The last week has been so busy

That I just didn’t get to the requisite weekend update portion of the blog last weekend.

So, a special combo for you: last weekend, plus the first part of this weekend (all rolled into one! With chocolate sauce!).

I kicked off last weekend with a visit over to see the best dog ever. We even got to take the dog swimming, which was great. I didn't take any pictures of the swimming, but here's one from a bit later in the evening.Saturday during the day, I did a little volunteering project at Treehouse. Treehouse is an organization here in town that provides a “wearhouse” for children in the foster care system. Four times per year, kids can come and “shop” for both new and used items of clothing, school supplies, Halloween costumes, toys, holiday presents, backpacks, summer camp items, shoes, etc. Best, it is all free for those kids and their families. How wonderful is that? If you’d like to make a donation, you can do that here.

Anyway, Saturday night was a busy night. First I had a delicious dinner with SYL and Kris. And then Kris and I divided up the cocoa we bought a few weeks ago (surprisinginly, raspberry was not the most popular flavor). After that, I went to a goodbye parting for my friend Yuko. This was a dessert-themed party as well (parting is such sweet sorrow, no?). Here are some pics from the party, starting with the happy couple themselves.Sunday, I went to knitting. Amy’s shawl is done (see above). My baby sweater is, well, not knitting itself. Maybe I’ll put a picture up here when I actually have something to show. Or when the baby turns five.

Monday night I had a break-the-fast dinner at Scott and Meredith’s. So yummy! Dinner featured Scott’s famous challah plus a delicious chocolate cake created by Meredith.This weekend has been a little less crazed. Today I went to a pumpkin patch/corn maze. It was a great day to do this, and, I must confess, this was my first time in a corn maze. This year, the farm had cut the maze in the shape of an airplane (or so they said – it’s awfully hard to tell if this true when you’re in the maze).Finally, we found our way out and proceeded to the pumpkin portion of the day.And then we narrowly escaped an attack by the Great Pumpkin, lumbering across the fields to get us.

Softball

Yesterday I played softball with a group of folks around Tsukuba. Most of the players were from countries where baseball is not played, and many players had never played a game before. I did a brief "baseball 101" lecture to try to get them up to speed with the rules, but things like force-outs and tagging up are quite difficult to explain.

It was a really fun time. We didn't keep score, but my team won in spirit. There are some pictures here.

Some excitement

I just found out that an article I submitted has been accepted for publication. This will be my first publication.

The Changing Face of Yokohama

Apparently Yokohama has change a lot since I lived there (2001-2002). They just found a monkey in the street (the article is in Japanese, but there is a picture).

On an unrelated note, last week I interpreted at an origami class at my apartment building. Here are some pictures.


...UPDATE: the monkey article indicates that it could actually be a lemur.

Butchart Gardens & the rest of Victoria

On Saturday we went to the gardens. They are about 40 minutes outside of Victoria by city bus. Although Dr. P was concerned that everything would have been killed off by the cold nights, the flowers were still blooming apace, with only a small trace of fall color. Apparently, the garden is actually quite nice year-round. And in December they even have an outdoor skating pond! There are several different gardens. Our favorite was the sunken garden, terraced inside an old limestone quarry.

Then there was the dahlia garden – with every possible variety of dahlia under the sun.

And the Japanese Garden.

And the Italian Garden.

There were also beautiful flowers throughout, lining the pathways between these gardens.Also, totem poles.

And lots of bees.

We had a lovely sunset walk around Victoria, followed by a super-yummy Italian dinner. On the way back to our great little hotel, we also got to see the Parliament building all lit up.

On Sunday we went to the Royal BC Museum. The museum was really neat, with lots of exhibits about the environment and the First Nations Peoples.

Also, in Canada they have funny bike racks.And then we rode the boat back. And I didn't even get sick.

Victor, Victoria!

Our first day in Victoria went well. Namely because I didn’t get sick on the boat. But everything that happened after that was nice, too. It’s also a very beautiful day here, after a rainy few days in Seattle.We’ve walked around the town a lot. It’s a bit dangerous, since there are bears everywhere (this is Canada, after all).The flowers are everywhere and still in bloom. There are also neat old buildings everywhere. Because this is a tourist town, there are also lots of shops selling Canadiana (is that the counterpart to Americana?). On that note, if these are Canadian mounties, I think we might need to pay more attention to border security on the northern border. Just a thought.Tea is also big here. We had a very nice afternoon tea at the Empress Hotel. We drank the special “Afternoon Empress Tea Blend” and ate our little treats as we looked out at the beautiful harbor.Tomorrow we are going to Butchart gardens.

Sunday

I had a pretty good Sunday. I started things off with a run with Meredith. We are training for the Seattle Half Marathon – and I just found out that the B-Hatch will be running with us as well. So that should be fun. Except, perhaps, the part where we have to run. Also, the part where we have to run up the hills.

