Sunrise Chronicles

Thursday, March 14
In the morning, we headed for the nearby city of Nara, which was an ancient capital of Japan centuries ago. Most of the sakura trees were still bare, but some of the ume trees were blooming, and people clustered under them for selfies. Wherever people in Nara gather, the miniature deer follow, hoping for cookies. The deer in Nara wander everywhere, and they have been trained to bow to people in the hope of receiving food. Deer wafer vendors are scattered throughout the area, and most of the souvenir merchandise items in the city feature the deer.

This major shrine even has a deer statue at the purification basin, instead of the usual dragon. This picture also features one of our more unpleasant experiences of the trip. At this point, we were surrounded by dozens of Chinese tourists. The woman on the left told her husband to take a picture of her while she washed her hands at the fountain, but she was upset because other people were in the shot. She literally shoved my neighbor (the woman in the purple coat and knit hat) out of the way so that she could be in the picture by herself. Needless to say, we had a low opinion of the Chinese tourists after that encounter. At least the deer remained unruffled despite all the antics going on around them.

We arrived at the shrine (Kasuga Taisha) just as a traditional ceremony had begun. After walking around the grounds there, we continued on to the next attraction, Todaiji, home of the world's largest bronze Buddha statue. Interestingly, just as I was trying to log onto Facebook to share this photo, I found I was unable to connect. It turns out this was the middle of the Great Facebook Outage that lasted for several hours. A quick scan on Google turned up a bunch of posts moaning about people not knowing what to do with themselves without their social media fix. We all had a good chuckle at the ruckus and went about our sightseeing.

On our way back to the station, more shops were open (it had been too early when we started out), and we browsed at a few. We stopped at a pet supply store, where the owner had lots of costumes for dogs. I picked up an adorable Hello Kitty yukata that I plan to use for my working dog Brooke's Halloween costume this fall. (I left one of Brooke's business cards. The shop owner was quite tickled, and gave us a free packet of dog treats.) We also came across a small yarn shop, where I got several balls of yarn called Tree House Berries (color #204). What I liked about this shop was that it had organized cards with swatches of all the different yarns and info about approximately how many balls would be needed for various products (vest, sweater, hat, etc.). I wish I could have bought more, but I was still trying to minimize my shopping due to my minimal luggage. (At least yarn is squishable!)

Friday, March 15
Early the next morning, we checked out of our hotel and made our way to Kyoto--a trip that involved the Harry Potter train. We started out visiting Tenryuuji on the far western side of the city. It turns out there was one sakura tree blooming, so of course visitors were swarming around it taking pictures. I was looking forward to showing my neighbor the bamboo grove at the temple exit, because it had always been a lovely and serene place on my past trips. When we got there, however, we found that the entire grove road was packed with tourists taking selfies. We could barely squeeze through. It had completely lost the cathedral-like feeling of peace that it used to have. (Clearly it had made some kind of global list of "must see sights" in Kyoto, because the tourists were speaking all different languages.) It was a huge disappointment.

We started to wander the back roads, which were mostly empty of people after we left the grove behind, but before we had gotten to the area with all the quaint shops, we realized that the hour was getting late. We had arranged to meet up with gnine and xparrot at 2pm for an event on the complete opposite end of the city, and there was no direct route to get there, so we knew it would take a considerable amount of time. We followed the back roads to the train station (thank you again, GPS!) and took the line back to the central shopping area. We spent some time shopping in the Teramachi covered arcade before continuing on to our destination, Kiyomizudera. (As noted before, all the young ladies wearing yukata are Chinese and Korean tourists.)

Thanks to texting, we were able to meet up with our friends shortly before the event began. (We would never have found them in the crowd otherwise.) We had come to see the Seiryuue parade, in which a group of young men carried a dragon around the temple grounds. Seiryuu (the dragon) is the guardian of the east side of the city, based around this temple. After watching the dragon dance for a while, we headed out of the temple on our way to other sights. It had gotten quite sunny and warm, so we stopped for soft-serve ice cream, a popular treat. I picked the one with a mix of brown sugar syrup and kinako (soy powder), though the "Cutie Strawberry" was tempting.

We wandered several blocks to Yasaka Jinja in Gion. As it turns out, they were also having a celebration that day, involving a pair of shrine maidens performing a traditional dance (while in the front row another shrine maiden makes a not-so-traditional video recording on her cell phone). By the time we finished watching, it was getting late, and we were quite tired from all the walking. (Kiyomizudera is on the top of a tall hill, so it takes some effort to get there.) We caught a cramped bus back to Kyoto Station, where we found they had decorated the stairs with LEDs to create an image that can only be seen when viewed from below. We had supper at a restaurant in the station and then checked into our hotel for the night.

More amazing sights to come next time!

