Four days ago, I got hives all over my body after eating a row fish bowl from a grocery store. It freaked me out I might have experienced this when I was a child, but it was so long ago. This is called “Jinmashin” in Japanese. Looked like I got mosquito bites everywhere. I was by myself when I got them thinking whether I should go to hospital or not. Despite the awful look of the skin, I felt pretty normal. I researched online and took antihistamine. By the time Ken got home, hives were all gone. I had the company’s Christmas party next day at a sushi restaurant. I hesitated to eat row fish first, but ended up with eating more than anybody I thought I got fine, but the rashes came back last night They look so red and I started worrying about my immune system. I had some mosquito bites on my wrists a few days ago so I just washed covers. I guess they were part of my allergies that remained in my system. It seems happening always after I eat nuts. I couldn’t sleep last night, but the hives were gone by the morning. Today we managed to come to LA for X’mas. I reserved the old castle like hotel through Expedia. We were supposed to stay there for two nights (two nights minimum requirement). During driving, so fortunate to check email of the cancellation which they sent this morning I called the hotel and argued! The reason was that the old hotel had water leak after the heavy rain and had to cancel some reservations I fought to Expedia and after one hour of telephone conversation, we earned a free room in a different hotel. Luckily the original hotel has an opening tomorrow, so we get to stay there for one night The old hotel is really expensive. It was too much to stay there for two nights. We ended up saving one night and got lucky from an unlucky event I saw our friend was arguing with Expedia before, but I didn’t know that we had to go through this, too! The old hotel is bit far from LA and Ken was tired of driving. We get to stay in this Japanese town one night and able to get some good food here. All worked out well. Just thinking that it was a great timing I checked email early enough before we got to the original hotel.
Tomorrow we are going to Riverside. Looking forward to the hotel’s Christmas lightings which are supposed to be number one in California.
Last whole month was nightmare that my cat got sick and I thought she wouldn’t make it. We took her to ER and they gave her a wrong diagnosis. We spent $3000 on her Three days later, at the second ER visit, they finally found the right diagnosis, which was just UTI It was not life threatening disease but it could damage her organs if not treated right. First antibiotics didn’t work completely and the condition came back. We changed the vet and got different antibiotics. Finally finished 10 day dosage of the second round of antibiotics yesterday, I needed a break. We cancelled a big trip for her and changed to near by area. We came to LA. Around Thanksgiving we always come here since Japanese stores stay open and they have good cheap food. We had no plans plus it was raining. Until in the afternoon we didn’t know what to do. I decided to go to Griffith Observatory. I had been there in late ‘90s. At that time I just saw the city lights at night. Today I was surprised and impressed how nice it became.
Originally I wanted to hike to the Hollywood sign to strengthen my back but today wasn’t ideal weather wise and my back wise.
LA is usually smoggy but we could see it clearly after the rain.
Me and my mom (moon model).
After looking around, we saw a planetarium show. I love planetarium since when I was in elementary school. Calmful yet exciting and feeling like in the another place covered by the images inside of the round roof of the observatory.
After “Water is Life” show, we missed the sunset. We went to see a short documentary movie featuring Spock. Ken was saying something about Nimoy earlier and I finally knew what he was talking about! Leonard Nimoy Watching the documentary helped to understand the exhibitions more. This place was totally renovated and completed in 2002. No wonder it didn’t have a much impact on me in late 90s when it probably looked worn out The underground was added later
There were three planetarium shows. Since it was only $7 per adult, I wanted to see another show specially “Lighs of the Valkyries” but the timing wasn’t good. We took “ Centered in the Universe”. No photos were allowed in the planetarium.
Suddenly the place got really crowded. I should’ve taken pictures when there weren’t many people. I don’t get crazy taking photos in near by area. I needed my selfy stick.
Tesla coil.
Ceiling.
Still this is a nice photo.
I didn’t expect to see this much. We really had a great time.
We came back to our hotel area and tried this restaurant, Uni Club. First we thought it was a gay club It was really a sea urchin restaurant. Pricy but uni and coffe jelly were really good.
I have been in Japan for almost one week now for business but I finished my business on the first day . It had been very hot and humid due to the effect of typhoon 18 so I couldn’t wait to take a bath everyday. I’ve got to soak in hot springs in Japan!!! I cancelled an expensive hotel reservation in Narugo because the weather forecast said rain. I had been giving up going to hot springs, but the forecast changed to sunshines in the afternoon on the destination that I wanted to go for a day trip. I just quickly got ready with no make ups and headed to Ginzan onsen. Driving about an hour and half, my father and I arrived there just enough time to take a bath for a couple of hours. I got to use the outside pool by myself for a while until other ladies came in Nice!
