Manhattan Beach

Played a gig last Saturday. I just like this pic so much because I look like a robot 

Then finally our mini vacation time! Driving in April is beautiful! We didn’t know because we always travel to Europe this time of the year. With a lot of rain, California is very green and we enjoyed scenic views.

Turned in my guitar to the repair shop and we arrived at hotel almost midnight. The room is bigger than we thought and Ken likes it 

Breakfast is included and Ken’s favorite scramble eggs and sausages were there.

We went to pick up money from the consignment shop for purses I sold and I felt rich  We had no plan afterwords so we went to the beach near by. There are nice boutiques and I bought some stuff. Before Ken got too bored, I had to take him to drink  This restaurant looked nice and it was perfect weather to sit outside.

This kind of restaurant, waiters are bugging us for more orders, so we just stayed for one drink. Then we went closer to the beach, but I found another boutique and bought something again. Ken needed more drink so we chose the restaurant closest to the beach. All the tables by the window were reserved and we had to go to the bar. Luckily a nice table opened up and we enjoyed the sunset. 

After the sunset, we walked to the pier. This beach is beautiful and full with rich people. 

This is the second restaurant we had some drinks 

We ate at our favorite Japanese food court and now back at the hotel. I really like this backpack I bought. It gets compact and very light. Great for traveling I started liking this brand. 

Happy Seventeen!

We celebrated our anniversary a day early because everywhere would be super crowded and over priced tomorrow. We went to a small town by the sea to hang out before our dinner reservation. We checked the forecast, but weather changes quite a bit near the water. When we had a late lunch at the Treehouse cafe, it started sprinkling. It was ok under the big umbrella, so we stayed outdoor. 

We wanted to leave a space on stomach for dinner, so we shared a plate. It used to be better though 🤔

It was too cold to walk around.

So we went to another restaurant to get a dessert. All we enjoy is food anyway  My favorite stores are no longer there. 

This is the second restaurant we chose. 

I just took this picture. Ken wasn’t posing, but I caught a good moment. He looks really nice in this pic 

Inside the restaurant is nice. I like the wall paintings, but the music was too middle eastern  There are so many Greek restaurants in this town. 

Ceiling 

Since it was so cold and I wanted to leave early, we decided to have dinner an hour earlier than our  reservation. 

I put a special request for a semi-private table at the time of reservation, but they seated us next to people in the conservatory room. I like the room, but I wanted more privacy. 

Ken’s snobby look in high class restaurants 

I asked for more private table. Luckily the place wasn’t crowded yet and we got a table in front of the fire place. The guy seated us said this room would be packed in an hour. At that time we were the only ones in that room👍

Ken’s imitation of Clint Eastwood because he lives in this city 

Got to eat sardines at the Sardine factory 

We were so full after the two restaurants, so nothing looked appetizing on the menu. We just ordered the cheapest on the menu, humburgers. 

We couldn’t even finished them, but I asked for the desert menu. Then the waiter told us that they prepared a cake for us because of our anniversary  How nice! I was expecting a typical overly sweet American cake, but they brought a delicious chocolate cake, which wasn’t very sweet at all!  This is one of the best chocolate cakes I have ever had! 

After all, nobody except us were seated in the room until we finished the dinner.

This is our original seats, which were packed like a sardine can 

Our private room!

Thank you for the nice balloon, Ken ❤️

Our cat was scared of this 

Simon Phillips Protocol

I woke up remembering my dream today. It was very nice. I was taking my family and cousins to my favorite place. I have never been there, but I dreamt about this place before. Beautiful mountains with snow and green field with flowers in spring. I feel so nice when my mom is in my dream. Today is my favorite Greg Howe’s concert! He is in the awesome drummer’s band, Simon Phillips Protocol. They were supposed to be in our area in December, but Simon’s house got in LA fire and they cancelled their shows. Rescheduled show was today and became the last show of this tour. I was looking forward to it and made this for my valentine’s gift for my husband. 

I had to work daytime so I told Ken to come to my office ten minutes til six. He showed up 25 minutes later  I was ok until we hit the traffic and our ETA said almost the show time. Considering parking, being in a line, and finding seats, we had to leave much earlier. As the traffic got worse and an accident just happened five cars in front of us, we were stuck! I gave up on catching the beginning of the show and started complaining to him why he got late. He didn’t even say sorry. I had to ask him “Is there anything you need to say to me?” Then he said “He didn’t want to go to the concert.” Huh? He is a big fan of Greg and I told him before it was my valentine gift for him. Knowing that and he told me that! I thought my husband is an asshole! Then he said he was still sick from the flu and didn’t feel good. I wish he could tell me that from the beginning 🖕

