Exploring the resort

Because of my headache, we started late today. People are always hanging out at the lobby in Moose Lodge. We found time when nobody was there.

These ducks are real lol. Their pond is frozen and they are trying to be warm.

I haven’t seen icicles probably since Finland.

Cute massage cottage.

And this is it!!! Hot spring which we came here for!

My hand print

Back into the main lobby. There is only one tiny restaurant in this resort. It was so crowded last night.

We waited a few minutes to be seated under the buffalo. Since it was always crowded, we ordered food to go as well. I got salmoned out: salmon pasta, salmon steak, salmon sandwich

Alaskan salmon was supposed to be good but the chef wasn’t good

We have no other food choices for another couple of days.

Then we decided to do ice museum tour. My headache wasn’t well enough to take a bath yet.

Apple martini was in the glass made of ice.

Activity center and gift shop.

We waited to take a bath until it got dark.

Still there were a lot of people but it was nice that we didn’t see well covered by steams.

Temperature, size and the depth was good and ski got smoother. We will bathe during the day tomorrow. I always wanted to bathe outdoor with snow. Hoping to see northern lights tomorrow.

Alaska!

It’s been a year since our last vacation. Before domestic airline’s restrictions get tighter, it is time to travel

Left my house around 6AM. Here I am in Alaska first time! This wooden bear is the big version of my wooden bear from Lake Tahoe!

Everything went smoothly even snowed on our way to the resort. I didn’t expect this much snow in October! Feel like we are in X’mas world

Chena river

End of the paved road.

Airplane and Ice Museum

We can see the airplane from our room.

Nice size, clean and warm room. I like it! We were so tired and went to sleep straight. Not much access to food. Only one restaurant which was packed. We woke up with headache from all the snacks we ate last night Today we will experience this hot spring resort.

Dear Mother

Dear Mom,

it’s 22 days after the birthday in Japan time. I will be older than you tomorrow. Thank you for giving birth to me and raising me I am well and spent time today at San Clemente.

I bought a nice table that was painted by a local artist.

This is how I look now at the same age of you.

And my daughter, Kiwi, is still trying to suck milk on my neck lol.

I miss you so much but I will not go there for a long time because you gave my life.

And Olympic in Japan started!

Mom’s Age

Today I became the same age as my mother. When I lost her, reaching her age was my goal. Now I got greedy. I want to live longer and experience more things.

Since we have a three month old kitten, we celebrated my birthday locally. Ken isn’t good at planning so I planned by myself Nothing fancy but fun!

I really wanted this bag of Kura Sushi’s giveaway We went there yesterday but we decided to eat there today just to get this bag because the promotion started today. I think it is totally stupid to go through this trouble just to get the bag. I wouldn’t even buy this kind of bag for $3 I joined the waiting list online. It said 90 minutes wait! We planned to arrive there in 90 minutes but we were called within half an hour Of course we missed the position. Then we joined another waiting list and it was even longer wait! This online waiting thing doesn’t work! Waitresses were terrible and food quality got worse. A lot of my favorites were missing. Japanese franchise restaurants start very well but once they get bigger in US, they become US quality. Kura is one of them When we got there, we complained about the waiting list and had them seat us right away. I made sure to get the bag

Got it

I remember once upon a time, I was a friend of Kerokero Keroppi’s real creator, Tomoe. She used to work for Sanrio and drew the character. I went to a language school with her in San Francisco. I wonder how she is doing.

Afterwards we might as well stroll in Little Tokyo. There were a lot of people! It looked so different from 20 semi years ago

The reason why we chose Little Tokyo location was because Echo Park was near by. I wanted to do Swan Ride Here we go! They never sell out

Ken was sweating to pedal the boat. He should’ve just let it float

This blue beak bird was so beautiful

LA!

Got food?

I wonder the front bird is their mother. They like lining up

We got number 69! My year!

Then we went to the restaurant that once we cancelled a 5pm reservation but made a 5:45pm reservation again

I got this from Yelp. I wanted to try a restaurant with Michelin star once.

We were the first one. I love it when nobody is around us!

