Missed my 2 year quit anniversary

Wow, I missed my two year no smoking anniversary, which was on Monday. Hard to believe I haven't smoked for two years. On the one hand, it seems like a long time ago, on the other hand, it feels like yesterday.

In the last few months Tokyo is really starting to become non-smoker friendly. When I first came here, it was a smoker's paradise. Now you can find restaurants with a real non-smoking section, rather than being just a table that is surrounded by smokers. Not that I'm a nasty ex-smoker. I don't care if others smoke. It is just nice to finally be able to go places and have choice!

More food - udon!

In keeping with my food theme this week, here is yet another entry on food and new restaurants. Tonight's culinary exploit was to the local udon restaurant. Udon is a kind of Japanese noodle. They are very fat and I don't normally like udon because it is like eating a bunch of white flour to me. Not so exciting.

Hiroshi took Erik and I to an udon chain restaurant tonight though and it was good! This was mainly because there was a topping bar and you could load up your udon with fish flakes (love them!), sesame seeds, grated ginger and pieces of tempura. Tempura is a frying technique in Japan and usually the little blobs of tempura batter that fall off during the frying process are saved to put on udon. Yumm!

Feeling greedy and glutinous, after udon we went back to the yakitori restaurant from last week for some beers and some chicken. The guys were still yelling out orders and having fun. All in all, I'm sure we were given a significant portion of our order free - we each had two beers and a bunch of chicken and all we ended up paying was around 3000 yen. Seeing as one beer is probably 5 or 600 yen, I know we didn't get charged for everything. Definitely have to patronize that place again. Gotta love free food!

Since we were absolutely stuffed, we walked along the river between Gotanda and Osaki stations towards Osaki to hit up the game center. I got to play the taiko drum game which I like. The game center has changed to a prepaid card system. The prepaid card is good for stores all around the Osaki area so that is cool. Now we can listen to the chirp of the card system every time we buy something. Ah technology.

Japanese pancakes

One of the great things about Erik being here is going out to new restaurants and having things I haven't had in ages. Tonight was okonomiyaki, which is Japanese pancake. It is savory rather than sweet - containing things like seafood and vegetables rather than sugar.

We met up tonight with John and Melissa, two other world travellers and readers of Erik's blog. Then we headed off for okonomiyaki in Ebisu. I had asked Hiroshi to find a good place for us - meaning one where you didn't have to sit on tatami mats. I hate eating on tatami because I can never get comfortable. After some jostling around of tables and a 20 minute wait, we finally got a table by the window. It was really nice! The restaurant, called Chibo, is on the 38th floor of Ebisu Garden Place, so the view is very nice.

The table at an okonomiyaki restaurant has a grill in the center of it. Sitting beside the window was also good because their was an air conditioner directly above us. Wonderful against the heat that the grill was producing. I elected to cook the pancakes myself since that is more fun. The last time I did this, it ended up being a huge falling-apart disaster. Luckily this time I created a pancake masterpiece. LOL It turned our pretty well. It was shaped nicely, didn't fall apart and was cooked all the way thru, so that's about all you can ask for.

The pancakes and beer were delicious... and cheap! Add in the great view and this is a nice place to go for a meal. Your clothes end up smelling all greasy by the end of the evening, but that's ok. Definitely somewhere I'll head back to again.

The shrimp that wouldn't die

Tonight we went to the kaiten sushi (rotator belt sushi place). HIroshi and I always used to go to one in Meguro across from the station (beside Wendy's) but the last few times, the fish has been a bit dry and I've been disappointed in the quality. So today we tried one in the Atre building (also in Meguro) that was recommended to me by some wacko guy chatting me up the last time I went to the old kaiten sushi in Meguro. Wow! It is awesome! It has lots of choices, including non-sushi items.

Erik was having a blast. There were lots of things he had never tried before, which was good because it sounds like sushi was a regular part of his New York diet. I was also happy because the fish was fresh and there were vegetables and stuff there to eat as well. Yummy.

Towards the end of our sushi extravaganza (we had to roll home) the sushi chef wiggled some large shrimp at me and asked if I wanted some. I figured what the heck, so he prepared them by chopping off the heads and peeling them, except for the tail. He fried up the heads and gave them to us in a bowl - I gave them to Hiroshi and Erik because I hate the heads. Shrimp brains are disgusting. Then the chef handed over the shrimp and touched the tail. Well you know your seafood is fresh when it still moves. The shrimp spasmed a bit when he touched the tail. So we set the thing on the table and waited.