Luckily we found a parking and got into the concert hall in time. We were so late that there was no line. All the seats were taken, but we found the empty table, which was reserved for some people. It was in the middle and elevated. The people who reserved the seats didn’t show up  We ended up with good seats with no wait and no cost on parking 👍 

I was so hungry and ordered sushi and karaage. Ate too much lol. It’s nice to be able to have dinner while watching the band. Amazing drummer! Keyboard player was great also, but they are not my instrument. Greg was always amazing. I wish he was louder though. All I wanna hear is his guitar 🎸 During the drum solo, Greg was warming up his fingers. I felt related to him because I do the same. He is so amazing that makes me think he is a robot who plays fabulous automatically, but after seeing him warming up, he is a human who makes a lot of effort to stay on the world top level. 

Many of Ken’s friends were also at the show. They kept asking me to take a picture with Greg. He was busy with fans and I didn’t want to be on the way. When finally less people were around him, we took pictures with him. When I give a compliment to his playing, he always say “You are nice”. I usually say “thank you” to our audience. Next time, I should say like him lol. 

Namm 2018

This year’s Namm, we couldn’t get the close by hotel. I didn’t want to get crazy to catch every single demonstration of my guitar heros. We didn’t check the demo schedules, but luckily we caught two Frank Gamble’s and Kurt Rosenwinkel’s demonstrations. It was our first time seeing Kurt. OMG! He is amazing!!! Of course Frank was amazing as usual and very nice person. I asked for his pick. I wanted to know with what kind of pick he can create such nice sweeping techniques. He had only two left, but he gave one of them😊

We saw bunch of guitarists walking around. Nita was promoted so much this year to have her picture next to the most famous Ibanez artists.

Ethan wasn’t as nice to me as last year. He haven’t even replied me in messenger. We are FB friends, but his buddy, Nathan, who is also a great guitar player recognized us and gave hi five when we pass each other on the escalators going opposite directions. 

Saw Doug demonstrating, but we didn’t stay. Then this amazing guitar player, Kurt!!!

All the pictures of jazz players are almost all the same lol

Ken wanted to see his pedal board. It is wired complicated lol 

Now we are at House of Blues catching my old high school songs, Extreme with LA Guns. The security was strong and we suffered being in a long line, but we got a short cut 🤪

They are coming up next! 

Nuno is killing it!

I think they played only one song?! from their first album, which is my favorite. As Extreme fan, it was little disappointing, but they are great musicians. Finished the show with Queen’s song, “We are the Champions”. I am honored that I am also a friend with Nuno on FB. I have really cool FB friends 😃

Run into Ethan and Nathan after the show. Nathan remembered our names and gave hugs. Ethan was just busy and apologized not to reply my message. After all they are very nice people. And killer guitar players. They can play as much as Nuno including my hub 😉 Promised to catch their demos tomorrow. 

I think House of Blues moved or remodeled??? We didn’t see LA Guns. There must be another concert hall next to it. 

Le Miserable

Not the play. Just having miserable Christmas holiday. This flu was the worst that I experienced in my life. The fever hadn’t gone down  It started on Christmas Eve. My guitar arm which was injured by the young chiropractor started aching so much, then the whole body started aching. No wonder I had 100F fever. Took flu medications and rested. It was really painful. Normally it takes a day or two to reduce a fever, but this time it didn’t go down. I thought it did, so we went to get a Christmas cake. 

The fever came back. I had a hair appointment on the following day. I was trying to go there so I took a bath and got ready. However my body was aching so much, I managed to move my appointment to the next day. That night was the worst I felt with pounding headache, fast heart beat and so much heat. I thought I experienced the worst pain when I was hospitalized in 2011, but I didn’t know this year’s flu is this much powerful. I was seriously going to be crazy. I just got over with a cold from Japan that was not even a comparison. This flu is ten times worse   On the day of my new hair appointment, I couldn’t lower my fever.  I cancelled the appointment. It was originally on 20th, but my hair stylist had flu and cancelled the appointment. Then I got this from my customer! The fever lasted four days in the row and my body got so weak. Luckily Ken had been home and took care of me somewhat. Taken care by a man is limited. He is not my mother. Eating canned chicken soup or I still had to cook my own meal. Day 5 of flu today, I feel little better. Still slight fever with a lot of mucus and body aches. I took a sick leave from work, but I managed to go to the market to get some food. On the way back home, I see people walking. I was wondering how these people can stay well. Almost one week to our first show in 2018, a lot of plans were not accomplished. I was gonna finish recording one song this Christmas, but it was postponed. The injury that the young chiropractor gave to my guitar hand is the biggest concern. I couldn’t do my hair. And I gained weight just drinking sweet full of sugar orange juice for vitamin C everyday and just sleeping  Playing a gig with a lot of obstacles is hard, but fans don’t understand it. I have to sound and look good on the stage no matter what. There is no place I can give an excuse and it is stressful. This is the only place I can express my real feelings because the readers don’t know who I am. Hopefully my fever goes back to normal tomorrow. I still have one more sick leave tomorrow. You can’t underestimate flu. 