Salad was delicious

I wanted more appetizers since the salad was so good!!!

Ken closed eyes

But main dishes lacked flavors and tastes. I think it was better ordering meat instead of seafood here.

They gave me a complementary desert! Apple pie was so delicious

I was so red after drinking a very good glass of wine. No after taste

It is called Blanc Limet from Nevada.

The chef came to greet us at the end. That was nice!

It was like the TV show “ Chef is a Master Detective”. My favorite actor Hidetoshi Nishijima is a chef

Drove back the coast line watching the sunset with the battleship. Kiwi was waiting.

Welcome Kiwi

Finally the kitten is here! Since I met her on Mother’s Day, I asked the breeder to keep her until my gig was over. Welcome! I named her Kiwi because her eyes are blue and small dotted body reminds me of Kiwi. Her meowing is super high pitch sounds like “key”. Kawaii, cute in Japanese, sounds like Kiwi. She was born on the same date and almost the same time April passed away. Reincarnated?!? She is still shy but finally came out of the carrier.

Started exploring. Adorable

Played with us.

And now hiding and sleeping. Hope she has a long healthy and happy life with us. Thank you, April

Last two months

My dearest cat, April, passed away on March 25th. Since then I had been depressed and not been able to write a blog. I felt like no meaning to work hard. She is no longer waiting for me to feed her when I get home from work. This is the last picture I took of April.

To make a long story short, she had been sick but not with a fatal sickness. Her vet wasn’t good and we kept giving her too strong medications I think. We scheduled a radiology therapy two months ahead but she didn’t last. I think she took off choosing the time so that we didn’t have to pay for $2500 therapy and left me enough time for practicing guitar for my gig. I had been super rusty and took it not too serious but she made me practice so that I wouldn't be embarrassed on the stage. At least we were with her when she left this world but it was painful to watch her last moment. I wanted to forget about it and remember only when she was well. April’s birthday (we don’t know her real BD so we set up April 1st) came one week later. Each week on Thursdays, we accomplished important tasks such as tax filing, my unemployment insurance hearing, etc. and April 28th was my hub’s 60th BD. His brother and nephews came over and hosted a nice home party for him on weekend.

He got another cake on his real BD.

Oh one more at the restaurant

His BD celebrations lasted a whole week

I still couldn’t stop crying and only way to stop it was to think about getting another pet. I started searching online and contacted about five postings for 6 weeks kittens. This is the posting I contacted. Only two got back to me.

First thing I asked was kitten’s BD. I was curious if I could find a kitten that was born on the same date of April passing hoping April was reincarnated. Bingo! Then I asked time of birth. It was around 8 in the evening. OMG!!! April passed away around 7:55pm. That’s the reason I rushed to get the kitten. Among three kittens. I wanted a female cat which was closest to April’s fur color. When I went to see them, the one I wanted was the last one left Too much coincidence! But the first look she gave me was this

No cats gave this look to me

Before I get connected with her, I decided to get her. I asked the owner to keep her little longer until I finish my gig. April left to give me some time to practice guitar, so I wanted to concentrate on preparing for the gig.

May 26th was my 10th anniversary of cancer free! I seldom post on Facebook but I did it and got almost 700 likes. That led to a good concert advertisement.

Following day, we left for the area where we used to live. We stayed near Murphys, our favorite town. Our favorite breakfast restaurant discontinued fish’ n chips

Because of April giving me time, the gig went successful. A lot of crowds, bunch of mistakes on playing as usual but it was fun!

Three great photographs showed up. I got a good one.

We came back home safely this morning. Went to work and finished up the blog that I wasn’t able to do for last two months. My new job is better than I thought. Hope to be able to take more day offs so that I can keep playing live music. Thank you, April My dearest daughter, I love you forever

Eddie’s wall painting

March 11th. As I saw many articles and pictures about 311, I got shocked again how terrible it was. It’s been already 10 years since shinsai. I wonder how my friends near by beaches in my hometown are doing. I contacted my best friend from high school this morning. Her mother’s house was directly affected by tsunami. We were both in USA when it happened. We are thankful to have our lives continuing.