I try to take a trip to Japan once every year or two. This year, the plan was for megoryb and I to meet up with gnine, xparrot, and sara_tanaquil for cherry blossom viewing. The first hitch in the plan occurred way back in fall of 2018, when I was trying to reserve the dates for my trip. You see, annual leave is heavily restricted in my department. We have a random lottery in December for claiming what days we want to reserve the following year, and only one person can reserve any given day. So, for example, if one person wants to take Christmas off, nobody else can take leave that day. We do our best to hash things out beforehand, but some portions of the year are highly contested. As it turns out, the week when cherry blossoms would be in full bloom was one of those times, and I was forced to reserve a block of time slightly earlier than would have been ideal.

The second issue came shortly before the trip, when sara_tanaquil had to cancel her plans due to a family emergency. At that point, our hotel reservations had already been made, a number of which had already passed the refund deadline. I ended up asking my neighbor if she would be interested in joining us and just taking the vacant space in the reservations, and amazingly she was able to do so. She even managed to book a return flight on the same plane as me and megoryb. Unfortunately, she would be taking a different flight there, which threw a slight wrench in our plans upon arrival.

megoryb and I were taking a plane departing SFO with a 2-hour layover in Vancouver before arriving in Tokyo. Vancouver is an awesome airport, and I had made the connection through there several times before. There are no issues with customs inspection; we just walk down a very long hallway to the international departures lobby, so I reasoned we would have plenty of time. In addition, megoryb and I were experimenting with packing extra-light. We each only had a wheeled cabin bag and carryon item for our 10-day trip, so we would not be checking any bags.

Ooooor so we thought. As we boarded the plane, we ended up at the back of the line. The people in front of us boarded with no issues, but the flight attendant stopped us (and the remaining two people with wheeled bags behind us) and said we would have to check our bags because they had run out of overhead space. While annoying, ordinarily this would have been no issue, since checked bags transfer through Vancouver automatically anyway. On this particular day, however, there were extremely high winds, which caused serious flight delays. Our flight was delayed by 95 minutes. By the time we took off, I was concerned that there might not be sufficient time upon our arrival for our bags to be transferred to the next plane. We stressed out over this during the entire flight.

Luckily for us, our pilot was able to make up time en route, and we landed with enough time to make our connection as well as purchase some fast food in the waiting area to tide us over. On the other hand, my neighbor was not so fortunate on her flight. She was flying directly to Japan, but she still had to make a connection in Osaka before joining us in Tokyo. Her flight out of SFO was delayed by a full 2 hours, which caused her to miss her connection. She did manage to get booked onto a new flight (fortunately planes fly between Osaka and Tokyo frequently), but she wasn't able to meet us until nearly 11pm.

We were stuck in the airport arrival lobby for hours, sleepy and starving (because our food had worn off long ago). Most of the shops still open at that time of night didn't have anything for vegetarians (except souvenir candy) and the food vending machines didn't take credit cards. I had taken cash out of an ATM, but (unlike in years gone by) Japanese ATMs now only dispense the equivalent of $100 bills, and the vending machines didn't take those either. By pure chance, however, I had brought along the equivalent of a $10 bill that I had leftover from a previous trip, and I was able to use that to get us some sandwiches and drinks out of a vending machine, which kept us going while we waited (and tried to stay awake). When my neighbor arrived, I quickly got us tickets on the next bus to where we were staying in Ikebukuro, and we crashed at our hotel at about midnight.

Monday, March 11
We knew there would be issues with jet lag on our first day, so our plan was to take it easy with local shopping. We met up with gnine and xparrot. As we set out from our hotel, one of the first sights that greeted us was a fangirl mailbox. For background, the neighborhood of Ikebukuro has long been the location of the main headquarters of the Animate merchandise chain. Over the past 20 years, Animate HQ became surrounded by other shops selling anime and manga-related merchandise. Interestingly, while the more famous neighborhood of Akihabara is the gathering place for male geeks, Ikebukuro specialized in catering mainly to female geeks. This mailbox has been painted to represent the fangirls that visit the area. The sign on the front reads "The Holy Land of Manga and Anime." The picture on the back is a fangirl in cross-dressing butler cosplay having her picture taken by an owl (the symbol of Ikebukuro).

Our next stop was the Bic Camera store next to the train station, where I bought SIM cards for me and megoryb to put in our phones to allow us to stay connected. On our previous trip, last year, we rented portable wifi units (as I did not own a smartphone then). This time, though, we consulted someone at the Verizon store about international plans, and he advised us that the cheapest thing to do would be to buy temporary SIM cards for data and then converse using an internet app (e.g. Whatsapp). We had never done this before, but he told us that it should be no problem, the staff at the store would put the SIM cards in for us. Well, it seems it wasn't quite so easy. I was able to purchase the SIM cards with no trouble, but the staff said that we had to make the swaps ourselves. If we wanted them to change the cards, they would have to charge us. They did, however, loan us a little wire tool that would open the SIM card slot (which I had in my cell phone box, at home, but hadn't known that I needed to bring). I struggled with the instructions, made more difficult by the fact that my phone is Android and megoryb's is an iPhone, so I had to follow two completely different procedures. The others waited patiently while we spent an hour on this process, but we FINALLY got it done.

