once again busy talking. So no eating in silence and also against tradition, we were sharing the roll... Oh well, lunch was delicious again this Setsubun.

Frozen

2011-01-31T10:25:00.000-08:00

You know what tastes good? Frozen grapes! They taste like small pieces of extra fruity ice lollies or huge dippin' dots. You could also use them as extra fancy ice cubes for cocktails, but we usually just drink water at home, so we just eat them straight out of the freezer bag, as a snack.

We've also frozen other fruits. We actually started with tangerines, because Yasu wanted to relive his elementary school days when he used to get frozen mikans (Japanese for tangerine) for dessert at school. Frozen tangerines are also awesome, you just need to wait a bit before you can peel the skin off. Frozen bananas are a bit boring to eat just as they are, but they're great for smoothies. And I'm sure frozen bananas are delicious in a layer of chocolate, which used to be my favorite cinema snack in Belgium.

American Football

2011-01-23T20:28:00.000-08:00

I’ve seen lots of (partial) football games in American movies and TV shows, but I never understood was the game was about. I have asked American friends to explain it to me in the past on several occasions, but it only confused me more. But I’ve never stopped wanting to understand how that sport works.

So last night at the party when Hannah and Bradley invited us to come watch football at their place the next day, we thought that was an excellent idea! We left the party with them, got in a taxi with a stoned driver (who tried to make me throw my new sneakers out of the window - I was drunk, but not stupid) who drove way too fast to Hannah and Bradley’s place, crashed on their futon again to wake up to an American Football day.

Four teams were playing hoping to qualify for the Super Bowl (very important Football event). Hannah, the only American in the room, did her very best to explain the rules of American Football to us, while we snacked on nacho chips and pizza.

Being able to watch two games in a row and having Hannah available to ask questions to, over and over again, checking with her why things were happening the way they were, was a true learning experience! Now I know all about touchdowns, endzones, yardlines, field goal kicks and why big men rush the quarterback after someone yells “hut”.

I’m still not sure why they call it football though... The ball isn’t shaped like a ball and it spends more time in the players arms than it does near their feet. It makes more sense to call soccer football, like we do in Europe, where football players kick round balls around with their feet. But I don’t care what they call it, at least I finally understand it! Thanks Hannah, for teaching me.

Yasu's birthday dinner

2011-01-22T23:59:00.000-08:00

I know, I know, Yasu turned 27 in the beginning of December, so how come we had his birthday party at the end of January?

Well, his real birthday was right at the end of the fall semester, so most of his friends were busy writing final papers for school. Besides that a lot of people were already (on their way) home to be with their families for the holiday season.

So we planned this party at the beginning of spring semester, with everybody back in town and not busy with schoolwork, yet. And we ended up with an impressive group of 24 people! That sure made Yasu happy.

So far we’re not really impressed with American restaurants (years of eating out at restaurants in Japan have spoiled us) so we usually turn to Japantown when we want to go out for dinner in San Francisco. Osakaya is our favorite restaurant there because it serves the best yakiniku teishoku (grilled beef set meal) and everything is reasonably priced. We wanted to have the party at Osakaya, but the problem was that the restaurant is small and they don’t take reservations.

But our group would fill half of their restaurant so I convinced the hesitant manager to let me reserve half of their restaurant for a Saturday night. They were a bit scared I wasn’t for real, so they required the reservation a week in advance, an extra confirmation a day in advance and the whole group needed to show up exacly on time, otherwise they’d give away the seats to waiting customers.

Especially the being on time thing scared me because people here are fashionably late, as a rule. So I told everybody dinner was an hour earlier than it actually was.... And it worked! The restaurant even allowed us to go in early and wait at our tables for everybody to arrive ‘on time’.

I have no idea what the restaurant staff thought of us... We were probably way too loud and taking way too long to order, to eat and eventually pay our bill (which can be quite a challenge with such a large group). But they were all super friendly, brought our drinks and food quickly, and the food was quite tasty as usual (I recommended the yakiniku to anyone that would listen).

What’s fun about such a big party is that are so many lovely people together in one space, and you kind of wish it could happen everyday. What’s too bad about such a big party is that you don’t get to speak to everybody for as long as you wanted. So again you wish it could happen everyday so that you can spend enough time with everybody there to catch up properly.

Naturally, after dinner was over, not everyone was ready to head home, it was a Saturday night after all. We tried some karaoke places in Japantown and out of Japantown, but they were either too full or too shabby. So we bought some supplies at the supermarket and had our own party at a friend’s house.
Yasu’s friends even secretly bought him a birthday cake and candles, which they surprised him with later while singing him a birthday song. That made him so happy!

The rest of the party included more catching up, lots of laughter, another Circle of Death, lots of drinking (even non-alcoholic Yasu), and lots of dancing! He told me he will always remember his 27th birthday celebration: success!

Chair socks

2011-01-20T18:01:00.000-08:00

We're so sick of all the scratches our chairs make on our hard wood floors that we thought we ought to do something about it. I knew what I wanted: chair socks. But I couldn't find it in any American shop until I had the bright idea to check one of the Japanese 100 yen stores in San Francisco, and tada!

The 100 yen stores here are actually the real deal. They sell the same things as in Japan, just a smaller selection. And of course we pay in dollars, not in yen. So whenever we want something we used to use in Japan, we know where to find it.

Winter sun

2011-01-20T13:59:00.000-08:00

Today Yasu and I had lunch in Embarcadero, while sitting under palm trees in the warm sunshine.

Is it really January?

Fruit, I've missed you

2011-01-14T18:11:00.000-08:00

The good thing about our local supermarket (as opposed to the local supermarket back in Japan) is that everything is in English so that I can easily find out how to cook and prepare the foods they sell. The bad thing about that supermarket is the produce department. All fruits and vegetables are old, bruised and often already rotten covered in white and green fuzz and hairs.