After my run (and a shower, thank you very much), I headed over to the library book sale with my library book sale posse (Lisa, Jen Em, Owen [Jen Em’s boyfriend], and my new friend Elias). We were a big enough group that we could have beaten up (or at least boxed out) anyone who was reaching for books we thought were ours. And that might have been necessary, had we come on Friday night or on Saturday morning. See, this book sale is crazy. It’s the sale for all of Seattle’s public libraries. It happens twice a year in this big, empty airplane hangar.On Friday and Saturday, the line to get in snakes around the building and people camp out with barbeques and the like. We in Seattle take our books seriously. But on Sunday morning the scene was considerably more mellow. The booksale was also a little picked over. But, the upside was that Sunday is half-price day, so I managed to get fifteen books for $6.25. Can’t beat that! And I did get some books that are definitely exciting.

To regain our strength after the booksale, we went out for Thai food. Though the place was a bit noisy, the food can’t be beat. And I hadn’t seen a set-up like this since we were in Thailand.Okay, truth be told, at this point I came home and took a little nap.

But, when I awakened, I headed off to my knitting group. We met at the cutest little teahouse on Queen Anne hill – and I had the yummiest cinnamon tea there. As for the knitting, my baby sweater is coming along. Okay, just kidding, my baby sweater is not coming along at all. I did knit one gauge swatch from which I learned that I need to adjust things if I want the sweater to be large enough to fit an actual baby (the minimum requirement for baby sweaters, I hear). So I’ve stalled out in the knitting department for the moment. But my friend Amy continues knitting her lace shawl like mad.In other news, fall is definitely here. It’s turned a bit rainy and cold, and the tree outside our living room window is changing.Tonight I am heading to the airport to pick my mother up. She’ll be up here for about a week. The highlight of her visit will be our trip to Victoria. I’m excited about going to Victoria, having tea at the Empress, seeing Butchart Gardens, etc. I am less excited about riding the boat for 3 hours to get there. Oh well.

Tan Tan

One of my friends who frequently updates his own blog feels that I don't make enough posts to this blog. So, here is a post about my weekend, dedicated to this friend.

When I first came to Japan, in high school, I imaged Japan as a country with two regions: the Tokyo area, which was extremely densely populated and technologically modern, and the rest of the country, which was made up of sparsely populated villages that hadn't changed in 700 years.

And when I found out I was going to be staying in Fukuoka, on a whole different island from Tokyo, I figured that we would be catching our own fish in ancient nets and harvesting rice in ancient costumes. Of course, Fukuoka ended up being a gigantic city, and I ended up having a great time anyway. My host sister from Fukuoka, Ryoko, is getting married in Tokyo on November 4, and I am excited to attend my first Japanese wedding.

Unlike my first Japanese experience, two of my friends in Tsukuba (both Canadian), started in Japan teaching English in a very rural city in Fukushima prefecture. This weekend there was a big party there, and my friends brought a bunch of Tsukuba folks to attend. The party is in a huge house called "Tan Tan." About 50 people attended, and there was music and very tasty food.

The next day after the party, our friends took us on a hike, to a very good restaurant, and to a onsen resort. One of my friends has put some pictures here, and here are a few of my pictures form the weekend:

A Discovery

I just discovered that the Choco-cro at Akihabara (my transit point in Tokyo) has free wifi. Great! I am doing some work here now, waiting to go to a reception at the U.S. Embassy tonight. It will be my first trip to the Embassy, and I am even wearing my suit.

Actually, my recent sale of the beast, combined with a heavy rainstorm, put me in a strange situation this morning. I ended up biking to the train station in my suit (7-8 minutes away), with an umbrella in one hand. A man in a suit with an umbrella biking is a fairly typical scene in Japan. What made the scene less typical was that I was also wearing my bright red children's bicycle helmet, and a backpack.

The new shape of this blog

Is just me reporting on my weekends, apparently.

So, here’s what I did:

On Saturday, SYL’s college had an architecture walking tour of downtown. The tour was led by a person who is on the architecture review board for the city, so we definitely got a lot of history and information. It was great and I learned a lot.
Although not on the tour, this is the new downtown library. I’ve never been in there, though.

Totem pole downtown

Historic marker

This is actually the door of the building that housed Seattle’s stock exchange. Who knew Seattle had a stock exchange, right? Well, when this building opened, it was actually the largest exchange (square foot-wise) in the country. Unfortunately, it opened in 1929 which was not, uh, the most auspicious year to open an exchange.

Also, I learned that it is important to look up at the molding on the buildings when in downtown Seattle. One building has walruses on it, and this building has busts of Chief Seattle.

On Sunday, I went to see the movie Quinceanera. I would totally recommend this movie – the characters are fairly complex, the story is well-written and keeps unfolding, and I think it’s a good glimpse at teenage life.

