I think most people know that I “met” Jae online at Maya’s Mom over a year ago. We commented on each other’s journals, made fun of each other on discussion threads and chatted on YIM over the course of that year. But no matter how much you correspond with someone online, there are some things you only discover about them when you meet in real life. And as an adjunct to that, there are things you learn only when you’re thrown together for extended periods of time on a trip. Such as:
◊ Jae sweats a lot. Like, A LOT a lot. She actually told me that she has a tendency to fog up her sunglasses because of how hot she gets. That amused me to no end this morning.
◊ In a country where the average height of the typical male is a mere 5′5″, Jae is so short that she has to sit down on the subway trains because she can’t reach the handles hanging from the ceiling.
◊ No one will sit next to the sweaty American if they can help it.
◊ As remarkable a photographer as Jae is, she can be really shy about taking photos. She’s also very good at goading me into taking photos for her instead. Like this one:
Jae got in this morning. She had taken a red-eye flight from Sydney Tuesday night and arrived Wednesday morning bearing gifts. There was a purse for me (yay!) and for Noah she brought toys and the cutest hoodie with a skull and crossbones design and little devil horns on the hood. Noah isn’t into hoods but I may have to bribe him with ice cream or something just so I can snap a picture of him with the horns on.
We went to the Mandarin Oriental for breakfast/lunch. The Mandarin has an awesome view of Tokyo from their restaurant on the 38th floor. Once we got seated though, I realized that I had taken Jae to a place with no Japanese food on the menu for her first meal in Japan. Oops. But hey, a chicken sandwich is a good way to start off any trip…ok, maybe not, but the view was awesome in any case. See? Jae agrees:
We headed over to the Imperial Palace after lunch and lasted a mere 30 minutes. We got over the moat, through the gate, took a short much-needed A/C break by ducking into a small museum near the entrance and walked around a corner when Jae asked me, “Is the rest of it pretty much the same as this?” Poor Jae was almost literally melting in the heat. And while watching someone continually wiping off her sweat mustache is totally entertaining, there are only so many jokes you can squeeze out of it before she wants to hit you. So we headed back to the hotel to rest up before dinner.
I nagged Mark into taking us to Seryna (which I wrote about here) for an ishiyaki dinner. Because the meat is cooked tableside, they provided bibs to cover up and help keep the smoke off. When our geisha tied mine on me, Jae joked that it would make a great picture. Fortunately for me she didn’t bring her camera to dinner. Unfortunately for her, I did:
We walked around Roppongi afterwards to try to walk off that huge dinner. Here are Jae and Mark at Roppongi crossing:
Thank goodness they get along or else visiting her in Sydney next month would’ve been kinda awkward. Hopefully she likes Noah too because Mark and I are planning on getting her to babysit him for us (shhh!). Mark left us shortly to go back to work (yes, at 11:30 pm). After a stop at a pet store to fawn over puppies and kittens (and monkeys…which was actually kind of sad) and some coffees at Starbucks, we went back to our hotel. Once we both got back to our rooms we hopped online and ended up IMing each other for a little while (geeks!).
Of course, what would a trip to Japan be without an earthquake? We got hit with a looong 6.8 earthquake a little later. Naturally I hopped online and IMed Jae again. Her response? “Woo hoo. I haven’t had an earthquake in ages.” hehe. She’s a hardened Californian too.
Mark and I are in Tokyo right now. I left early this morning, leaving the boy behind with Clarita. I left before 6 am which meant I was actually awake before Noah for a change. I’m always surprised at the extent that I miss the boy whenever I leave him behind. I usually look forward to copious amounts of adult time and as cute as the boy is, man does he know how to push my buttons sometimes. But still, I do find it hard to say goodbye, especially since I’ll be away from him for six days. I must’ve given him “one last hug and a kiss” about 10 times this morning.
When Mark got his travel agent to book my flight earlier this month, I pulled a bit of diva on him and pouted a bit when I realized I would be flying Northwest Airlines. No offense to NWA but they kinda suck. But tickets on Northwest were half as much as they were on the other airlines so I sucked it up and got ready to be miserable for the first day of my trip. When I checked in this morning, it turns out that they had overbooked the coach seats for the flight and since I hadn’t gotten a seat assigned to me earlier, I ended up getting bumped up to business class. Total score.