We began our shopping by taking a train to Akihabara, where we visited a couple of board game stores and a branch of Animate. I was trying to keep my purchases to a minimum (as you may recall, I had no suitcase along on this trip), but I did get a small board game expansion and a couple of manga. We stopped in Shibuya to see the Hachikou statue and the busy street crossing. We went from there to Shinjuku, where we shopped at a sewing/craft store. I bought some yarn and several cute buttons there. We also saw an image of Chibi Godzilla painted on a skyscraper as a tourist attraction. (Only in Japan?)

Speaking of Only in Japan...we came across quite a number of food items that are examples of classic Japanese marketing. In particular, we were at the beginning of sakura season, so everything was pink. In fact, they even had a seasonal pink, sakura-flavored Pepsi at the supermarket. Another item we found was mascarpone-flavored milk tea. The label says, "Drink together with Pocky, and it's tiramisu!?"

On our way home, we stopped at the Andersen bakery in the Ikebukuro train station. It had been recently remodeled, and they installed amazing new checkout devices. After customers put their pastry selections on a tray (as usual), the tray is set on a type of scanner built into the counter. The scanner snaps an image of the items on the tray and sends it to the register. The register recognizes the shape of each item and attaches a value to it, then calculates the total. Customers insert money in the front of the register. The only thing the clerk does is wrap and bag the pastries. It's incredibly fast and convenient, and much easier than trying to scan bar codes at a self-checkout at a grocery store.

That concludes our first full day in Japan. The real sightseeing begins next.

This will be my first official Dreamwidth update; every other entry was just copied over from my other account.

It has been ages since I updated. Once I fall behind, looking at the quantity of info to report just makes me want to put it all off even longer. I'll do what I can to summarize the past month's worth of activities.

I started off the month of October with a four-day weekend, thanks to some use-or-lose leave. We had friends visit both Saturday and Sunday, which was great, and we got to play some fun board games together.

In general, if it ever seems that I have free time, I have been spending it working on my yarn dyeing or knitting. In particular, I am continuing to work on sweaters for wednesday_10_00's dolls. The first one looks rather nice so far. The second one will have the same design, but the cables twist in the opposite direction.

October 7
We went to YaoiCon, which was at a hotel near San Jose. Sadly, I wasn't interested in any of their big name guests this year, but I thought I would find stuff to buy in the dealer's room. As it turned out, the dealer's room was about half the size that I remember from years ago when it used to be held right near me. The artist room was okay, but still small. We tried out their boardgaming room, and they actually had a decent collection of games, considering it wasn't a gaming convention.

My main reason for attending was to try to sell things at the swap meet. Signing up in advance on the website, it promised a 6-foot table for the fee. When we registered in the morning (after searching everywhere for registration, which was on the second floor with no signs indicating its location), we asked where the swap meet would be held, and we were told it was marked on the map. Sure enough, there was a room labeled "swap meet" on the map. We moseyed over there to check it out. It seemed small, and there were no tables, but we figured we were just early. As the swap meet time approached and no one else was showing up, we set off in search of answers. We headed to the con staff room, which ended up being right next to where the swap meet had been moved (again without any signs or announcements to update the incorrect map). We were assigned HALF a table, and I had to squeeze my items into roughly a 2' square space. Needless to say, it was exceedingly cramped. I felt sorry for the customers, too, because they were packed in like sardines.

I did make back enough money to pay the table fee, but it was disappointing how poorly coordinated everything was.

October 15
We took a bus to Half Moon Bay for its famous Pumpkin Festival. The trip, which under ordinary circumstances would take about half an hour, ended up being 2 hours due to heavy traffic plus an accident that reduced our speed to a crawl. At least I had brought along my knitting project to work on along the way.

We started off by picking up some pumpkin spice macaroni and cheese, then browsed the vendor stalls. I caught sight of one selling earrings that didn't require piercings or clips; they simply dangle. I bought a pair and wore them all day; they didn't hurt at all (the way clip-on earrings do), and they never were in any danger of falling off. If I had the opportunity to dress up more often, I probably would have bought more.

We stopped in several local shops as well as vendor stalls. At one yarn shop I picked up some more dyeing supplies. At a store selling wooden furniture and other household goods, I bought four sushi platters. I like sushi enough, I figure I will get at least some use out of them.

We caught the bus again for the ride back, thinking that it wouldn't take as long without the accident. Just our luck, there was another accident. @_@ It took about the same amount of time to get home as the trip out had.