Hiroshi finally decided to eat his one. As he put it in his mouth, the tail was moving!! Talk about giving someone the willies. I didn't want mine moving around, so I tried to cut off the tail part. I usually take it off before eating anyway, rather than pulling it out of my mouth. Well, as I grabbed it, it moved! So I decided to take my chopsticks and cut the darn thing off... only soon as I put pressure onto the shrimp flesh it started flipping and flopping around like a fish out of water. Of course I scream and jump back in my chair. This is not cool. So I get Hiroshi to take the tail off... only he ends up doing the same thing, jumping back when the thing moved. A few minutes later, I tentatively touched the flesh and it started flopping again, causing me to scream yet again. I'm sure the other customers thought I was nuts. Keep in mind that this shrimp has been alive without its head or its shell for like ten minutes!

Finally, we got the tail off, and the thing was still moving. I couldn't bring myself to put it in my mouth because I would have absolutely freaked if it had moved while inside it. I've never had to gear myself up so much to eating something! All in all it ended up being a really fun time and I must say it was the most amusing time I've ever had at a kaiten sushi!

Geek convention

Today Cal, Erik and I went to the Tokyo Game Show which is the largest game show of its kind. Talk about sensory overload. Loud announcements, flashing lights, scantily clad women (it looked like an audition for Show Girls in the bathroom), and a seething mass of geeks pushing and shoving their way thru the convention hall.

Despite my prediction that it would suck (based on a previous visit to the Tokyo Game and Toy show which is an entirely different event) it was pretty cool. I don't do well in crowds so I needed to take a time out at one point to calm down, but otherwise it was fun. Unfortunately we didn't get to play many games - it was like Disneyland and there were one hour line ups to play anything. So we just wandered around looking for free stuff, and Cal and Erik were ogling the women.

Actually there were a lot of people ogling the women - the fact that they had hardly any clothing on probably had something to do with that. The funniest thing though was the geek paparazzi. Whenever a new woman would come out, suddenly tons of guys with cameras would run over, and take a whole bunch of pictures. Being geeks, they all had nice, professional, top-end cameras. The woman would stand there and pose, making cute, clueless faces (which is what passes for sexy here), while the men snapped away. It was really funny.

There were tons of demos and videos and fun things at the show. I even applied for an official Star Wars credit card. I don't need another credit card, but how much fun is whipping Darth Vader out of my wallet going to be??!! Darth Vader was the best picture choice. Actually, the reason I applied was so we could get free things - I got a storm trooper magnet which I gave to Erik. Later on I played a train game (you drive a train around Tokyo) and won a rabbit magnet. We also ended up with free pens and DVD samples. All in all a pretty good haul. If we had waited an hour to play any of the other games, we would have gotten more free stuff though.

Afterward our feet gave out around 4, we headed over to Outback Steakhouse for some steak! Yum. Not to mention the potatoes I love so well. Then we waddled home with tired feet and full tummies.

A tourist in my own backyard

Tonight was the drinking and karaoke night experience for Erik. Originally a bunch of my co-workers were supposed to come out but they all dicked off, or were tired or sick, so that left Erik, Cal and I to drink together. This actually worked out marvelously because we ended up going to a yakitori (grilled chicken skewer) place that I have always wanted to go to, but never gotten around to. Basically the place is right near my station. Now I'm kicking myself for never having gone before.

The place is just fun! The staff are all yelling orders, joking with customers and really friendly. And, even better, it is cheap and tastes good! So this is definitely a place to go back to in the future. I'm really starting to see how much I've gotten away from seeing Tokyo with new eyes... I've kind of fallen into the same old same old routine of a resident. Of course, I am a resident, but I think I'm going to have to make a point of getting out and seeing more and trying new places.

After a delicious dinner we all headed out to karaoke - even Cal! Cal claims that he is a horrible singer, but he is just saying that because he was sining under his breath. (Cal - I'm going to drag you out to karaoke more often). Cal had to catch his train home, so Erik and I moved on to another karaoke place and sang a ton of 80s hits. Great fun! I haven't been to karaoke in a while, so it was nice to get out and sing!

I finally saw the waterfall

Erik and I got up early and caught the bus up to Chuzenji lake. The bus takes about an hour and goes up the i-ro-ha slope, which is a series of hairpin turns going up and down the mountain (one way traffic on each) for a total of 50 hairpin turns. The sounds i, ro and ha used to be the first three sounds in Japanese phonetic script before the order was changed to make it a bit more logical.