So the only fruit we usually consume is the frozen kind liquified into a smoothie by our blender. That's good, but these past few days I've been craving fruit, especially citrus fruits. So Yasu and I went on a little trip on a BART train and a shuttle bus to the Berkeley Bowl. It takes a while to get there but once in a while it's worth it considering the quality of their produce department.

I went a little fruit crazy loading up our cart but look at what we have now:

Clementine tangerines, white and red seedless grapes, grapefruits, navel oranges, pippin and pink lady apples, orange tomatoes, asian pears, strawberries, and sweet grape tomatoes!!

It's so special to have this much fruit in the house that Yasu also had to take some pictures for his collection of memorable moments.

I think we'll make this fruit-buying-trip a monthly or bi-weekly tradition. Dinner tonight is going to be deliciously fruity.

Bloglovin'

2011-01-13T14:27:00.000-08:00

Just learned about bloglovin' on a blog that I love and she seems to love it. Just checked it out a little and it seems like a really good tool to keep track of my favorite blogs. The way I read blogs now is way too disorganized and time consuming, so I hope soon I'll be loving bloglovin' too.

I don't like earthquakes

2011-01-12T00:56:00.000-08:00

A couple of days ago I felt the strongest earthquake I ever felt. I mean I lived in Japan for more than 3 years where I was constantly worried about earthquakes, but I only remember a few mild ones, but this where I feel the worst one... so far anyway.

The whole building was swaying and blinds were hitting the windows and my table was moving. I think it lasted only for about 30 seconds and nothing fell down but my heart was racing!

My husband, born and raised in the land of earthquakes, would have known exactly what to do but he wasn't home. I had no clue what to do and found myself looking at the printer wondering whether it would fall down or not. Yes, very useful.

And now we just felt another one, not as strong as the one last week, and it was over before Yasu reached the front door to open it (apparently that's one of the things you're supposed to do in the event of an earthquake). But it doesn't matter if they're short and there's no damage, I don't like earthquakes and I want to move back to a non-earthquake zone.

Spree

2011-01-04T23:57:00.000-08:00

We went shopping for a space heater today. We found one, we're using it right now, it's making us a little warmer. That's good.

It's right next to our feet under the table, so we're no longer freezing, but we're still wearing layers and my nose is still as cold as a dog's. Now, let's hope it's not an energy hog which will end up costing us more than using the expensive central heating.

We also bought some other stuff, like this iPhone case for me.

Apple provided all iPhone 4 users with free cases, which was nice. But I broke mine in the first week, and have been using my iPhone caseless for months... I've dropped it a few times and I'm scared of really breaking it someday soon. A case is necessary for me!

And look at this cute little Singer sewing machine!

I bought this for eleventh monkey, I really hope this will make me more efficient, because sewing everything by hand just takes forever. But first, I'll have to learn how to use it...

Oliebollen and soba

2011-01-02T23:59:00.000-08:00

Today the fake oliebollen cafe was open and we got us some to finish celebrating the new year the Dutch way. They're actually square shaped New Orleans style beignets, but like oliebollen they consist of deep fried dough with way too much powdered sugar, so it's pretty close to an oliebol.

They're pretty tasty but the excess of powdered sugar makes it hard to eat them without covering yourself with white powder. So they need to be eaten very delicately.

After our sweet snack we headed for Katherine and Kosuke's apartment for some Japanese New Year's soba. Before dinner we spent some time on the roof admiring the sunset and a view that could not get more San Francisco if you tried, with the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. Slightly jealous!

We heard a lot about Kosuke's excellent Japanese cooking, and had even seen some of it on facebook, so we were more than ready to try some! Kosuke cooked up a storm and served us the traditional New Year's soba with fishcake, loads of tempura (shrimp, asparagus, broccoli, carrot and sweet potato) and my favorite was the boiled shrimp with grated ginger and soy sauce, yum.

It was way too much food, but really delicious! It was also fun to eat while sitting on the floor again. They have a nice and soft carpet making it even cosier to sit on the floor, and an electric blanket and cushions which kept us warm and toasty!

And they also loved the fake oliebollen we brought for dessert!

I think we've celebrated the start of this new year sufficiently now. Let's see what 2011 has in stock for us now.

Brrrr...

2011-01-01T23:59:00.000-08:00

It's cold. Probably not as cold as in the Netherlands or in Japan. Still we're cold. Our heater is way too expensive to use, and it doesn't even work properly. So tonight we're wearing layers of sweaters and blankets, and this plate of waxine lights serves as our campfire. But it's not really working.

This week we're going to buy a spaceheater somewhere to keep us warm and toasty. Can't wait.

New Year's Eve

2011-01-01T11:23:00.000-08:00

We were planning to have some beignets as a substitute for Dutch New Year's oliebollen, but to our (mostly mine) dissapointment the beignet cafe was closed yesterday. So instead we treated ourselves to some yummy coffee concoctions at Starbucks. And we'll try to get some fake oliebollen tomorrow.

We were also planning on seeing a midnight fireworks show at Embarcadero. It had been rainy all week, but according to the weather report New Year's Eve was going to be dry, but yesterday afternoon the weather report changed on us and was predicting rain. And not much later we found ourselves walking through the rain and considering changing our plans for the night.

Another plan we had was to have dinner at our favorite place in Japantown, Osakaya. We love the yakiniku teishoku they serve for lunch and were happy to find they served a slightly more expensive version for dinner. This didn't surprise us as it's very common for restaurants in Japan to sell the same food for lunch at a lower price, as a method of attracting customers and hoping they'll come back for the pricier at a later time. The waitress at Osakaya told us that the amount of food was as at lunch, so Yasu even ordered some extra rice.

But when they brought our food the sheer amount of food surprised us, these meals were about twice as large as their lunch versions. And Yasu now had four times the amount of rice he thought would come with the meal. As expected the yakiniku and all its side dishes were delicious, but it was way, way, way too much. But frugal as we are these days, we didn't want to waste such an 'expensive' and special meal. And a doggybag won't come in handy in New Year's Eve fireworks crowd.