Afterwards, I had dinner with Scott and Meredith at their new house.

Weekend round-up, redux

Another pretty decent weekend.

Started the weekend off nicely with a picnic in the park for lunch on Friday. I got carry-out from one of the yummiest places around, Paseo, and took it to Green Lake for a lazy afternoon at the park. Lunch was great, Green Lake was lovely, and it was so nice to sit outside and read my current book (an absolute must-read, by the way). Friday night I had dinner with my friend Amy on her forested balcony. Amy also helped me get going on double-pointed needles again (I mean, after Lisa showed me last month. I’ve heard it takes seven times of looking a foreign language word up in the dictionary before you truly learn it. So, extending the same principle, I’ve still got a ways to go . . . .). My goal is to knit my first ever sweater (the photo is the same pattern that I intend to knit, but in a different color. I found this on some random person's blog. My actual mileage my differ). This sweater will be for a friend’s baby who is due on October 20th. Ever realistic, my goal is actually to get the sweater done this calendar year.

Saturday I went kayaking with SYL and her novio, K2J (Is this getting boring? Are you bored? Look at the pictures! Well, except that there are no pictures of this portion of the weekend). We rented the kayaks over on the eastside and took them up the Mercer Slough. This was not amazingly scenic, although we did see tadpoles and turtles, not to mention the back of many an office park and the underside of several freeway overpasses, but it was great to be out on the water on such a beautiful day. I also picked A LOT of blackberries, since you could just kayak up to the bushes that hung out over the water. And those bushes were loaded with berries. As it turns out, there is actually a reason that those bushes have so many berries: it is not, um, easy to pick berries in while kayaking. In fact, it is a rather fine line between picking berries successfully and being punished for one’s berry-picking greed by either running the kayak (and yourself) straight into the thorns of the berry bushes or tipping the kayak over in an attempt to get that one super-plump, really ripe, absolutely delicious berry just beyond arm’s reach. After stuffing myself with berries, we kayaked back, drove home, cleaned up, and had a decent pizza (complete with pineapple!) at Piecora’s.

Sunday was another great day. Let me just say that I am so glad I have all these friends inviting me out places, since, without them, I would totally become the reclusive cat lady. With 37 cats. And I don’t even like cats. On that note, yes, Sunday . . . . I went over to Jen Em’s house to play with the best dog in the world (see proof below) and to garden a little.That is actually an official American Kennel Club stuffed duck.

I had a super-yummy breakfast, complete with rosemary potatoes with fresh rosemary from the garden, cooked by Jen Em’s boyfriend. Then we planted the new plants that Jen Em had bought. All I can say is that it sure is easy to plant plants when someone else digs the holes for you! Jen Em also sent me home with fresh basil from her garden. I think I might make a tomato mozzarella salad today with this.

Sunday afternoon I went hear the Yarn Harlot speak. This was definitely a new experience. Here are some things that won’t surprise you about this talk: nearly the entire audience was female; almost everyone was knitting while she waited, and about 80% of the audience kept knitting once the talk started; hand-made felted bags were VERY popular; and nearly everyone wanted to get her book signed and show her project (that, of course, she was wearing) to the author. Here are some things that surprised me: for some people, this was like a church-meeting-meets-coming-home-ceremony – people nodded their heads fervently and pumped their firsts in the air. I think I might have even heard an “amen” once or twice. I also heard a middle aged woman say, “I hate the weekends, because she never writes on her blog on the weekends.” Sister-friend, weekends are NOT for hating. You need to get a life. Your OWN life. There was a woman there with a large strange wooden contraption for unwinding thrift-store sweaters so she could re-use the yarn for new knitting projects. This is weird, but, whatever, you can own whatever kind of big thing you want, but do you gotta bring it out public?

Anyway, the talk was pretty fun. I definitely felt like the lamest and beginner-est knitter there. For example, my friend Amy is knitting the most beautiful lace shawl. Ever. I am not really knitting anything, just practicing on double-pointed needles so that I feel confident enough to begin my first sweater. Um, yeah. On the plus side, I am now in the possession of a dirty knitting joke. Just ask.

We, too, met the author and got our books signed.In Amy’s hand is one of many socks she is knitting. These are socks in the colors of the Cleveland Browns football team. It is possible that just because of these socks, the Cleveland Browns will now win the Super Bowl.

Reunions

Wednesday was a big day here for seeing out of town folks.

First, I had lunch with our friends from Japan, Daisuke, Chie, and Nagu. Nagu has grown so much! He remains, of course, super-cute!And then I had dessert Wednesday evening with a childhood friend of Mike's who now lives in Boston. Although there was no actual baby at this event, we did get to hear a lot about this friend's baby. The baby seems very sweet. Alas, there are no pictures of this event because, although I brought my camera, I forgot to use it.