Lake Chuzeji was cold and we arrived fairly early in the morning. The only thing that was open was a noodle shop where we had soba (buckwheat noodles) for breakfast. They were actually really good. Then we went to see the waterfalls. I have been to see the waterfalls three times before, and each time was unable to see them because of fog. Well, finally I had a good view and they are quite pretty. Of course I'm spoiled because of Niagara Falls, but these were still quite nice. They are apparently one of the three top waterfalls in Japan.

Then we walked the kilometer or so by the lake shore to the temple. On the way we passed the Belgian, French and Italian embassy cottages - must be nice. Geesh. I seem to remember the temple having lots of cool things on display when I went before. It is supposed to have a lot of swords that are classified as cultural treasures. Unfortunately, none of these were on display. After doing the temple walk-through we headed back to the main area for coffee and then headed back to Nikko train station on the bus. The way down the iroha slope is much more exciting than going up, especially because we were sitting in the front seat. Sometimes it seems you are going to fall right off the edge of the mountain.

We arrived back in Nikko about twenty minutes before the train left, just enough time to buy souvenirs, go to the washroom and get a bento... or so I thought. I wasn't paying attention and as we were going thru the ticket gates I looked at the clock, panicked and looked at the train to see it pulling out of the station. This was a problem because that was the train I needed to take to get back to Tokyo in order to get to work on time! Luckily there is an express train that gets there a whole whopping 15 minutes earlier... but costs twice as much! So I forked over the cash to upgrade our tickets and we managed to get back to Tokyo on time.

I guess I truly am Japanese now - everyone manages to miss an important train like that at some point (or overshoot their bullet train stop) and has to outlay a fair bit of cash to get to where they are supposed to be going.

My ten millionth trip to Nikko

Today I took Erik up to Nikko, which is a UNESCO site about 125 km north of Tokyo. The Shogun's tomb is here, as is his grandson's. I've been to Nikko several times myself and have taken anyone who has ever visited me there. I don't mind too much because the place is stock full of minus ions or something [Side note: minus ions (pronounced minus eons in Japan) are the latest health craze here] and is a nice relaxing, green area.

We left at standard Nikko departure time - which is one hour later than planned. (I don't know why that always happens). When we got to Asakusa, which is where the train departs from, we wandered around Asakusa kannon and down the shopping street. It was a holiday today, so there were lots of people about. Finally we got on the train with our sushi bento (lunch boxes) and had a relaxing two hour trip up into "the natures" as the Japanese say.

The first order of business when we got to the station was to book a hotel. The woman at the help desk was very friendly. She gave me a brochure for a place that was more than we wanted to spend. I asked her for a cheaper place and she picked up the phone and dialed a pension - they said they would take us at our named price because I spoke Japanese. Whehoo! Perks! Sometimes they won't rent a room to you if you don't speak Japanese. Not to say there are no rooms available - you just have to pay for the more expensive ones unless you have some language skills. The help desk woman was nice. She kept going on and on about how Erik had a kind face and big eyes. This conversation went on for like five minutes, which I think embarrassed Erik.

Nikko was overcast and cool. It was nice! The leaves weren't out yet (as in hadn't changed colour) unfortunately. Despite being overcast, there were lots of people as always touring the shrine. Not as many as usual perhaps, but still enough to walk in front of any picture you tried to take. A couple from Mexico were on the bus with us up to the shrine area and didn't speak any Japanese so I asked them to join us... having been to Nikko so many times, I know at least a little about every building.

We saw all four major shrines / temples, plus the Japanese garden. Around 5 it started to rain. We waited with the Mexican couple under a building's eaves trying to stay dry. We didn't have any umbrellas, and they had forgotten theirs on the bus. Finally we made the mad dash to the bus and headed down to dinner. We just went to the family restaurant because they have drink bar... which means refillable coffee. Of course, the problem with Nikko, which I realized when I asked the staff about the bus schedule, is that everything closes early. So the last bus left five minutes after we arrived at the restaurant. So we ended up having to take a cab to our hotel.