So we ate it all, and we were so full we were afraid it would come out again. Not a good feeling and next time we'll just order one yakiniku meal and share. But we'll definitely return, because it's just too good!

It was still rainy after dinner so we decided to give up on the fireworks and check out a friend's New Year's Eve party instead. The party was fun. We talked to a lot of her friends (it's amazing how many people fit in a small apartment), found out that the wine we brought didn't contain any alcohol (which was good for non-alcoholic Yasu), and started to recover from dinner's assault on our stomachs.

But we were still dissapointed about having to miss the fireworks. Every single New Year's Eve I've experienced revolved around fireworks, without it it's just not really New Year's... So a little after 11 PM, when the rain seemed to have subsided, we chose to try and make our way to the other side of town before midnight to see the fireworks, after all.

On normal evenings, it would have been easy to get to Embarcadero on time. But it was New Year's Eve, buses didn't show up and when a bus finally did show up, it took forever to get to Embarcadero because dozens of people were getting on and off at every busstop. Most people wanted to go see the fireworks just like us, and everybody was anxious to get to Embarcadero before countdown. Some people were frantically yelling for the bus driver to hurry up. I was also worried we wouldn't make it.

With just three minutes left we were almost at Embarcadero when the bus turned left and went in a different direction, and everybody on the bus looked confused and a little upset. Where were we going?? Later we realized the crowd at Embarcadero was too large, so buses couldn't go there.

Suddenly, people started counting down and celebrating the New Year. On the bus. People with different times on their watches started other countdowns and other celebrations. So did we. We started the New Year on a San Francisco bus, yelling Happy New Year to and with strangers.

A couple of minutes into the New Year the bus arrived at a different part of Embarcadero and we could see the fireworks from the bus. Everybody got off the bus, while shrieking and howling happy sounds and more Happy New Year's to even more strangers.

And the beautiful fireworks made New Year's Eve complete!

The moment the fireworks concluded it started raining again, and hard. We hid under Yasu's umbrella, but it didn't help much. But it didn't matter, we were happy and we'd just had a very interesting and slightly frantic (on the bus) and traditional (the fireworks) shift into the New Year.

This is our first picture together in 2011, in the rain, in the huge crowd at Embarcadero. We wish everybody a happy and healthy 2011!

A new year and a new blog

2010-12-31T13:17:00.000-08:00

Everywhere people are getting ready for the new year, and in some places people have already entered the new year. I can't believe how quickly a year goes by. I remember when I was in high school and a week seemed endless, I wish I could experience time like that again.

For 2011, I've launched a new blog. From now on the Loulogue will be my personal blog and the new blog will be for all things crafty. So if you're reading this blog to see what Yasu and I are up to, you're in the right place but if you're mainly hanging out here to see what happens in the eleventh monkey world, hop on over to the new eleventh monkey blog and follow me there.

For now, it's a collection of all the eleventh monkey blog posts posted here in the past and a few new posts, but I have loads of plans for this new blog. I can't wait to start in the new year!

But first, we're heading into to city to start our celebration of the past year. I want to follow Dutch traditions, by eating 'oliebollen' (literally oil balls) and watching fireworks at midnight. Well, they don't have oliebollen here, nor box mixes to make some yourself, but I have found a place that sells square-shaped beignets that just taste like oliebollen, so we'll have oil squares this year. And the city of San Francisco is so kind to host a free fireworks show at midnight, so that's taken care of as well!

Happy 2011 everyone!

Gourmetten for Christmas

2010-12-25T23:59:00.000-08:00

For Christmas we invited over some friends to enjoy a Dutch-style dinner. In Dutch we call it ‘gourmetten’ and it’s similar to what the Americans call raclette, apparently. But with raclette the focus is on melting cheese and with ‘gourmetten’ cheese is just a side dish, the focus is on the meat.

It’s a do-it-yourself cook-at-the-table dinner, with lots of little meats, vegetables, little potatoes. There is one shared grill on top, and everyone has his own little pan to cook things in under the grill. It’s a lot of fun and Dutch people love doing it for Christmas.

In the Netherlands, we just go to the supermarket and buy ourselves a ‘gourmet’ platter with all kinds of little marinated meats, sausages, and tiny burgers. But they don’t sell those here. Any meat you buy here is big, very big.

So Yasu and I had to prepare everything ourselves, we spent a lot of time in the kitchen, but it was fun to pre-cook together. We prepared lots of meaty things, like turkey cordon bleu, tiny soy pork satays, roast beef and spring onion rolls, marinated beef strips, tiny sausages, meat balls. Also some cheesy things like bread-crummed chees sticks, and sliced veggies with cheese on top. And we even made our own garlic butter, Dutch egg salad, and tuna salad to serve with the bread. We served it all with a small variety of dip sauces.

Of course, we made way too much, but we didn’t want our guests to go hungry and we can always do another ‘gourmet’ party tomorrow for the second day of Christmas (which we officially celebrate in the Netherlands). They weren’t familiar with this kind of cooking, but I’m happy to report that they loved it!

Of course, we also prepared dessert. Yasu got to bake his Christmas cookies, for which he practiced. He baked a large batch of sugar cookies, which he decorated beautifully and colorfully with icing, blue sugar and chocolate chips. His cookies were popular but not as popular as his boiled chestnuts, a popular snack in Japan, which were all gone by the end of the night (most of them left in Kosuke’s happy stomach).

I made a batch of french-vanilla-red-velvet-cream-cheese-and-walnuts cupcakes, which were huge and delicious, but I forgot to take pictures of them.

Yasu and I spent lots of hours grocery shopping and at least ten hours in the kitchen cooking and baking, but the whole process was fun to do together (it’s a good thing Yasu is on winter break now) and it was worth it. We had such a wonderful Christmas meal and our guests really enjoyed it as well. And tomorrow we get to do a private ‘gourmet’ do-over with all the leftovers.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas surprise

2010-12-25T11:59:00.000-08:00

This morning I woke up to find this adorable Christmas card next to the bed telling me how happy Yasu is to be spending this Christmas and all future Christmases together. And then he starts to play his guitar and sings "All I Want For Christmas Is You" to me! Well, good morning and Merry Christmas to you too!