October 18
At work, we held our annual canine Halloween party and dressed all the beagles up in costumes. Brooke got to be Wonder Woman. One of the other beagles was dressed as Superman; just imagine a team of superhero beagles who join forces...

October 21
We went to visit mangaroo. wednesday_10_00 and I started out in Oakland to shop at some fabric stores, and rather than riding BART a measly single stop at a time, we ended up walking several miles, visiting shop after shop, until we all gathered at an Indian restaurant for supper. I spent a hefty chunk of change on buttons (for future sweater projects). Hey, at least they don't take up much storage space, and they never go bad.

October 22
I spent the day harvesting honey from my hive. I had been hoping to make use of the Flow comb, but unfortunately the bees just didn't fill it enough, so I took a little from the interior instead. I got roughly four quarts of honey, and I was finally ready to use the souvenir hunny pot I brought back from Tokyo.

October 28-29
wednesday_10_00 and I went to Monterey Bay for an overnight excursion. We started at the aquarium, where we got to see the staff feeding the otters, among other things, then browsed a number of shops before retiring to our bed and breakfast for the night. We did make one excursion to eat out at a local bar, where we had some colorful drinks (...perhaps a little to much...) and watched out the window as people passed by dressed in Halloween costumes.

In the morning, we walked along the ocean for a while, then drove to nearby Pacific Grove to see the monarch butterflies gathered in the trees. That was pretty amazing. Then we went on to Carmel, where I picked up some artisan cheese at The Cheese Shop.

November 4
This weekend we've been taking it relatively easy. We invited our neighbor over for a wine and cheese night to show off our purchases. We added my fresh honey and some gourmet chocolates to the mix as well, and it was quite an enjoyable time.

I think that gets me all caught up! ....For now, at least.

This past weekend, I accompanied my parents to Long Beach for a cousin's wedding. We arrived Wednesday afternoon and had time to walk around for a few hours to see the area around the hotel. We visited the Aquarium of the Pacific, which isn't as extensive as the aquarium at Monterey, but it did have some interesting exhibits.

The next day, we set out exploring in the morning and came across the commuter train. We saw that it went straight to Los Angeles for a ridiculously low price, so we all hopped on board for some sightseeing. After getting off the train at the final stop, we wandered over to the Los Angeles Public Library, which has some decorative architecture. On the other side of the library, we found a tourist information booth with a helpful attendant who provided us with a map and circled items of interest that we could enter for free.

We had an excellent lunch of vegan ramen and then entered City Hall to catch the view from its observation deck. We could see the whole city, including the distant Hollywood sign.

We continued walking around, also taking in the cathedral, noticing that the sidewalks were unusually empty. I had expected that it would be like any large city--Tokyo, Frankfurt, London, or even San Francisco--with crowds of people everywhere. In contrast, the sidewalks of Los Angeles had only the occasional passerby. The place we had eaten lunch was packed with people, but stepping outside was like returning to a small town.

We ended up at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising Museum, which had displays of costumes from the biggest hit movies of the past year, including Rogue One, Hidden Figures, Star Trek Beyond, Fantastic Beasts, and Doctor Strange. That was spectacular, and definitely my favorite part of the trip.

Friday we had breakfast at a local cafe restaurant, then walked around downtown Long Beach. In the afternoon we shopped at the nearby Shoreline Village, a cluster of shops somewhat like San Francisco's Pier 39, and walked along the water to see the Queen Mary and other ships from afar. We finished off the evening by attending the wedding rehearsal dinner.

Saturday we spent the morning walking along the beach before having lunch at a local mead shop. Despite the early hour, the place was packed with people for a mead tasting event. We attended the wedding in the evening, which was held at a local restaurant. Then we had to leave early the next morning for our return flight.

Work has been progressing on my bathroom project. I'm being kept busy running around ordering and picking up various materials. The new room has wall studs and electrical. It should be ready for the rough-in inspection soon, once the plumbing is in place.

Sunday, October 16, we returned to the main Essen train station for the next leg of our journey. We stood near the platforms for a while as I tried to decipher the route map to find which train on which platform we would need to take. Eventually I gave up on that and left my parents watching the luggage while I searched other areas of the station until I located a master train schedule with the information I needed. I bought our group ticket and we boarded the train to Cologne (Köln).

Our hotel was only about two blocks from the station, so we didn't have much trouble finding the place and checking in. The man at the front desk even came outside and greeted us by name as we approached, then gave us a map of the city and recommendations of things to see and places to eat. We dropped off our luggage in our room and went out to visit the sights.

The main attraction in Cologne is the cathedral, which is a stunning architectural feat. The entire place had been bombed to rubble in the war and was reconstructed afterward, matching the new portions to the recovered pieces of old stone.