After bathing, I walked Ginzan hot spring town eating the special products: curry bread, Ginzan tofu, and manju. We expected to eat soba, but the restaurant was down the hill and my father couldn’t walk there due to hernia.
I enjoyed by myself walking this Taisho era retro theme town. Beautiful
Ashiyu, foot hot spring.
This water was super hot!
On the way back up to Takimikan, I took a different route which was much steeper, but I got to see some interesting spots.
This is in the cave.
Bat hole! I went inside but it was so deep! I gave up going further to see bats because I was by myself.
On the way back, there was a water fountain. It was delicious and super cold! It is supposed to give a long life
My hair and skin feel so good after the hot spring. I need a selfie enhancer app to put my pics in public
The final day of this trip, we took trains to Geneva airport and checked in at the hotel near by.
The hotel had a city transportation service. We took an advantage of the offer and went to the center of Geneva. So many buses! The wires look crazy
Swans
Somebody was giving them food.
They were everywhere.
Cute ducks, too!
Minikui Ahirunoko
Bench! Good idea!
My bangs were messed up
This area is super expensive: Rolex, Tiffany, and Four Seasons. All expensive brand shops and hotels.
Expensive car, too!
Ken got tired of walking. We took a break by the lake.
Dinner was from 7 pm and we were too early.
After the break, we tried to find a restaurant which is a non Swiss food.
We stopped at Coop. I had never seen these flowers which were sold there. We found a cheap alley where McDonald’s and Japanese franchise restaurant were. I had to eat Japanese food
I completed this blog next day. I was so sleepy last night. We are flying back home today
We saved today for Jungfrauoch because the weather forecast said sunny all day long. We didn’t have to rush to eat breakfast.
View from our room.
We missed a train, but it comes every half an hour. Lauterbrunnen is the terminal, so the trains sit there for a long time. I’d rather miss a train than rushing and taking a shitty seat.
As soon as the train started moving, amazing views kept coming into my eyes. This shot would be the best shot if the church wasn’t on the construction. I actually have the similar photo that I got from an internet on my iPad lock screen. I see it everyday. I was looking for the view. No wonder I couldn’t find it until today because the clock tower was on the construction
These photos were taken from the train.
Cows on the top.
Great shot from the train!
Everybody thought the same thing. They reserved this sunny day for Jungfrauoch. Too crowded! At the transfer station, we just missed a train again and stood on the first row
Our train finally came!
Yellow train shot.
Arrived! Top of Europe!
We headed to Sphinx first. It was so windy and cold. I couldn’t take good photos.
Ice Palace was similar to the one in Matterhorn Glacier Paradise, but the walking paths were all ice and slippery.
Then we went to Plateau and went back in! Too windy and cold!
Bought some souvenirs and looked the chocolate shop.
Then we went back to the tour route to see missed ones. Before reaching to the missed tour points, we went up to Sphinx again to see if it got warmer.
Yes it got warmer.
We looked for Panorama movie, but we couldn’t find it. Probably under the construction. So we did the same route and came back to Alpine Sensation. I told Ken to sit on the lap of the old man I think his breath was stinky
Now Plateau in the acceptable condition.
I see! This was where we could see Sphinx!
There was a good picture point where you could see Sphinx and a Swiss flag. We waited in the line to take the photo, but suddenly it got covered by clouds and no view of Sphinx. We gave it up.
Back on the train. Red train shot!
Love this contrast of white and green!
View from our hotel’s restaurant. Clear line of the shadow and sunny side.
We guessed the restaurant was expensive but it was reasonable. The owner’s boy who was about 12 years old was helping the restaurant.
Sunset time. Our bathroom window with reflections of restaurant lights.
Half moon!
Waterfall lights up at night. We will miss this view very much.
Today we walked to see waterfalls in Lauterbrunnen.
This is the hotel I reserved first because it was close to Staubbachfall. I believe the owner is from California. I had to change the hotel because it was far from the station.
The cutest cemetery I have ever seen! They plant flowers in front of tombstones. Great idea!
Two waterfalls in one picture!
Goats were resting underneath the trees.
The guidebook says Trümmelbachfälle is 45 minutes walk from our hotel. Long way to go forward!
View behind, where we came from.
Cutting cross the open field was nice!
Arrived!
First we took the elevator to the point 6 then walked up to the highest where we could access.
Beautiful Lauterbrunnen valley.
So many steps!
Then I started pretending falling down in the picture making funny faces. Ken did it, too
We took a bus on the way back. It was still around 2pm and weather was good.