Twice in one week! Yasu surprises me with a lovely card and I had nothing... And on Tuesday, after it happened for the first time, I so swore to myself to ignore our 'let's-do-nothing' agreement from then on, and never be empty handed again. I had no idea it would happen again that quickly though. My husband is such a sneaky sweetheart, and he keeps on telling me not to feel guilty. But really, this will never happen again, next time I'll have something for him too. I hope...

Saved by the Internet

2010-12-23T21:20:00.000-08:00

Before Christmas comes around us Dutchies usually send each other cards wishing people a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Having lived abroad for years now, I don't really adhere to that tradition anymore. But after I thanked my mother for the card she sent us this year, it became apparent she was expecting a card from us.

Oops. And it was already too late to send a card from the States, it would never make it to the Netherlands in time for Christmas.

But we live in the Age of the Internet and anything is possible there. So I gave some of this year's summer pictures a Christmas look with Picnik and turned it into a card on the Dutch Hallmark website.

And they post the real card with a Dutch stamp somewhere within the Netherlands and that's how our impromptu card arrived today, very much on time for Christmas this year! Thank you, Mr. Internet.

Celebrating again

2010-12-21T23:59:00.000-08:00

The day that we got married we never really had any dinner, because we were on a plane to Guam, and plane food simply doesn’t qualify.

Our first night in Guam we ended up having dinner at the local Chili’s. So we thought it would be fun to celebrate our first anniversary by having dinner at Chili’s again, to reminisce about our honeymoon in Guam and our first year as a married couple.

And even though we agreed that dinner was all that we were going to do to celebrate (always thinking about our budget), Yasu surprised me with a lovely anniversary card.

But I really had nothing... Even though I had thought about getting a card myself, but in the end decided to stick to our agreement. I felt a little guilty, but I loved his surprise. He’s so sweet.

Our one-year-old secret wedding

2010-12-21T17:01:00.000-08:00

A year ago today, Yasu and I got married in Osaka, in secret. Now that we live in the States it’s no longer a secret and I can finally show off our pictures of that day.

Don't expect pictures of us looking like a groom and bride or a wedding cake, our wedding was a very non-weddingy happening. It was just the two of us and our stamps at a very boring and busy City Hall. Our witnesses (my manager and a coworker) signed the papers beforehand at school, and we signed and most importantly stamped (stamps with your name in Kanji are more official in Japan) the papers at City Hall.

Then we handed in the papers and were told to wait among hundreds of strangers, called back a couple of times to clarify things, told to wait again and finally told that we were married. Just like that, no "Do you take.." or "I do", just "Okay everything's taken care of, you're married. Next!" A bit disappointing and a strange realization that all of a sudden we were husband and wife.

We celebrated our sudden marriage with a lovely 'Happy Wedding' package from my parents including faux champagne, heart lollipops & chocolates, and soap bubbles.

After our little celebration over Yodogawa river, we biked to Osaka's tallest building, the Umeda Sky Building, which we listed this building as our official address on the marriage documents (don't worry it's legal). We had a pink heart-shaped lock engraved with our names and the date and locked it forever (at least that's the idea, we'll see when we visit with our kids in twenty years) on top of the Umeda Sky Building.

We also wrote little messages to our new spouse on star-shaped paper ornaments for the building's Christmas tree. And then we quickly headed to the airport to start our two-week honeymoon in Guam!

This wedding was necessary for us to be together now, we've done the (extremely) long distance thing for more than 3 years, and we absolutely did not want to do it again. We'd already been together for 6 years and we knew we were going to be married someday anyway, hence our non-happening of a wedding.

But someday we're going to get married properly, complete with the suit, the dress, the cake, the rings and wedding guests. But that's one expensive party, so that'll have to wait until we can afford it. But we're together now and that's all that matters. And tonight we're going to celebrate our first anniversary as a married couple.

The other Bowl

2010-12-20T17:45:00.000-08:00

A while back we went to check out this amazingly impressive supermarket in Berkeley that Yasu heard about at school. We weren’t very impressed and later learned we went to the wrong one, so today we went to the right one: Berkeley Bowl West.

And again we weren’t impressed, especially since Yasu was told that this one was 8 to 9 times larger than the other Berkeley Bowl. Ehm, not really, not even twice as big. Both Bowls are quite similar, the second one is newer and a bit cleaner though. And there’s a free shuttle from the BART station to take you there, which is nice for non-car-owners like us.

There’s one thing I really do like about both Bowls and that’s their produce department. They are rather sizable and their produce is actually fresh. Which seems to be quite an accomplishment in this area.

But they don’t always have the right sizes: either too tiny or too large. Grocery shopping isn’t always easy in the States.

Yasu bakes

2010-12-19T15:59:00.000-08:00

Yasu wants to bake cookies for Christmas, and so he will. Today he practiced by making two cookie-brownie cakes, while looking cute in my flowery apron.

He was surprised by how much work it was, but he did an awesome job. He did it all by himself, I just took the pictures. He was so proud of his work and his cakes are really delicious.

He’s ready for Christmas cookies now!

Renegade

2010-12-18T18:24:00.000-08:00

I dragged Yasu to a craft fair with me today. It was one of Renegade’s fairs, which I’ve seen popping up on creative blogs all over the web for more than a year. So I was happy to finally visit one myself. And Yasu was so patient, following me around from booth to booth, it’s a good thing he’s on winter break.

I didn’t buy anything because I was there to experience not to shop. Besides we’re living on a budget so we can’t afford handmade pretties anyway.

It was really interesting to see the hundreds of booths, and it was fun to fantasize having my own booth. I wondered how I would decorate it and showcase my products.

Maybe someday, but for now I’m happy with my little online shop.