I can’t even begin to tell you how great it feels to be back in Tokyo. Poor Mark is probably tired of hearing me say this since I’ve been chanting “I love Tokyo” all night long but it’s so true. It’s been about three months since I was last here and except for our new digs (a hotel vs. the corporate apartment in April) everything is just as I remember it. The weather is great, the city is beautiful, the people are awesome. Despite missing Noah and worrying a little that he’ll be upset that I’m not around, I feel at peace here. The language barrier is always a big issue with me, but it feels more like a challenge rather than an obstacle, I feel comfortable here, at home. Mark took me to an incredible sushi restaurant for dinner tonight. We were the only ones there (it turns out most of their patrons don’t arrive until midnight) and we sat at the bar where the chef/owner prepared us a menu of his choosing (omakase). When we weren’t marveling over the food, we were plotting ways to justify a move to Tokyo — where we would live, how we would decorate, what we would do. Of course it’s all wishful thinking for now but it’s still nice to imagine that life for us.
For this week’s photo challenge, Alicia asked us to show what we do when we finally get a moment to ourselves. I actually get quite a bit of time to myself. On top of Clarita helping me with Noah throughout the week, I also get about 9 hours a week to myself hanging out at a coffee shop waiting for the boy to get of out school. Toss in a workaholic hubby who, when he’s actually in town, tends to spend several nights a week working into the wee hours of the morning, then I’ve got an enviable amount of alone time.
My favorite moments nowadays tend to be when I’m actually with people (but people I like) or having an adult conversation. Better yet, having an adult conversation over an awesome dinner. Here’s Mark at Spoon with Hong Kong’s skyline behind him:
Otherwise, my preferred methods of passing the time are knitting:
My parents’ iMac just died. We’ve been holding weekly video chats on Mondays ever since Mark and I moved to HK 1 1/2 years ago so we can catch up and they can see the boy. But since their computer is dead with no idea when or if it’ll ever get back up and running, we’ve missed the last two chats. I’m pretty sure my mom is going through some kind of Noah withdrawal right now so this Noah update is for them.
Here’s a video of Noah singing the Wonder Pet’s theme song, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and the ABC song:
13,906. Let me reiterate. THIRTEEN thousand. Nine hundred and six.
That is the number of digital pictures we have. In boxes we probably have at least 400 more. I’m still reeling over the number. I keep thinking there MUST be duplicates (but none that I could find).
You can probably guess. Cathy is a prolific photographer. Before we met I may have had 100 photos of friends and family kept in a shoe box. Within a year after we met I had a couple hundred. By the time Noah was born we had a few thousand. After he was born the amount of picture taking was blinding. Of course the traveling we did and moving to Hong Kong has contributed to the load.
Don’t get me wrong. I love that we have so many photos. I remember when I first met Cathy I admired that she took so many photos. It was as if she was documenting either a success or failure of our relationship.
“Mark, look at this photo. This is where everything went wrong. See, good thing I took this photo of you.”
This evening I decided to pick out a few pictures to move onto my computer and phone. What a nightmare. There were so many photos of us, Noah, friends, family, places we’ve been, strange things we’ve come across, and Cathy’s penchant for signs with funny sayings. I gave up trying to build an album and just decided to grab random pictures.
I’ve decided to share a few from the very beginning when all she had was a disposable camera (the kind you could buy at 7-11) to the most recent photos from last week. Just for reference she has not one but two cameras with her most times, a 5 megapixel Canon and a 10 megapixel Nikon DSLR.
The cool thing about living in HK and having a friend in Australia is that when she’s burned out and needing a vacation, she can IM me and say “Hey, mind if I come visit you?” and then I can reply, “Dude, the weather here sucks. Let’s go to Tokyo instead.” So next week I’ll be in Tokyo, Noah-less and for the majority of the time Mark-less too. Two women alone in Tokyo with zero grasp of the Japanese language? This could get ugly…
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Our building just posted their emergency evacuation procedures in every elevator. I find it very telling that Step One of What To Do In Case of an Evacuation is “Stop talking on the phone.” hehe.