Photo shoot

Today we had a photo wedding appointment. The reason why we are doing this is because we never had our wedding ceremony. We took wedding dress pictures about 5 years ago. This time is Kimono! It was really expensive, but it was one of my bucket list. I almost cancelled this before because they were adding extra charges such as hair accessory rental fees and underwear fees. I thought everything was included! They didn't allow us to take pictures, but I argued about it. They didn't want to lose our business so they allowed us to take our own pictures and gave me free accessory rental. I had an extra income by selling an expensive item before this trip so I kept the appointment. 

Wearing Kimonos is so hard! I almost got suffocated  I have never expected that I had to wear layers of layers of kimonos! Wedding kimonos are different from regular kimonos and I didn't know it! I didn't want to look fat! Since we came to Japan, we gained like 5 lbs! The kimonos were so heavy. It was a lot of work just wearing them. These pictures were taken by my make up artist (not professional camera man). She was very nice! 

My father kept saying" poor Ken" because  I involve him to do a lot of things that he probably doesn't want to do. 

Luckily the falls were lit up! 

I felt like we became Hina dolls 

At the dressing room before taking off kimonos. 

Way lighter now! 

 I kept my hair style on the top. I like it  Professional make up is nice, too! 

We went out eating dinner. Leaving for USA tomorrow. 

Checking in Gajoen!

Leaving Hakata was sad because I don't know if I can come back here. My friend and her boy came to see us off The boy really likes Ken. He skipped school to see us off  Also he started playing guitar influenced by Ken. Ken started playing guitar at his age, too! How cute! Hope to see them in the US. 

Look the watch! It took ten minutes to take this shot! I was tired of smiling! Ken has no visual sense to take pictures. Plus a homeless person was walking around there. I didn't want to include him in the picture! 

On the way back to Tokyo, we were able to see Mt. Fuji from the bullet train! It was beautiful 

Then we checked in Gajoen. Only two days left in Japan in this trip, hoping this hotel is good. It has to be because it's expensive! The inside is impressive! The front desk being on the 8th floor is odd, but the room is nice! 

View from the window. 

Even there is a private sauna 

And this is the second restroom! This is for #2 for Ken so that he doesn't stink up a whole room 

A huge room! We probably won't use this area lol.

Inside the hotel is nice! 

This is the bathroom 

I wanted to eat Chinese food. While looking for the restaurant outside the hotel, I saw the rock club sign! I didn't realize this place is so close to Rokumeikan. Years ago, my friend and I came here to see 44 magnum and they cancelled the show! Glad that we were finally able to see Earthshaker together.

The Chinese food restaurant wasn't good. We came Japan to enjoy food. If food is no good, I want my stomach space and money back! On the top of salty non tasty food, I fell on the step of the entarance when we were leaving the restaurant. It has a tape on the stopper. I bet a lot of people miss the step!  I got bruises 

These two pictures are the inside of the public restroom. The best looking bathroom I've ever seen! 

Ken was tired and grumpy. He didn't take my pictures, but smiled for the camera. 

 

Canal City

We went to Canal City for dinner. It is much closer to our hotel than I thought.  

Wow my favorite character, Moomin's cafe is here  We were cold because our hotel is cold, so we had to eat something hot. We have to come back here for a desert! 

I studied about Canal City online, but it is more beautiful than I thought 

We caught the fountain show. It said the world 's biggest or the best fountain show here in Hakata! 

I was cold so I set up my mind to eat Hakata ramen. I had been wanting to eat at Ramen Studium! 

We chose Hide chan restaurant. 

Then Moomin's cafe!!! Snafu kin , my favorite guitar player Lol. 

I think they are over weight 

I ordered these deserts because we can bring cups home 

Another dated hotel and my birth place

We checked in this hotel last night. I was so excited to relax here because it looked very nice on their website and it has a private outside bath. No wonder it is cheap! The hotel has no non-smoking rooms and lack of updates. The cigarette smell was so aweful and I couldn't sleep well even the air cleaner is on right next to me. 

Kinda spooky bath. 

The pictures look good, but they don't show the smell and details. We'd rather stay in a non-smoking small room  My headache lasted all day from this smell. 

I took three pain killers (normally two) and managed to visit the address where I was born. 

The hospital was there, but now there are apartment buildings. 