Party

2010-12-12T16:17:00.000-08:00

We usually decline party invitations because they’re usually later in the evening. And going back home after a party will inevitably end up being somewhere in the middle of the night and we just don’t feel safe on the San Francisco streets at night. Oh, how I miss never being afraid at night in Japan...

Besides Yasu and I aren’t such party animals, but I’m sure Bradley and Hannah have a hard time believing this after last night. Yesterday, Bradley and Hannah were hosting an end-of-semester party at their lovely apartment. Best part was that it started during the afternoon so we were pretty certain we’d be able to make it home before the city got scary.

But we didn’t.

We were having too much fun to go home. It was great to catch up with people, to eat Hannah’s delicious foods, to drink Bradley’s alcoholic coffee-mint concoctions, and to play a card-drinking game called the Circle of Death.

And instead of going home before 11 like the others and making sure to be back in bed on time like a proper 30-year-old, we went to some bar with Hannah and Bradley and danced (yes, really!) until the bar closed. And they actually wanted to see my passport to see whether I was old enough to enter, I guess tipsy looks young on me :)! We ended up crashing on their living-room futon like a couple of true party animals. What a fun party that was.

Celebration

2010-12-09T23:59:00.000-08:00

When we lived in Japan we went out to dinner at least once a day, but here we eat our meals at home. It's cheaper, healthier and usually tastier too. But today was a special day, so we decided to go out for dinner to celebrate Yasu's birthday.

We bought ourselves a Groupon for Rocketfish, a Japanese tapas restaurant somewhere in San Francisco. The food was very nice but extremely expensive, even with a 50% discount from Groupon. So I wouldn't really recommend this place unless you have way too much money to spend, or are in a hurry (service is uncomfortably quick).

In the spirit of being frugal we decided not to do gifts anymore, not for anniversaries, not for Christmas and also not for birthdays. But I felt really weird about not having a gift for his birthday, so when Yasu was at school today I made him a tiny keychain. We always get our keys mixed up, so it was a functional gift too. And Yasu loved it!

But my real birthday surprise for him was waiting at home. I baked him an actual birthday cake and decorated it myself. It consisted of two layers, a red velvet on top of a french vanilla layer, cream cheese frosting and nuts everywhere. The baking and frosting the cake weren't that hard, but the decorating was.

YouTube videos make anything look easy, but writing '27' and 'Yasu' on the cake was a challenge, to say the least. Still the end product looked colorful and pretty happy, thanks to hundreds of tiny chocolate chips.

But what matters most was that Yasu was so surprised and happy to see the cake, to blow out the candles, and of course to eat it! It was his first time to receive such a personalized birthday cake. Even though we just celebrated his birthday between the two of us today, he let me know it was the best birthday he ever had! Success!

Happy birthday Yasu!

2010-12-09T00:01:00.000-08:00

Almost 7 years ago I met Yasu for the first time, he was just 20 and a little weird (at least in my opinion). This is a picture of us on our first real date 7 years ago, during our last week in Atlanta. Two young people who had no idea idea that 7 years later they'd be married and living in the States again.

And today we celebrate his 27th birthday! One year closer to my 30 years of age, but I'm afraid he'll never catch up with me. I already suggested a trade, because age just looks better on men, but he doesn't want to swap with me. Lucky man. As long as we're together he'll never have to feel old.

Flamingo dance

2010-12-04T10:36:00.000-08:00

A while back we had lots of fun in some hat store in Berkeley, and I just found this short video on my iPhone of Yasu that makes me so happy.

The appropriate ending to this song*: "I'm told that I'm a little crazy, but that is totally okay!"

*Always On My Mind - The Guest

Christmas lights

2010-11-30T17:22:00.000-08:00

No Christmas tree for us this year, but we did get 300 colorful Christmas lights to brighten up our apartment.

I love Christmas, and I love our lights. Someday when we live in a real house we'll get a tree and some ornaments to go with these lights.

Happy birthday Moem!

2010-11-29T00:01:00.000-08:00

Today my mother turns 48! Which is very young considering she has a 30-year-old daughter! Look at how cute she used to be (when she was just a little younger than 48):

Well, she's still adorable. I wish I could celebrate her birthday with her today, especially since she's in the hospital now, recuperating from her spine-tumor-removal surgery. I will just have to celebrate her from here, so I'm going to bake a cake in her honor today, send her a picture, and then eat it with Yasu while wishing her a lots of good health and love for her special day. And we already sung her a birthday song through skype > land line phone > cell phone > hospital phone, the connection sucked but she loved it!

Going to see Harry Potter

2010-11-24T13:00:00.000-08:00

The new Harry Potter movie premiered last week, but I contained myself and was somehow able to wait until today to go and see it. I'm over-the-top excited and I have high expectations!

Of course, Yasu is coming with me to see the movie but he's less excited than I am. The story is a little complicated for him and he doesn't read novels so just telling him to read the books doesn't help. So last week I spend an evening telling him the big picture of all seven books, so that he will be able to fully understand and enjoy the movie tonight. Going over the most important story lines with Yasu really made me wish I had all seven books here with me in the States, so I can read the story over and over again. Just for fun! I'm going to get a box with all seven books someday and read them to him and our kiddies.

Windows

2010-11-22T22:46:00.000-08:00

This is what the windows in San Francisco were telling us today. Interesting messages, but not sure if they apply or not.

But I do consider people living in pretty San Francisco houses lucky, and a fire alarm on the sidewalk is rather weird.

Hats hats hats

2010-11-21T17:33:00.000-08:00

What's more fun than trying on hats? Yeah, can't think of anything better either! Bryna (one of Yasu's schoolfriends) introduced us to a store called Berkeley Hats where they have hundreds, maybe even thousands, of hats. Hats are everywhere, on the floor, on the walls, on the counters, on the ceilings, on the customers, where ever you looked there were new hats to discover!

Most of the hats they sell are 'serious' hats, like to protect your head from the cold, to dress up like cowboys during Bon Jovi concerts, to wear on the golf court, to look cool when you're with your fashion sensitive friends or for fancy tea parties with the queen. But we enjoyed the 'crazy' hats the most.