Ken and I found sometime to visit Eddie’s wall painting in Hollywood today. It is funny that we never visit special places if they are near by. This time as a big fan of Eddie, I had to do it. First we drove to West LA to go to my favorite tempura restaurant, Hannosuke. It was moved from Torrance and finally we made it to the new location. Wow, it’s in Mitsuwa market! It used to be Yaohan years ago and I used to eat there all the time when I was a student. When we got there, it was 2:35pm and the restaurant was just closed! I told the restaurant staff that we drove over one hour to get there. Then the person was very nice and offered us what they had left for free We gave $10 tip and had two full meals! Lucky day!

Driving through La Cienega, stopping by overly expensive antique stores finally we reached Guitar Center.

Luckily all the cars which were parked in front of the wall painting were gone when we took pictures.

There was a barcode to scan to get Eddie’s experience.After scanning, the picture started moving on the phone with Eddie’s playing Eruption.

It was so hard to open my eyes facing direct sun

Fires and sparks when he was playing. Pretty cool!

After GC, we looked for my favorite nursery driving on Sunset, Hollywood Blvd, and Melrose. It was on Santa Monica Blvd! By the time we got there, it was already closing. Anyway I wasn’t planning to buy a statue yet.

We had to stop by a Japanese grocery store to get fish for my cat. She isn’t eating much lately. In the parking lot, we found a nice restaurant. Japanese western food, Yosyoku! It had a very warm outdoor seating and food was delicious! They care so much that their iced coffee’s ice was made with coffee!

Omelet rice’s egg was fluffy

Desert was good! Japanese quality

Midoh restaurant. It became my favorite.

20th Anniversary

Yesterday was our wedding anniversary. Already 20 years We didn’t plan anything because we just bought a new house. Valentine’s Day is always crowded everywhere. This is the view from the sunroom. Peter rabbit’s world The same rabbit and squirrels come every day. They live in the bushes across the fence. We went through so much during moving. We decided on this house last minute right before the rent back period ended. The buyer of our previous house was an asshole who started cutting trees during our moving. Couldn’t he just wait one day? It delayed our moving and we arrived at our new home past midnight on January 13th. It was passed 3AM when we finally loaded our bed. A nice neighbor, Sean, came back from his work ?!? in the middle of night and helped us moving the bed like an Angel He told us this area has coyotes even during daytime so we kept our cat indoors all the time. She was already stressed from showing of our previous house to buyers. She was just diagnosed hyperthyroidism. Because of her super fast metabolism, she loses weight no matter how much she eats. What was hard was that she made loose stools everywhere in the house every hour every day We even put her on a diaper, which didn’t work, for a couple of days. Just like having a baby or taking care of an old lady. I was exhausted and hadn’t been able to write a blog for a long time. We decided to get her nuked, which was scheduled in two months.

After bunch of medications, she seems better and we could go out to Palm Springs. So many Windmills! This view lasted miles and miles

This cute boy, Sam, kept following us rubbing his body against us. Looks totally healthy, compared to our 14 year old cat

All benches are nicely painted in this upper district.

This feels Palm Springs to me. Big mountains right behind of all the shops. I like the city!

Very Southern California!

At a coffee shop. Colorful benches and flags that this city has a lot of gay populations.

Found this in a record shop!

Many American muscle cars. It’s like LA!

Many palm trees of course!

It started to be super crowded.

We avoided crowds. We bought our own gift since we made a combined account after the sale of our previous house. Ken bought two hats. I bought two clothings. One of them is the same dress which is slightly longer as the one I bought in Santorini! Made in Italy! I couldn’t believe that I found it here

Lucy!

Every restaurant was fully booked as we expected. We found this restaurant which welcomed us without a reservation. Mostly we were by our selves. We were full from lappert’s ice cream earlier. They allowed us to share theValentine dinner, which was still expensive.

We had a great time on our 20th anniversary

Miss my house

Last couple of weeks were the busiest. We decided to put our house on market and move. We went to Texas to check houses and gave a couple of offers on houses we liked but they weren’t successful with many competitors. After we came back on Halloween until yesterday was a nightmare except the hidden hot springs we visited.