The hotel was pretty basic. It was clean, but old. The big bonus though was it had bath facilities. I think it was just an ofuro (bath) rather than an onsen (bath that has water with high mineral content). They did have a rotemburo (outdoor bath) though, so I sent Erik into that one, and I went to the indoor one. Ahhhh, heaven! Having a hot bath in Japan is always wonderful. I never have one at home because I have a bathtub the size of a toybox. It is nice and deep but very short and narrow. So getting out of the thing is sometimes and adventure. Not to mention the fact that my building has essentially no hot water pressure, so it takes like 30 minutes to fill the tub halfway.

After we were all relaxed from our bath, we hung out and watched a show on big things. The biggest tuna, biggest insects, tallest person, fattest young people. They had a six year old and a four year old (weighing, I kid you not, over 70 kg each (155 lbs)) wrestle each other in the studio. I thought that was kind of sad. Poor things, but that is Japanese tv for you.

I Didn't Die!

So, today is the day that Erik (The Global Trip) arrived. At around 9 am this morning, my mom called and woke me up - I didn't even know who it was at first (sorry mom!) due to that groggy totally out of it thing. As we were chatting Erik called to say that he had a layover so wouldn't be getting in until 7 instead of 5. Whehoo! That meant I could sleep for another couple of hours. I ended up getting up around 11:30 and the cleaning bonanza began. I was a cleaning fiend. I was decisive and threw things away! I noticed many more things that I want to throw away too, but will do that another day when I have more time. I finished dragging down the the 6 garbage bags of stuff just before it was time to leave to go and meet Erik.

I arrived at the station just before 7:30, which was just after a train from the airport had arrived. I didn't see Erik though so I just sat down and did some work on my laptop. Just before the next train pulled in I noticed my phone was ringing... and it was Erik. He had left the platform and was standing outside a ticket gate unable to get back in. So we met up and finally - the poor guy had to wait around for 30 minutes. (Mom - Erik looks like a turtle with his backpack on ;) I'll get a picture when he leaves for you).

We hit the grocery store on the way home as well as the bank. Then we came home, dropped Erik's stuff off and went out for dinner to the fugu restaurant. Even though I have been in Japan for five and a half years, I have never had fugu (blowfish). I know, that's sad. So we went out to the fugu restaurant for dinner and had the fugu course menu. It was so good! And we didn't die! We had a fugu skin salad as an appetizer, then fugu sashimi (raw fish) which was really nice and deep fried fugu. Then we had nabe - hot pot. That was super cool! Basically there was a burner built into the table. The waitress came by, put a bamboo basket on top of the burner, a piece of waxed paper inside, a metal plate on the bottom and filled it with broth - and the thing didn't go up in flames! Then the waitress came back with a plate full of veggies and pieces of fugu. The fugu was so fresh that the chunks were pulsing still. I kid you not. It was super cool. The nabe was delicious and we were stuffed, but then there was the soup dish. Basically rice and egg poured into the remaining broth from the hot pot. So we ate that and then were given a scoop of ice cream for dessert and pretty much had to waddle home. I'm very glad that I finally went and ate it. The course was expensive (fugu in general is) but i was great.

And the best part of the day - I didn't die from eating fugu. Or from cleaning (I never clean). Amazing.

Crappy 30 to Awesome 80

I upgraded my Mac today. I only had 2GB left on my drive. Yes, I know, "only" is relative. Especially considering that was the entire drive in my old laptop. Two gigs however is only three movies. So I popped on up to Akihabara (the electronic district) in search of a new drive.

I went to several stores and for some reason they all told me that an 80GB hard drive was too big to fit in my laptop - which didn't make sense to me because I thought they were a standard size. Turns out they are a standard size, so I could get the 80GB drive, but no one would install it for me. Finally I found a very helpful store that directed my to a repair shop that would install it. So I bought the drive, bought a case to turn my old drive into a portable one and wandered over.
I asked the guy how much it would cost and he said 10,000 yen and my job basically dropped. How much??? (That's like 100 bucks US). At this point I don't really have a choice, so I forked over the dough, and spent the next 45 minutes watching the guy disassemble and reassemble my baby. And, know what? It was worth every penny of the fee. There is no way I could have done it myself. By the time he actually got to the hard drive, my Mac was in literally 20 different pieces. (Note to do-it-yourselfers: an ice cube tray is a convenient place to organize and hold screws when you are taking things apart). The case was also on really tight - he had a hard time getting it off... even with the right tools (which I don't have). So all in all, it was money well spent in my opinion.

So now I have a whopping 80GB drive - yippee! And another 30GB as a backup / portable drive. I'm in drive space heaven!