A turkey hat and Christmas tree hat for the holidays, a colorful mohawk and fluffy yak for our cold winter ears and a mushroom hat when you want to pretend you're in Mario-world.

This is a great place to go when you need a Halloween costume, they have so many options and it's not so expensive. We already found some good candidates for next year, a farao, a flamingo, a chicken or a deep sea diver. Hmm difficult...

Layers

2010-11-20T17:13:00.000-08:00

It's getting cold here, and it's almost December so it's about time. It's nowhere near freezing though, I guess that's too much to expect in California anyway. It is cloudy, rainy and sunny, which is the perfect recipe for a nice rainbow.

It may not be freezing but I get cold really easily. So today I wore a lot of clothes: two turtlenecks, four sweaters of which two really thick ones, a scarf, a tuque, fingerless gloves, jeans, two pairs of socks, winter slippers and two blankets wrapped around my waist. Yasu made fun of me, I did kind of look like a homeless person, and all I was doing was surfing the Internet. You'd think I was getting ready for some ice skating championship.

Louana the Second

2010-11-18T23:45:00.000-08:00

My sweet mother is in the hospital now awaiting surgery on a tumor in her spinal cord. It really sucks that I’m so far away and can’t really be there for her. She has already forbidden me to use my frequent flier miles to come home... Several times. She wants me to save them for her 50th birthday in two years, which she deems a much better occasion to come home for. So I needed to think of another way to be there for her in this terrible time, so I’ve created a mini-me:

She’s actually much prettier and cuter than me and the only things we really have in common are our long brown hair and the mole next to our noses. I’m a little jealous of her and she gets to travel really cheaply, her plane ride to the Netherlands was less than $10!

Yasu really likes her too, so it’s a good thing I sent her to my mom, so that Yasu doesn’t have to divide his attention between us.

My mother opened her package with mini Louana in it today, in her hospital room in front of the Skype camera (hospitals these days are pretty modern). And she loved the doll - it took her a while to recognize who she was, but the mole did the trick - and she even cried when she read the purple note hiding in the doll’s tummy pocket. My mom has never been the over-emotional type, but ever since she’s been in the hospital and on lots of morfine she has no problem sharing her feelings with us. She’s become quite sentimental. It’s a bit funny but I like it. And now my mom has a way to hug me whenever she wants.

Translation of the purple note: “My name is Louana the Second, and I love my sweet mom very, very much. Unfortunately, my mom is in the hospital right now and not doing well physically, so she needs many hugs from her daughter (Louana the First). But Louana the First lives quite far away, but don’t worry, there is a connection between us, kind of like an invisible USB cable, or WiFi, or even better LouFi! So when you hug me really hard, the hug will travel through LouFi and be received by Louana the First just moments later! Oh, kisses will travel through LouFi as well!”

Cupcakes and muffins

2010-11-16T17:27:00.000-08:00

I keep on baking, some weeks more than others, but I want to become an experienced baker someday. Just before Halloween I made some bloody cupcakes with Frankenstein hair and brains, a.k.a. red velvet cupcakes with green butter cream icing. They were pretty easy with those packages from the supermarket but also extremely sweet, which makes them even more American to me. I definitely need to adjust the recipe, or start cooking them from scratch to get a less sweet result. But for a first try at cupcakes they were fun, especially messing around with icing, and edible. I read somewhere that muffins are just ugly cupcake wannabes, but my muffins definitely look prettier than my cupcakes.

I tried pumpkin spice muffins a while back, and they were okay, but small and a bit sticky. This time I didn't follow the recipe on the box (because I'd thrown away the box last time) and just did what seemed right, resulting in a thicker batter. I also kept them in the oven longer and the muffins turned out much bigger and fluffier. Great! Once I've got the baking from supermarket boxes down I'm going to move on to baking from scratch. Baby steps.

How-to cook Japanese curry (by Yasu)

2010-11-13T23:59:00.000-08:00

Have your wife send you a box of curry roux from Japan when you're living with your inlaws in the Netherlands. Then forget to cook it before your wife also comes to the Netherlands and you move to the States. Then have your wife bring the box with her on the airplane when she follows you to the States a week later. Then wait three months before finally using it.

Put on your wife's pretty apron. Then chop onions, carrots and potato. Then stir-fry them in oil. Then add bite-sized beef and stir-fry it along with the veggies.

At the same time boil eggs in a frying pan, the Yasu-way, and they'll turn out perfectly.

Add water. Then occasionally stir while you let it sit for about 15 minutes.

Check out what's inside the box of curry roux.

Add the chocolate-looking curry to the pan and stir. Then stir some more until it looks like this:

Don't forget to smell and taste the curry along the way to check if it's really what you want it to be.

Serve the curry on steamed white rice with the boiled eggs and some sliced cucumber when you don't have actual tsukemono (Japanese pickles).

Admire your dinner and wait for your wife to complement your cooking.

Then eat!

Grocery shopping

2010-11-12T17:59:00.001-08:00

We weren't able to get all of our groceries at the Berkeley Bowl this week so I convinced Yasu to come with me to the local Lucky, to get the rest and to experience a huge American supermarket. Which is quite a spectacle for us foreigners, and that's why Yasu wanted to go the Berkeley Bowl. But we ended up going to the wrong one, the little sister of the original Berkeley Bowl, rumored to be the biggest supermarket ever. The one we visited was a bit dissapointing, but we'll go to the big Bowl for sure someday soon.

We started off our Lucky's adventure with a little Starbucks date, and I got to try the Peppermint Mocha coffee, which was good but tasted more like hot cocoa than coffee. Then Yasu got to be impressed by Lucky's. Not the produce department - which is really below par, I've never seen so many soft tomatoes and fungussy strawberries in my life - but by the long aisles of hundreds of sodas, chips and cereals, packaged meats, huge turkeys, and the enormous frozen food department. Also quite different here are the size of things, just look at the sandwich Yasu is holding!