We only looked briefly at the cathedral that evening, as we were interested in seeing a museum or two, which were only a few blocks away. We set off in the direction that we thought the museums should be, according to our map...but as we walked and walked and didn't see any sign of them, we knew something was wrong. We kept checking the map and comparing it to the streets around us, but there are no regular street signs, just the occasional one posted on the sides of buildings.

Finally we crossed a subway line that had maps outside the entrances, and by following those we were able to re-orient ourselves. It turned out that we were basing our reading of the map on the location of the cathedral, but what we had thought was the front of the cathedral was actually the side, so we were off by 90 degrees. That was why we couldn't make sense of any of the locations.

By the time we got back to where we had intended to go, we had been walking for about an hour and were too tired and hungry to spend any time at the museums. We entered a crowded plaza lined with shops and restaurants and looked for a place to eat. Since arriving in Germany, we had eaten Italian (pizza), American (burgers), Japanese (sushi), and Indian (curry), but the only "traditional" German food we had tried was the Berliner jelly doughnut that megory had bought specifically so that she could quote Eddie Izzard.

We sought out a traditional brewhouse and ordered the potato pancake meal, served with applesauce and thin slices of heavy rye bread. We also tried the local beer, called Kölsch, which is supposed to be famous in the area. (It just tasted like regular beer to me, but I'm not really a beer drinker.) We were glad that the man at the hotel had warned us about the beer-serving custom in this city, which is that the server will refill your cup whenever it is empty...but the refills aren't free. The server keeps track of the refills by making tally marks on the coaster, then bill you for everything at the end of the meal. If you don't want the refills, you have to place the coaster over the top of the glass.

We returned to our hotel after supper for some board gaming and a good night's sleep. In the morning, we were treated to a substantial breakfast buffet, which was included in the room price. It was an impressive service of various cheeses, jams, and pickles, with toast, boiled eggs, fresh fruit, pastries, yogurt, puddings, granola, and cafe-style coffee. We did some more early-morning sightseeing in and around the cathedral, then checked out and carted our luggage back to the train station for our ride to Trier.

I had originally heard about Trier because it's the setting for a board game that came out at Essen in a previous year. (I picked up a copy while I was there, knowing we would be visiting the site.) It's on the Mosel River, which is famous for the vineyards that grow along the slopes that line the river valley. Some of the slopes are so steep, they appear nearly vertical, as perhaps can be seen in this shot I took from the train. Something else we could see from the train was that Germany has lots of solar panels. I knew there was an internet meme going around touting Germany's dedication to solar power, but reading something on the internet isn't the same as seeing all the panels in person.

In Trier, I had opted to reserve a room at a hotel a fair hike from the station. In exchange, our hotel was literally a few doors down from the main tourist attraction, the Porta Nigra, a structure built centuries ago by Romans.

Not only is the imposing Porta Nigra quite photogenic, it fronts on a popular courtyard surrounded on all sides by decorative buildings. We spent some time wandering up and down the streets, gazing at all the carvings and towers and fountains and statues and other artistic structures in the area. (Of perhaps equal import at this point in our trip, we located and made use of a coin laundry, which happened to be down the street from the Karl Marx House.)

The crowds thinned and shops started closing once the sun went down after about 5pm. We selected a restaurant for supper, and the place was practically vacant, which was quite the contrast to the number of people having drinks and desserts at the outdoor tables earlier in the day. After supper we strolled down the block to our hotel and prepared to head to the Big City. Next stop: Frankfurt.

My trip started on October 9, when I hopped on an outbound plane at SFO. My first stop was LAX, where I had to make a transfer. If you've never been through LAX, let me just say that they have a serious signage deficiency. I had to stop and ask staff several times where I was supposed to go for my connection, because there weren't any signs showing the way. For example, my domestic flight landed in a tiny outbuilding, and I had to board a bus to drive across the tarmac to a different terminal. There were two available buses, one bound for Terminal 4 and one bound for Terminal 6. I checked the flight departure board for information about the location of my next flight, and all it said was "TBIT."

Nowhere did it explain what TBIT meant, nor did it say which of the two buses would get me there.

That was just my first experience with frustration at this airport. It's a good thing I allowed plenty of time for my connection when I booked my ticket, because such situations kept happening. Either there were no signs, or the sign was facing the opposite direction so that I was approaching from the rear where I couldn't read it, or the sign pointed me toward an area marked "authorized personnel only," or there was an intersection and the sign was at the end of the hallway so you would have to be lucky enough to pick the right path first before seeing it.

In any case, I made my flight, and I landed safely at Heathrow the morning of October 10. My parents, who had arrived there several days earlier, picked me up and helped me get my luggage to the hotel. I was bringing a checked suitcase packed full of games, which I would be trading for different games when I reached Germany. In the meantime, I had to maneuver it through the city's Underground, which was exceedingly inconvenient because half the stations don't have elevators or escalators, only stairs. I guess they expect people with wheelchairs or strollers just won't use half the stations?