Oh my god! How beautiful

We never knew these completely natural setting hot springs existed in So Cal

The water quality was so good that made our skin smooth.

There were three pools in one area. The top pool is the hottest and we were in the lowest coldest tub which was the closest to the river. It must be amazing summer time! Swimming in the river and getting warm in the hot springs. The person who claimed that he was the part of the team who made these pools came at the same time as we arrived. Since some people were waiting and the signs said limit 30 minutes bathing time, we got out of the hot spring after experienced the hottest one. I wish we could stay there all day.

There was another tub at the higher place. The water was warm but nobody was using it since it looked dirty.

On the way back, we saw a spaceship like cloud.

Perfect shape

Scary rock walls were so steep!

The house hunting in this area wasn’t’ successful. Our house was just sold within a week since it went on the market. Now we are homeless

We have to find a place to stay within two weeks. It is easy if only me and Ken, but we have a cat who poops to piss us off because she doesn’t want to move and a lot of plants. We need at least 2bd with a patio even for a short period of time until we find a new home.

I fell in love with this house at the first sight when I opened the door in 2009. Bright lights came into our vision. I haven’t found any house like this to replace our home so far.

We have a nice view of James Lick observatory from the kitchen and living room. Mature apricot and plum trees became a perfect shade for the hummock. We had about 300 plums this year. I should’ve taken the picture. I couldn’t imagine 2020 became the last summer in this house at that time. Because of smoke from fires, we couldn’t get to enjoy much. I was too busy to think specially since the monster came into my previous job.

I never got to finish my side yards. Lemon, pomegranate, and apple trees respectively from the closest.

View from the hummock.

Put solar lights on the patio cover and the swing.

Front yard. We have the city view. Great July 4th fireworks view.

Hummingbirds are regular visitors. Many different kinds of birds are coming and their chirping relaxes us.

Chemtrails.

We arranged the house for real estate staging.

A small house but it is cozy. It used to have many pictures of us and paintings on the wall as well as guitars.

My favorite bathroom that we remodeled.

Got snow on the mountain.

Peacock was walking in our neighborhood

Wish us luck for the house hunting. We need to find our home which is better than this so that we won’t miss it.

Marietas Island

Woke up at 5:30AM, it was physically a hard day yesterday. I couldn’t write my blog last night. The instruction to register for Hidden Beach tour was confusing. We got the port early but the tour guide didn’t show up until one hour later, which made me worried. It was running Mexican time

That’s our boat. Only five participants including one scuba diving tour participant.

Ken was super grumpy because he couldn’t swim. I taught him how to swim but he wasn’t confident enough.

First we did snorkeling. There were fewer fish than I expected. I saw much more schools of fish at Costa Sur Resort. We saw the same kind of fish and a trumpet fish was the only kind we didn’t see at our previous resort. On the way we saw fins on dolphins. Ken was escorted by the lifeguard.

Then we stopped this beach. In order to get to the beach, we had to swim. The guide was fast and I was catching my breath.

Then finally entering the hidden beach! Only limited numbers can enter this beach each day. We were handed helmets and swam against the current. We had only half an hour: 10 minutes to enter, 10 minutes at the beach and 10 minutes getting out. We had to swim fast and it was challenging. Ken was pulled by the guard but I was on my own. I was the last one of five to get there. When we entered the cave, the waves went all the way to the top wall. We had to hold the breath and went through the narrowest part. Then easy. Arrived!

It was so busy taking the life jacket off and got the camera and took pictures and videos. I didn’t think the whole opening could fit in the frame, but no time to think about it. Here is a ok pic hiding our fat bodies by letters

Came back.

Greeted by handsome iguanas

After taking a nap, we went to the same restaurant and had the almost same food.

This time downstairs.

We had to change the room because I got more than 10 mosquitoe bites in the room. The host said this was the pent house, but I saw this pic on the regular room description online. This room was like six times bigger than our previous room. Too much hustle to move and disinfect every where