I didn’t plan anything afterwards today. Since Wengen is only 15 minutes away, we decided to go there for lunch.
Many restaurants were closed.
Cute pharmacy.
Well, we couldn’t find a nice restaurant, so we headed to Interlaken. I needed clothes badly. Most of our clothes are dirty now. I bought two clothes for me and one for Ken. We ate at two places: all the way to near Interlaken West and had a Thai curry then back to near Interlaken Ost and had Chinese food. Ken liked this car.
Because of a lot of stairs, our leg muscles are hurt. Back to our hotel. Night night
This mountain weather is always sunny in the morning and rain in the early afternoon.
After we returned the rental car, we took a train from Interlaken Ost to Grindelwald.
People were enjoying paragliders. Flying very low
Arrived at Grindelwald.
Gondola ride to First to do Cliff Walk.
Lamas.
People wait to do this shot!
Cliff Walk!
Cliff Walk was short! Coffee break warming up ourselves.
Then we were going to First Flyer. Waited in the line about one hour, the weather didn’t last and we gave it up.
Now we are eating at the restaurant warming up.
Probably that’s more like Ken’s favorite thing to do
I didn’t use my luck and wish very hard for the good weather this time because we got a great weather at Riffelsee. Outside is all covered by clouds and freezing. I don’t want to move
Oh well.
Flyer was closed, but we did Glider in the rain. No refund, so make my money worth it
Totally got wet! I couldn’t see the front because of the rain. Half fun, but we did it
Updating the blog in the gondola
We missed a train, so we ate dinner in Grindelwald. The same name as our last hotel.
I always wanted to try fondue, but I didn’t like the smell. Finally tried the traditional one! Haha! I didn’t like it Just an experience!
Updated the blog in the train I think I can practice guitar tonight
One of the reasons why we rented a car was because I wanted to do Funiculars. I get a lot of trip ideas from Facebook. Since I am a traveler, they advertise to show up in my sight When I saw the world steepest train, I decided to do it! It looked like the rain would start in the afternoon, so we rushed there and made it!
Climbing up first and we took the back of the funicular.
Beautiful dam was right there on the top!
People wrote on the ground.
It started raining and was cold. We decided to go back and stayed in the line so that we could get the front row.
Let’s go!
We couldn’t see the rails ahead!
Girls behind of us didn’t want to be in the picture
Next to the funicular’s ticket box, there was a hanging bridge!
The view below.
A cute restaurant on the way to the next funicular.
Reichenbach funicular! This one was not as steep as Gelmerbahn funicular. It has to do with Sherlock Holmes but I don’t know why
We didn’t expect to hike, but we kept going up. Look! People were way up there
Looking down.
We had a break at the restaurant on the top. It didn’t have to do with Sherlock Holmes
The restaurant.
Drove all the way back to where we came from to see cute houses around Frutigen.
Interlaken was full of cute buildings and we didn’t really have to go back to see them I had fun driving in Switzerland though
My uncle collects woods for his fireplace. Enough for him
We waited for goats to pass by in the morning, but they didn’t come because of Zermatt marathon No wonder the village was so crowded! Good that we checked out and rushed to take a train to Visp.
Then we rented a car. Nice
We were so glad that driving a car was much easier and luxurious than riding a train and felt like home. We saw so many beautiful views that a guide book never told you about.
We stopped by Leukerbad Therme. I am such a hot spring freak While we looked for the parking, we saw real Peter’s goats
The therme looked smaller than the images on internet, but we enjoyed it. There were a lot of different types of bubble jet massagers everywhere in their outdoor pools.
It was a luxury to soak in the hot springs facing the huge rock wall and the waterfall.
Three hours past very quickly. This poster is similar to Ken’s name
Hamburger without a bun. Good french fries! I ordered Neapolitan, which wasn’t good and gave me a stomachache later.
Driving watching amazing views!
We were enjoying driving then GPS led us to this wired thing we had never seen before! We had to pay almost CHF 30 for the toll Then we had to wait like 20 minutes at the traffic light. I started reading the pamphlet written in German. It was a car transport train Because there was no road, the train carried cars to go through the long tunnel.
They instructed us to park very close to the car in front. Since we didn’t have to drive, the ride felt like a Disneyland’s ride Actually the train was really fast and shook a lot! What an experience!
Going through cute village and the beautiful blue lake, but I couldn’t take photos because I had a stomachache. I can’t remember the name of the village
According to the forecast, today was only sunny day in a whole week. Gornergrat was extra crowded! We managed to take one and went up on the steep railway.