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And speaking of phones, whenever Noah sees a phone lying around within arm’s reach, he likes to say “The phone. The phone is ringing” (a shout out to The Wonder Pets) and then pick it up and hold imaginary conversations with people. His Lola is usually the first person he “talks” to followed by his Lolo and then Mark. Whenever he pretends to be talking to Mark though, this is what his conversations tend to sound like, “Oh hi daddy…I just playing…Can I have some money?”
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Noah is at that stage where he likes to do everything by himself. This includes taking taxis. Whenever we hop into a taxi, Noah will immediately lean over to the driver and tell him where to go (”Take me to my school”). I’ll also usually hand Noah the money so he can pay the driver. This is how our drop-offs usually go: Noah gives the money to the driver and then promptly asks for a receipt (*cough* Mark *cough*), tells the driver to keep the change and then thanks him for driving. Thank goodness the drivers ignore his “No, no. No change.” comment. Crazy child.
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And finally, another bad movie review…The Dark Knight runs a bit on the longish side but it’s totally awesome. Who cares if Heath Ledger is a better actor than Christian Bale? Christian Bale is about a bajillion times hotter.
And that’s all the randomness I have for you right now.
I’m talking about the first ever Ravelympics. Ravelry is an online community for knitters and crocheters that I joined a few months ago (sorry, you can only see the page if you’re a member) and they’re hosting their first ever Ravelympics. Basically, when the Olympic games in Beijing begin (on August 8), all participants are allowed to cast on their chosen project. We then have 17 days — the duration of the Olympic games — to finish our project.
Yes, it’s nerdy, but I’ve never done any kind of knitalong before so this sounded like fun. Now my problem is finding something to knit before the entry deadline (August 7). I wanted something challenging(ish) but still quick to knit since the Ravelympics runs into our vacation in Australia next month. The thought of me rushing through the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb to get back to the hotel to finish knitting doesn’t sound very smart (and trust me, I’m dumb enough to do this too). So this is the part where you come in. I’ve narrowed down my potential projects to the following three contenders:
1. Mark proposing to me as the sun set on the beach in Maui.
2. My sister, Caroline, getting stuck in a totem pole at a park in Vancouver. She got herself unstuck just as the park ranger we got came over.
3. Having the worst morning sickness in London but still going out solo sightseeing (Mark was working). As I walked through the Tube, a guitarist was singing David Gray’s Babylon and I immediately started feeling better.
4. Kobe beef and lobster in Tokyo, Kyoto and Kobe. Mmmmmmmmm.
5. Mark getting pulled onstage by the fire eaters at the Night Safari in Singapore. He ended up having to dance around shirtless for the crowd and got to blow out a torch with the fire guys. Later that night, me, Caroline and Mark made a bicycle rickshaw guy bike the three of us the few blocks back to our hotel. The poor guy almost collapsed under our weight.
6. Cristina showing off her fancy chopstick moves at Nobu in Las Vegas — resulting in her dropping her rock into her glass and Fuzzy Navel and broken bits of glass flying everywhere. Hilarious. And she will probably never live that down. Ever.
7. Surviving the seven mile hike that connects the five towns in the Cinque Terre. And then getting to take the ferry back to our starting point.
8. Weekend getaways to Mendocino with Mark during their crab and wine days in February. Menus built around crab dishes, wine tasting, artisanal chocolate and getting my first taste of basil and tomato bisque.
9. Seeing our villa in Phuket. We arrived to our room via jetty and had a three story place with a rooftop deck. Gorgeous.
10. Getting snowed in at Tahoe for New Year’s. We tried going to Squaw Valley to snowboard that year during a massive snow dump. The normally 20 minute drive took three hours. We stopped at Squaw long enough to use the bathroom, catch a quick lunch and snap some pictures before heading back to “beat the traffic”. The ride back took another 3 hours. We ended up playing Texas Hold ‘Em at my parents’ house in Reno the rest of the time there.
It was my turn to choose the photo challenge topic for the week so I told everyone to take pictures throughout the day and post them. And judging from the few people that have put up their posts, man do we all need to get out more (well, except for Amanda who ended up with a police escort on her way to her boyfriend who had gotten stung by a stingray). I, of course, am no exception. And here are the pictures to prove it…