Another problem I encountered was that I hadn't packed the right outerwear. The temperature was in the 80s when I left San Francisco. I figured it would be colder, but I estimated it would be in the 60s, so I packed mainly T-shirts and a couple sweatshirts. As it turns out, the weather was in the 40s and 50s for most of my trip; it even got down into the 30s for a while when I was in Munich. If I had known, I would have brought my winter coat. I ended up borrowing a windbreaker from my parents, which helped cut the chill a bit.

After settling my things at the hotel, we went out for lunch at a nearby bookstore called Foyle's, which had free wi-fi (our hotel didn't) and a cafe on the top floor. I had my first meal of tea and scones. It was quite good, and it came with enough tea that all three of us could share one. After eating, we walked over to the British Museum, which was only a few blocks away. There were lots of buses traveling the streets, and my parents had ridden them to see the city a bit before I arrived, but I preferred to walk.

The biggest annoyance when walking anywhere was that the city is full of smokers, and everyone apparently lights up the moment they step outside a building. No matter where we went, we were always surrounded by clouds of cigarette smoke. Heck, even Tokyo has outlawed smoking on the sidewalks, and they smoke like fiends there. If they can do it, why not London? To be fair, Germany had the same issue. There were people smoking not only on the sidewalks, but also waiting on train platforms, sitting at outdoor tables at cafes, and standing in doorways. The main difference was that the population density in Germany was generally less, so we would occasionally encounter patches of breathable air. London was so packed, the smoke was inescapable most of the day. Really, London, WHY SO MUCH SMOKE?!

Anyway, we spent a few hours viewing the museum, by which point I was ready to crash. We made arrangements to meet early the next morning and then turned in for the night.

On the morning of October 11, we set out in search of breakfast. We ended up going to McDonald's, where we knew we could get something hot and fast. They had an interesting system, where they had installed giant touch-screen panels on the wall for people to place their orders. Once the order is placed, people just wait around for their numbers to be called on a display screen, then pick up the order and go. No need to interact with a staff person at all. I haven't been to a McDonald's in years, so I don't know if we do the same thing here, but I had never seen that before.

After eating, we walked down through the theater district. We passed by the place where they were performing the Harry Potter show, which was decorated so that you couldn't miss it. Patrick Stewart was performing at another place nearby. If I had been staying longer, it would have been nice to have seen some kind of performance, but I just didn't have time. We wandered through Chinatown, which was practically vacant at that hour, and continued on toward Trafalgar Square.

By the time we got there, pedestrian traffic was starting to pick up. That's when I also started to notice that about 70% of the pedestrians completely ignore the traffic signals. (I suspect the other 30% are the tourists.) As I was contemplating this observation, I noticed that the pedestrian traffic signals in this particular area did not have the standard images for "walk" as in other parts of the city. Instead, they had been modified to represent various lifestyles. (I pointed this out to my parents, who hadn't realized what the symbols meant.)

We continued on down the road toward Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately, we were there on an off day, so we wouldn't be able to watch the changing of the guard. We could at least see the shiny gates, though.

From there, we turned and headed toward more landmarks, such as Westminster Abbey and Big Ben. We crossed Westminster Bridge, from which we had a panoramic view of the city. I thought there were a lot of bridges here in San Francisco for traversing the bay, but London definitely has us beat in the bridge department. As we moseyed along the Queen's Walk, we kept track of our progress by how many bridges we passed. After seeing the outside of the Globe Theater, we went back via the Millenium Bridge, from which we could see still other bridges farther down the way.

We walked back toward Trafalgar Square and stopped in at the National Gallery to view some art. We followed that up with some shopping at Harrod's. The store was certainly large; it was easy to become disoriented. We asked for directions to the escalator, and the staff person advised that we should take the "Egyptian" escalator, because it was the best one. We were perplexed by that description...until we followed her directions and found it. The escalator was located in its own little connecting hall, and the entire chamber from top to bottom had been sculpted to look like something out of a pyramid. There were carvings and statues on every surface. I thought about taking a picture, but there was just no way to capture it in a single shot.

By the time we finished shopping, it was starting to get dark. We returned to Foyle's for supper (and more wi-fi), then went back to our hotel for the night. In the morning we would be leaving on a plane to Germany.

Wednesday, June 16
We checked out of our room in the morning and went to Kailua-Kona for some sightseeing. We happened to park right by a town market, so we walked among the stalls and picked up some fresh fruit. After that we meandered down the main street. We stopped in a gallery called Pacific Fine Art that had a lot of spectacular paintings. While megory chatted with an artist painting in the back of the gallery, I admired this painting by artist Jia Lu. (If I owned a house where I could display it, I probably would have bought it.) Next we went on a tour of Hulihe'e Palace, where members of the Hawaiian royal family used to live.