AR5 - Episode 11

Excellent episode! Go bowling moms - Linda was the only woman to climb up that ladder and walk under the bridge. I'd be freaking out! And, I can't believe Collin and Christie weren't eliminated. Damn non-elimination rounds! I now have some sympathy for Collin - Christie is pretty psycho too. Notice that she was the only person who stood by the sidelines and yelled at their partner. Umm... it was a detour not a roadblock. You can actually do the task with Collin, Christie.
The episode was full of suspense and the yield was awesome - glare Collin, glare. Heh. Can't wait for next week!

Ultimate wireless spot

For the Tokyo readers who have wireless - I found the perfect wireless connection today. Tully's near Shibuya New South exit. The connection speed is great, my connection icon is maxed out, there is an outlet you can plug into for electricity and you can drink coffee. Excellent.

We need more power!

I forget what movie that line is from. Today I got 'more power' for my Mac though with a RAM upgrade thanks to a colleague at work. Now I've got 512 MG. I'm not sure if there is any real difference except my movies seem to be starting more smoothly. Now I can run ten million applications at once though and not have to worry :)
My colleague also suggested upgrading the hard drive rather than getting an iPod. Well, he said upgrade and then get one of the iPod mini's. I like this advice because the iPod mini is just really cute. Apparently you can buy a case for your old Mac hard drive and a firewire cable and then use it as a removable drive. Now that is cool. It would be nice to carry some movies around on my hard drive rather than delete them as soon as I watch them. Hmmm... things to spend my pay check on.

Am I Being Irradiated?

Funny how there was a mushroom cloud spotted in North Korea on Thursday and it is just being reported today. Isn't this something everyone should be concerned about? Mainly because, well Japan is in fallout distance??!! The current word is they "don't think" it was nuclear. That's not exactly reassuring.

Sorting out my music

I spent the evening organizing my music on my computer. Macintosh's iTunes program nicely organizes everything by artist, album, genre, song title or user assigned song rating. Great except most of this data was missing. So I added it all in. Which was frustrating because some, err a lot, of these songs were downloaded of the net and didn't have the artist's names spelled correctly... or wrong! Umm.. if you are going to upload a song to the internet, how hard is it to look at the CD and verify who sang it? Geesh.

So now I'm grooving to my tunes. I always forget to turn it on when I'm on the computer. I should start listening to music more. And, I am hoping to transfer all my CD's on here. Guess that means I need an href="http://www.apple.com/ipod/" target="_blank">iPod. Hah! Oh, I'm turning into a techie geek. But, this way Hiroshi and I can take music with us. The iBook doesn't have such a big hard-drive and music is taking up a big chunk of it. So, I'm going to go into the transfer and archive thing. Transfer the CD onto my hard-drive (or future iPod) and then archive them on my removable drive just in case.

Of course Hiroshi will be right upset if I only get one iPod. We'll be fighting over it. Hmm. The mini-iPods are so cute but they are only 4GB of space. Not so much once you get a whole CD library in digital format. Decisions, decisions. Maybe the iPod will be Hiroshi's and my xmas present to each other.

Plastic umbrella collection

As I was walking out of the house today to go to work, I looked at the little fold-up umbrella and though, nah, it's sunny out so I don't need it. Ha! Shouldn't have believed the weather as it has been rather schizophrenic lately having multiple personalities, if you will, throughout the day. So, yes, I got caught in the rain. Luckily, the conference center that I was at sold plastic vinyl umbrellas. For 500 yen I was able to save myself from getting drenched, and add one more darn plastic vinyl umbrella to my 'collection'.

I have about 20 of these sitting in my umbrella holder at home. It's nuts. (Yes, that's 10,000 yen, or US100 bucks, worth of umbrellas) Whenever someone comes over and it starts raining, they always have a small umbrella with them, so I can't give these things away! Really, I should set up my own business in these things, first off because I have inventory (geesh) and secondly because you can make a killing on these. They are well under 100 yen worth of material. That markup is huge. I could just park myself out in front of stations and sell the things. Lots of people would buy them. I could get rich via my plastic umbrella collection!

Quiet before and after the storm

Yesterday, was the first day in absolute ages that I got to sleep before 2am. It was heavenly. I woke up this morning and actually felt like I had slept! I should be able to relax for the rest of the week... and then the fun and games will start all over again!
Oh, and for those of you who follow href="http://blogs.bootsnall.com/theglobaltrip/" target="_blank">Erik's blog, I got a call from Erik last night. He'll be arriving in Tokyo soon. Guess that means I'll be spending this weekend (where I don't have to work except for Saturday morning) cleaning the house!