There is so much to see and buy in the typical American supermarket and it was quite overwhelming the first time I went there. My trip to the grocery store takes me about two hours every week, and Yasu now understands why. I just wish I had a car to bring everything home in, but for now my crappy American bike and huge Ikea bag will have to suffice, to bring our food home.

An afternoon in Berkeley

2010-11-08T11:59:00.000-08:00

When we were out exploring Berkeley today we stumbled upon a bus that looked quite shocking:

We tried to find out what had happened by asking bystanders and they seemed convinced some kind of bomb exploded because all the windows were shattered (at least as they could see from the side we were on). the inside was totally burnt out and the engine seemed to be totally fine and unburned. Yasu and I had actually seen huge clouds of smoke in the distance about an hour earlier when we left the train station. So people concluded it happened more than an hour ago and all the victims were already taken from the scene by ambulances. I just hoped nobody had been seriously hurt.

Yasu desperately needed a haircut and the salon was right across the bus scene. The hairdressers told us that something under the bus had suddenly caught fire several hours earlier, and that the bus driver had gotten all the passengers out quickly and safely. The bus had been burning for a while before the fire department came to put out the fire. The firefighters had broken half of the windows in the bus in order to put out the fire inside the bus better. Great, no terrorist attack and no casualties, except for the bus of course.

Sorry, forgot to take before and after pictures of Yasu's hair but I got some 'during the haircut' pictures while the lady with the razor was telling us the bus story.

The reason we were in Berkeley was actually to do some grocery shopping at the Berkeley Bowl, the biggest and most impressive supermarket ever, according to one of Yasu's classmates anyway. Yasu wanted to check it out and I also though it would be fun to do some groceries together for a change. The produce department was impressive.

They had loads of seasonal products like pumpkins of course and also produce I know from home but sold in a very different way, like Brussels sprouts still on their stalks. Didn't even know they grew on stalks, but I don't know a lot. They also had weird produce, like kiwis in the shape of fans (sorry no picture), tomatoes in the shapes of pumpkins and bell peppers in all colors, even purple, and cauliflower in rather sick colors, green, orange and again purple. No thanks.

Although, the supermarket's produce department was amazing, because of quantity and quality (the supermarket near us can learn a LOT from the Berkeley Bowl), the rest of the supermarket wasn't impressive at all, a little dirty and unorganized and rather small. Apparently, we'd gone to the wrong Berkeley Bowl, the original one is about 8 to 9 times larger than the one we visited. Well, I'm not sure if I believe that, so we'll just have to check that out another time!

Fall seems to have arrived

2010-11-06T20:59:00.000-07:00

Even though the weather and temperature here in middle California still reminds me of summer most of the time, it really does appear to be autumn right now.

Colored leaves on the trees and fallen leaves decorating the sidewalks everywhere, those are definite signs of fall. But the weather keeps confusing me. I wonder what winter in this part of California will be like.

30 years ago

2010-11-03T23:27:00.000-07:00

In 1980 my mother was pregnant with me. While I lived in her comfortable and warm tummy, people were already taking pictures of me.

Then on August 11 at 11:02 in the morning my mother gave birth to me. She was only seventeen and already a mother to a baby girl.

In the Netherlands it’s common to send birth cards to family and friends to announce the birth of a new baby. This was mine:

Card translation: "After months of waiting their wish was finally fulfilled, I am their first child and they call me Louana. I was born at 11:02 am and I weighed 7 pounds. My mommy and daddy are: Robert and Louise van Luttervelt."

I loved hanging out with my mommy, especially when she fed me with a bottle (for some reason I didn’t like breast feeding). And I got used to smiling for the camera at a very young age.

As you may have guessed I’m organizing old pictures. I scanned all the analog pictures I could find in the house before I moved to Japan and threw them in a file on my hard drive. All this time they’ve been out of order and patiently waiting for me to organize them. I’ve finally started, I wonder how long this is going to take me...

Journey to the end of the night

2010-10-30T23:59:00.000-07:00

We celebrated Halloween by playing tag all over San Francisco with hundreds of strangers and Emiko, a Japanese friend from Yasu’s school. A game of tag may not sound scary of spooky enough for Halloween, but I felt my adrenaline rushing through my veins a few times tonight.

At the start we got a blue ribbon, a yellow ribbon and a player’s manifest. The rules as explained in the manifest were pretty straightforward. Players wear blue ribbons around their arms and travel from checkpoint to checkpoint collecting stamps and signatures. Chasers wear yellow ribbons and try to tag the players before they arrive at the finish line. A tagged player hands over their blue ribbon to the chaser and turns into a chaser himself by donning his own yellow ribbon. We started with hundreds of players and less than ten chasers, but due to the chaser-zombie-effect the city was soon crawling with yellow-ribboned creeps.

Suddenly the organizers gave the start sign and the crowd started screaming and running in all directions. Apparently, chasers had started tagging everyone around them and the number of chasers was already increasing exponentially. It was total chaos and hilarious, we were running, screaming and laughing at the same time. We quickly jumped on a street train (all buses and trains were safezones) where we could catch our breath and strategize.

We visited five checkpoints successfully before we had to leave to catch our last train home. But we encountered several chasers along the way. One erroneously tagged me while I was in a safezone, but my startled scream scared her off. We had to run for our ‘life’ at one point during the game until we reached a safezone totally out of breath and with aching legs. We also found ourselves hiding behind cars and around corners to avoid being spotted by chasers. And some chasers were scarily energetic, two were running along our from bus stop to bus stop just to try and tag us while getting off.

It was a great event. We had a lot of fun, got a lot of exercise and got to experience San Francisco in a very different way. We only wished that they’d started earlier, so we could finish the game and join the party at the finish line. Oh well, maybe next year!

Ghost stories

2010-10-28T23:59:00.000-07:00

On our way to the Asian Art Museum today I finally spotted some carved pumpkins on the street! In a slightly creepy alley though, but I guess that's only fitting to the holiday of Halloween.