This is so funny! It says Ken Home 

It really says Aiken Home. Then Ken said "I came home". Wow! That's a coincidence! Also Ai means Love in Japanese. Love Ken Home Wow 

Around the hospital. 

This house must be there when I was born. 

Then we had a coffee break at the near by bakery.

So cute! This is called the gift from Piaf.

We are in the reflection of the mirror. 

I asked how old this bakery is. It is about 35-6 years old, so it wasn't here when I was born. I told the chef lady the reason why we came here. Then she told me that the same doctor was working until about 10 years ago! He passed away about 5 years ago, but his wife still comes to shop the cakes here! 

Now we are back in the hotel. I will show you how dated this hotel is! Pictures look still better. 

We gave up taking our shoes off. The floor is filthy. 

Rug stains are everywhere. 

Filthy corner. 

Non-working heater.

The cigarette smell is still there and I can't go inside. I am freezing here writing my blog.

I will never stay in a cheap filthy hotel anymore! 

Fukuoka

We came to Fukuoka! Visiting my birth place is the main reason for this trip. I had to do this before JR stops selling their passes to green card holders. It happened to be the weekend of SoftBank's championship parade and Sumo in Fukuoka. I couldn't reserve a hotel on Saturday night since they jumped up the price almost 10 times   I had to ask my friend for one night lodging. My friend from my college in LA happened to live close to where I was born. We exchange birthday gifts every year and kept the friendship for 20 years. Yes, it's been 20 years since I saw her last time! She came to pick us up at the station. When she saw me, her eyes became full of tears. Mine were, too  

Luckily she won a housing lottery, which offered 50% off to build a brand new model house. Her house is only three years old, huge, and beautiful  Her family is rich that her father in law is a company owner. 

They took us to a Yakitori restaurant, which was really good! They let us sleep on their bed! 

When the alarm clock rang this morning, I dropped my phone accidentally and realized the phone installed the updates by itself! Since I don't have a phone connection in Japan, I can't get the verification code! That means my phone is useless! From the screen of Hello (first screen to set up a brand new phone), it can't go any further  Why update now  All my info is in my phone! I had to retrieve necessary info for this trip from my friend's phone including my return flight! I have to use Ken's phone, which does not take as nice pictures as my iPhone  I can't complain because I can't do anything about it. Very inconvenient! 

These photos were taken by Ken's iPhone.

First my friend took us to Dazaihu by a train. I was least interested in this place, but I had to go there because it was one of the memorable places where my mom visited with my dad. 

Umegaemochi was delicious!!! No pic here. Too busy just eating 

Dazaihu is God of education. Touching this cow is supposed to make us smarter 

Nice kouyou (changing colors of leaves) season! 

Pigeons 

Flying plums  The old story is that this tree chased it's owner when he moved from Kyoto and planted by itself here in one night. My friend told us

Chrissnthanums festival. 

This monkey was a great performer! Which one? On the right 

Well, I don't want to show her pic to public, but this is such a nice picture. I had to post it. She is a great house wife of her good looking husband and a mother of three beautiful children! 

Then her family joined us and took us to the restaurant inside Hilton. This is very luxurious Hilton! 

So fresh squids! 

Fukuoka dome! Opening the roof of this dome costs 1 million dollars! Really? 

Live squids

Popular wedding place. 

Nice colored dresses! 

Then they took us to Fukuoka tower. 

My old house is behind the hill on the right. 

Illusive pictures, but not perfect because they show some reflections. 

The copy of the newspaper of my birthday. 

I also purchased a message card from the moon. I wanted to think the message was from my mother since her Buddha name contains the moon, a Kanji character.  It says my way is open for my ideal goal, so I should go for it 

Behind us on the rails, couples buy key locks and put them. My friend's boy wanted his parents to do it so that they won't be separated. How sweet! 

This nice family gave us a whole tour! They took us to Yusen Japanese garden. It was cold, but nice views. Suddenly Ken's phone's battery died  I have only one picture here. Straw roof. 

Then we stopped by the place where I lived the first year of my life. It's almost 50 years ago lol, so the address was actually changed when the city made district divisions as population increased. I asked the district office to identify the current address from the old address. My friend took some pictures there for me. I am waiting for her to send them to me. Very important. 

My friend looked so happy surrounded by her family. Very warm and cheerful family. Also they have the cutest dog just like a doll  I grew up in the small family, so I never appreciate the warmth of a family, but I really appreciate it this time. Their hospitality is amazing including the dog lol. They said she never been on the laps of anybody except the family members, but she came on my laps 

I am so happy for my friend that she raised such a nice family. 

I had so many funny typos here  Now trying to correct all.