It was different from Matterhorn Glacier Paradise, but we were totally spoiled for amazing views.
Arrived!
I couldn’t believe Ken was bored I had to go beyond those rocks by myself.
Ken stayed there a whole time
Might as well enjoy it!
I went back where Ken was sitting.
After a coffee break, we left.
Too many people
We got off at Rotenboden and hiked down to see the mirror image of Matterhorn in Riffelsee.
OMG! Breathtaking view Amazing!!!!!
Got a perfect one
Today’s highlight was this lake!
Double mountains in the reflection!
We decided to hike to the next station.
Another lake!
We took a longer route because we didn’t want to go up the hill. I was thinking this was the bottom part of Matterhorn, but more and more kept coming up!
I kept seeing this face It looked like Quincy Jones See my earlier blog. The upper lip was puffed
Little creek.
Wow one more lake!
Two more!
The bottom part yet?
Flowers enhance the beauty of mountains.
Wow we walked this much
We saw Matterhorn behind of us!
Gornergrat was up there!
Almost the station, then we saw this church!
Wow Sheep
I am a sheep (animal horoscopes). My friends!
That was the second highlight of the day!
Ken said it pooped
It looked like a big Marathon would take a place soon. I am at the goal! Yay!
A big PA!
We made it to the cafeteria at Riffelberg. Pork curry was good.
My imitation of catalogue shot: Matterhorn behind of Gornergrat Train I couldn’t get to the higher level in time to take a better photo
Time to go back to Zermatt.
There, the start point of the marathon.
Back to Bahnhofstrasse.
We had been saving by eating McDonald’s every night. The final night of this trip in Zermatt, we decided to go out. Because of super pricy village, we came back to eat a course menu at our hotel.
The soup was terrible and salad bar looked awful, but the main dish and the desert were good.
I might have experienced this when I was a child, but it was so long ago. This is called “Jinmashin” in Japanese. Looked like I got mosquito bites everywhere. I was by myself when I got them thinking whether I should go to hospital or not. Despite the awful look of the skin, I felt pretty normal. I researched online and took antihistamine. By the time Ken got home, hives were all gone. I had the company’s Christmas party next day at a sushi restaurant. I hesitated to eat row fish first, but ended up with eating more than anybody 
I thought I got fine, but the rashes came back last night 
They look so red and I started worrying about my immune system. I had some mosquito bites on my wrists a few days ago so I just washed covers. I guess they were part of my allergies that remained in my system. It seems happening always after I eat nuts. I couldn’t sleep last night, but the hives were gone by the morning. Today we managed to come to LA for X’mas. I reserved the old castle like hotel through Expedia. We were supposed to stay there for two nights (two nights minimum requirement). During driving, so fortunate to check email of the cancellation which they sent this morning 
I fought to Expedia and after one hour of telephone conversation, we earned a free room in a different hotel. Luckily the original hotel has an opening tomorrow, so we get to stay there for one night 
The old hotel is really expensive. It was too much to stay there for two nights. We ended up saving one night and got lucky from an unlucky event 
I saw our friend was arguing with Expedia before, but I didn’t know that we had to go through this, too! The old hotel is bit far from LA and Ken was tired of driving. We get to stay in this Japanese town one night and able to get some good food here. All worked out well. Just thinking that it was a great timing I checked email early enough before we got to the original hotel. 
It was not life threatening disease but it could damage her organs if not treated right. First antibiotics didn’t work completely and the condition came back. We changed the vet and got different antibiotics. Finally finished 10 day dosage of the second round of antibiotics yesterday, I needed a break. We cancelled a big trip for her and changed to near by area. We came to LA. Around Thanksgiving we always come here since Japanese stores stay open and they have good cheap food. We had no plans plus it was raining. Until in the afternoon we didn’t know what to do. I decided to go to Griffith Observatory. I had been there in late ‘90s. At that time I just saw the city lights at night. Today I was surprised and impressed how nice it became. 
. It had been very hot and humid due to the effect of typhoon 18 so I couldn’t wait to take a bath everyday. I’ve got to soak in hot springs in Japan!!! I cancelled an expensive hotel reservation in Narugo because the weather forecast said rain. I had been giving up going to hot springs, but the forecast changed to sunshines in the afternoon on the destination that I wanted to go for a day trip. I just quickly got ready with no make ups and headed to Ginzan onsen. Driving about an hour and half, my father and I arrived there just enough time to take a bath for a couple of hours. I got to use the outside pool by myself for a while until other ladies came in 
Nice!
I couldn’t get to the higher level in time to take a better photo 