After leaving Kailua-Kona, we drove across the north side of the island, stopping for lunch in Waimea. Waimea is in the middle of ranch country, so cowboy themed items are everywhere. We ate at a place called Village Burger at the Parker Ranch Center, where they served "mushroom burgers" made of mushrooms pressed into a patty shape, then breaded and fried. Painted on the shop wall was a list of all the farms from which they obtained their ingredients and the distance to each farm, most of which were within five miles.

Once we got to the east coast, we stopped at Waipio Lookout to gaze at the valley below. We continued down the coast, past several gulches, and stopped again to see Akaka Falls. This spectacular falls is part of a lush, tropical state park. It was mentioned that walking through the plants in the park was like stepping into the movie Avatar. When we returned to the car, we got a little more nature than we bargained for when we caught sight of a pair of mating mongooses.

We continued on into Hilo, where we checked into the Seaside Hotel for the night. Our room was unfortunately situated facing the pool, which meant we heard every shriek of the children swimming. Even after the pool closed, people would sit around in the pool courtyard to talk on their cell phones, so it wasn't exactly quiet. On the bright side, the hotel was at least conveniently located.

Thursday, June 17
megory roused us out of bed early in the morning and hurried us to Coconut Island to watch the sunrise. While the view in the east was spectacular, the show later wasn't bad either. If you turn around and face west toward Mauna Kea (in this shot, the observatory at the top is just visible as tiny white dots), you eventually get to see the entire mountain turn pink from reflected sunlight.

After getting our fill of the pink mountain, we went for a stroll through the Liliuokalani Gardens, which are designed in the Japanese style. It appeared to be a popular spot for people out on a morning walk. After we finished touring the gardens, we were treated to a lovely double rainbow. (The second rainbow, with colors reversed, is just visible at the horizon to the right of the main rainbow.) We went back to our hotel for breakfast in the cafe, where I was impressed by the coconut syrup. If only it weren't so heavy--and liquid, therefore impossible to bring in carryon luggage--I would have bought some.

Next we went to the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden, where we saw scads of beautiful tropical plants. We also admired Onomea Falls. The entrance fee is expensive, but it is well worth it.

When we finished touring the garden, we headed back to Hilo and boarded our plane to Honolulu. My uncle picked us up there and took us to Kailua, where we purchased some snacks at the local farmer's market. One of our discoveries was sea asparagus, which has an interesting flavor because it is naturally salty. After we ate, my uncle drove us back to the city, where we checked in at our hotel. My parents tried to put some valuables in the room safe, but it was locked with no key in evidence.

Friday, June 18
In the morning, we set out to get acquainted with Waikiki. About a block from the hotel, we came across the first (of many) shops selling gorgeous Hawaiian clothes. Both megory and I bought dresses, though my dad adamantly refused to get any Hawaiian shirts. We continued walking around, admiring the flowering trees and scouting out places where other family members would be staying. The whole crew would be coming in a few days to celebrate my youngest brother's wedding. We returned in time to be picked up by the parents of the bride, who took us on a tour of the locations where the wedding and rehearsal would be held. They also showed us around their home, where they would be holding a meet-and-greet party once everyone arrived. After we returned, we met up with my aunt staying at a hotel down the block and went out to watch the weekly fireworks display put on by the Hilton Hawaiian Village Resort next door.

Saturday, June 19
I hooked my computer up to the hotel's internet and made use of a few spare moments to post a quick update. As I was doing so, I was distracted by some noises coming from the street outside. We all went to the balcony outside our room to look, and saw that the city's Pride Parade was just going past.

megory and I set out for the nearby Ala Moana Shopping Center. We browsed through Shirokiya, one of the shopping center's department stores that contains Japanese merchandise, including a branch of Book Off. While there, we met up with my aunt again and spent some time examining the clothing in Macy's. I wanted to get a new swimsuit to wear at the meet-and-greet, but it was hard to find something in the style that I like that is the right color. Plus, most of the suits were around $75 on sale.

We all headed out together to join up with my dad and uncle, who had picked up my brother (the groom) at the airport. We had a dim sum lunch and took a brief tour of Chinatown to see the restaurant where the rehearsal dinner would be held. Afterward, we turned our hotel room over to my brother, while we checked in to a room arranged for us by my uncle at the Grand Waikikian, part of the Hilton Village. My parents were teased mercilessly about the bathtub in the bedroom. The Hilton Village is a huge complex containing numerous shops and restaurants. It even has its own private lagoon. And, as if that weren't enough, it also has penguins.

We later found out from my brother that he went to the hotel manager and got a key to the safe in his room (formerly our room). When he opened the safe, he discovered it contained two bullets. Hmm...