AR5 - Episode 10

Hurray! The twits are gone. Finally. Chip and Kim - big mistake on the yield, but they twins were still way behind (note the difference in how dark it was when they finally arrived) and perhaps you will need to use it later. Moms made a decent showing - and hey, they didn't get messed up at the airport! Collin was actually humane in this episode. Did he really apologize or was I in a caffeine induced hallucination?

As for the tasks - New Zealand is now so on the list of places to go. Going down the rapids? Awesome. I'm there. Rolling down a hill in a giant hamster ball - wheee fun! Hopefully they'll show a bit more of New Zealand's nature. Apparently it is beautiful, so I wanna see great footage!

So here's the mental calculation part, which I totally can't do in my current sleep deprived fate. I assume there are 13 episodes in a season, which only leaves three episodes to go. One of those is non-elimination. One of those brings the total teams down to three. And the last one is the big finale. So... next week is non-elimination? Or the week after I guess. My bets are on it being next week (episode 11). If it isn't that means everyone knows the following week (episode 12) has to be a non-elim round, which isn't any fun. Or is it? Three teams racing to the end for the last two episodes?

Typhoon mania

This year there has been a ton of typhoons. Someone told me that it is the most typhoons ever this year - although I haven't been able to verify the veracity of that claim. It sure seems like it anyway. It seems like every other day a typhoon is heading our way. Luckily most of them just hit Okinawa (well, not so lucky if you actually live in Okinawa). Tokyo has only caught the outer radius of them so far, which means we just get a lot of rain. Fine with me. It means it isn't hot.
One just went through Japan's northern island (Hokkaido) though which is very rare. They usually veer off towards Taiwan and China. There were billboards ripped off tops of buildings, flooding and all kinds of damage. Seems like this is natural disaster week or something. Quakes, typhoons... what's next?

Shake, Rattle and Roll

So I'm sitting at work last night when all of a sudden things started swaying around in circles... it was a big
earthquake, and one of the not nice ones. The ones that move in multiple directions are supposedly bad and this one had about 5 different axes of movement. It as also long. The longest quake I've ever experienced. The first few seconds of a quake are always cool, 30 seconds starts to get scary, a full minute... well, I started to feel a bit nauseous.
Apparently there was another one that was even bigger a couple hours later but as I was on the train at the time, I didn't feel it. Tsunami's were forecast and people were evacuated. Luckily the tsunami were only small... which to me is just weird, because I envision tsunami as being towering 20 foot tall waves.
Anyway, all ok at this end. The big one hasn't hit Tokyo yet. Knock on wood.

AR5 - Episode 9

I can't believe the twits are still in it! Good episode - lots of, who will be eliminated suspense. Glad that Brandon and Nicole didn't get eliminated. Their constant 'God's will' comments are a bit irritating, but they were a good team this episode.

Moms had an awesome attitude in India - note that they were the only people who said something nice while everyone else was complaining. Except Chip and Kim - they're always happy to be somewhere. But, moms, you're starting to feel the strain. They are coming across as whiney and overly lucky - not playing so well so much as luck. So Chip and Kim have become my fav team.

Collin is still psycho. Not sure if I want him or the twins gone more. He (and Christy) play well though - they are often the first team to arrive.

Those water slides in Dubai - I'm there! Hiroshi is not. He's convinced it is death on a slide. He doesn't like roller coasters either - big party pooper. Roller coasters are awesome (and the ones at Disneyland don't count - they suck). Dubai looks cool though. Definitely want to go to that flower market in in India - wow! Too bad no one picked that option on the detour. There were so many flowers! I just want to go and make a giant bouquet. Fun!

Hiroshi wants me to shave my head. I'd do it. I've always wanted to shave my head. Of course, he wants me to do it now, but I don't think that will go over so well at work. I've been putting it up everyday because it is so hot here. Ugh. Fall, please come soon! So, maybe when I'm in India, I'll shave my head... and then wear a headscarf all the time so I don't burn my scalp off ;)

crazy busy

I'm swamped with work - I've been up to 2am most nights for the past 2 weeks and haven't had a day off in 3. So, I won't be able to keep up with the blog over the next week. Will be back with daily entries next week!