We went to the museum to get spooked by dramatic and haunting Japanese ghost tales performed by a woman and her husband's jazz band (including taiko drums and a koto).

They were really good and the performance was fascinating and entertaining, but unfortunately for me not really scary. Yasu was really happy though. He really doesn't like scary movies and stories.

Virtual reality

2010-10-23T23:59:00.000-07:00

Today we met up with Katherine and Kosuke, another ex-AEON teacher with a Japanese boyfriend in San Francisco! We met eachother online years ago, when she asked me some questions about AEON and stayed in touch a bit on facebook and today we met eachother in the flesh! I love it when something virtual turns into something physical.

Katherine is also an counseling psychology grad student like Yasu, but at another university, and Kosuke is learning English now and wants to go to grad school soon too. It was really fun to meet them and hang out with them, talk for hours and sample the many delicious fruits and vegetables on sale at the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market.

If you're ever hungry and out of money, go to this farmer's market! We ate so many yummy samples and tried fruits we'd never seen before, some good and some weird. I ended up buying something called a pluot (mix between a plum and apricot), destined to be breakfast tomorrow.

Sleepy, forgetful and hungry

2010-10-22T23:59:00.000-07:00

We've only been in the States for two months but today I already had my first procedure at an American hospital. I've had severe stomach pains for a while and regular tests, like on my blood and breath didn't find anything out of the ordinary, so they thought it would be a good idea to check out the inside of my stomach with a camera that they inserted through my mouth. Quite a scary idea, especially since I have a bad cold and have trouble breathing through my nose right now and I'm constantly coughing, but they assured me that would be no problem. Thankfully they put me under general anesthesia, so I was totally oblivious of the camera tube being stuffed down my throat, and I had no opportunity to panic.

After the procedure I was still woozy from the drugs and I only remember bits. Apparently, I told Yasu to take pictures of me in my hospital bed all tubed up, but I don't remember at all. It was nearly impossible to stay awake, no matter how hard I tried I kept falling back asleep so we ended up spending the whole afternoon at the hospital. And when I was awake I kept forgetting what happened, like continuously asking when they were going to start, and them telling me again and again it was already over. They didn't find anything scary (so far) and I hope the results of the biopsy will be useful.

I wasn't allowed to drive or make any life decisions after we left, but I was allowed to shop and eat! My last meal had been the night before so I was really hungry, and even though we weren't supposed to eat out this month we allowed ourselves to make an exception today (at a cheap diner).

We had steak and eggs, which is a weird combination to us, but very normal here I think because I see it on the menu all the time. And even though we still think it's weird to eat steak with eggs and toast, we agreed that it was really good, especially when you're really hungry.

Sneak peek

2010-10-17T23:04:00.000-07:00

I'm working on a new kind of product for eleventh monkey, here's a sneak peek. It's a lot of work, with tiny details that take long hours, but it's fun and I'm very excited about it.

I wish there were more hours in the day, or that I was so much faster at stuff than I currently am, or simply that I had the power to stop time and take 2-hour naps in between 2 minutes. If only...

Blogging in the past

2010-10-17T23:01:00.000-07:00

Catching up, one blog post at the time...
September 14: My new friend the oven
September 17: Convenience
September 18: I'm learning NLP - Mariko in San Francisco

Other recent updates:
October 7: Mail from home
October 4: Appreciation
October 2: Hardly Strictly Bluegrass
September 27: Eyes for Lies photo-shoot #3 - Prison and pancakes
September 8: A hard life
August 19: Berkeley
August 18: Progress
August 15: San Francisco - Cable car - Clam chowder in a bread bowl - American pizza - CIIS

Baking

2010-10-14T16:10:00.000-07:00

Now that we have an actual oven, I thought I'd try some baking too. So far I've made carrot cake, chocolate chip muffins and pumpkin spice muffins.

They weren't bad, but not so great that I'm planning on making them again soon. I'm still learning and hope to get better soon. Next time, I'll try my hand at cupcakes.

Freeze

2010-10-11T22:03:00.000-07:00

Making ice cubes isn't easy, the water keeps trying to escape.

Luckily our freezer is extremely fast and freezes any fugitives mid-escape.

A special pillow

2010-10-10T11:44:00.000-07:00

In Japan they have the yes-no pillow. On one side of the pillow it says “yes” on the other side it says “no”. Ladies can use it to show their men whether they’re in the mood or not. Before bed, he checks which side she has put up for the night and he knows what to expect.

As a wedding gift for our manager my coworkers suggested I make a very special yes-no pillow for her. One that fits her unique personality better than a conventional yes-no pillow. This is the “yes” side:

This is the “no” side, or rather the "no hell yes!" side:

Unfortunately, I couldn't make it to her wedding because it was on my last day in Japan and I was a little busy. But I hope my pillow was featured during her wedding night...

Weird monkeys

2010-10-09T15:06:00.000-07:00

Other monkeys I made when I was still in Japan are the Weirdos. Which have huge bulging eyes that make them look rather weird (hence the name), but still cute in my opinion.

They were mostly going-away-presents for my lovely coworkers. Obviously, I couldn’t leave them without leaving a bit of eleventh monkey with them.

On their backs a little reminder of who made these monkey badges for them, just in case they’ve forgotten all about me in a while.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Japan today, I was even imagining how it used to be prepping for classes. Wonder when this desire to go back to Japan will dissipate.

Sal the Monkey

2010-10-08T23:22:00.000-07:00

A while back I organized a giveaway because I was about to sew my 11th monkey as 'eleventh monkey', and the giveaway winner got to choose the colors. Sal won and chose orange and green with blue buttons. And I can’t believe I still haven’t blogged the resulting monkey until now:

Honestly, I wasn’t sure about the color combination, but it turned out beautifully. And that’s exactly why it’s fun to let someone else chose the colors for a change: you get surprising results. I made the monkey when I was still in Japan, and ‘Sal the Monkey’ has been living with the ‘Sal the Human’ for a couple of months now and she’s having a blast, they even went on a trip together.