Now that I have a couple days to myself, I can finally get caught up on my trip reports. I'll back up to the very beginning of June, while my parents were visiting me. Most of the time, they travelled around the Bay Area on their own because I had to work, but occasionally I could go with them.

On June 1, we scheduled an afternoon tour using an online package. This is something I had never done before, since I have wonderful friends who have taken me around to see the sights. Anyway, we took the Caltrain into the city, which was another first for me, as I have only ever used it to travel south. The tour company had a bus waiting to pick us up at the train station after lunch, and we were on our way. We drove across the Golden Gate Bridge (yes, that is fog, not smog) to see the redwood trees at Muir Woods. We spent about an hour walking around the trails and enjoying the various flora and fauna. In particular, just as we were returning to the beginning of the trail, we saw a doe grazing in plain view. She had two fawns nearby, but they were hard to spot amid all the ferns. On the way back from the woods, the tour bus stopped in Sausalito. We wandered among the shops there, where we saw some interesting Dr. Seuss art for sale at a gallery, though for far more money than any of us could afford.

On June 2, we went back into the city to visit the Exploratorium. (Okay, I admit, the photo isn't of the building itself, but this one is much more impressive.) We spent several hours there and still didn't see all of the exhibits. megory was particularly interested in the machine that measured reaction time. After that we walked along the shore and through the Fort Mason park until we got to Ghirardelli Square. It took a while to find a reasonable non-seafood restaurant where vegetarians could eat lunch. We wound up trying the Buena Vista Cafe, which is apparently famous for its Irish Coffee.

Aside from that, we mainly spent our time with marathons of various series that my parents hadn't seen before. This included the third season of Due South, of which I only caught a handful of episodes when it originally aired. Somehow, I had the impression I had watched more than I actually did; a number of the plot developments took me by surprise. The day before we left, I took photos of my plants, in case any of them failed to survive. Here are my indoor plants. (Front, l-r: kaffir lime tree, curry tree, willow bay laurel tree, curry tree. Rear, l-r: lavender, thyme, rosemary, alpine strawberries, stevia.) Outside are the balcony plants. (Railing boxes, f-b: strawberries, lettuce, pineapple mint. White windowboxes f-b: Thai basil, cinnamon basil, sweet basil, scarlet runner beans, golden pineapple sage, maraschino cherry salvia. Railing-side pot: lemongrass. Tiered planter: mint, Thai hot peppers, lemon verbeena, marjoram, oregano, chives, and last year's parsley. Front pot: Meiwa kumquat tree and chocolate mint. Black grow bag: serrano pepper. Rear pot: Nagami kumquat tree, mint rose scented geranium, cinnamon scented geranium, attar of rose scented geranium.)

Sunday morning on June 13, we did our final packing. My building manager said that he would water my plants while I was gone, which was quite kind of him. We headed to the airport that afternoon and headed to Hawaii, arriving at Honolulu Airport and staying at a nearby hotel that my uncle who lives in Hawaii arranged for us.

This weekend I happened to have three days off in a row, so mangaroo and I made plans to go to Monterey for a whale watching trip. She came and picked me up at my place and drove us two hours south to Monteray, where our first adventure was finding a place to park. Both the Google directions she had printed out and her Garmin directed her to a customer-only parking lot for a restaurant, and we had to stop for directions to public parking. Once we had found a parking spot, we wandered around a small art and craft fair, where we each bought some scented soap that caught our fancy. We then wandered Fisherman's Wharf looking for a place to eat. As we mentioned to each other that it was the wrong place for a vegetarian and a person allergic to shrimp, one of the shopkeepers overheard and brought out a vegetarian menu for us to peruse. The prices were expensive, but it was pretty much the same everywhere, so we wound up staying there for lunch.

After lunch we set out on our three-hour cruise in search of whales. The weather was nice, despite the ominous rain forecast that had worried us earlier in the week. However, this did not prevent several of the boat passengers from losing their lunches over the side, and that's not a sight conducive to keeping one's own stomach settled. The whales themselves were not very showy; they only popped up to the surface for a few seconds before diving deeper underwater. I did manage to see one flip its tail out of the water, though it was too fast for me to get a picture with my camera, particularly with the boat bobbing and other passengers standing in the way. This video was the best I was able to manage, and it should give you an idea of how difficult it was to see anything. After attempting a few shots, I wound up putting my head down to avoid the glare of the sun and napping until we got back to the wharf.

At least the sea lions and sea birds were out in full force, providing us with quite a bit of entertainment. On our way back to the car, we stopped at a shop that drew in customers with a display of pirates and bunnies. We thought it was the perfect store for wednesday_10_00.

We drove on to the nearby town of Pacific Grove, where we checked in at our bed & breakfast, The Centrella Inn. The inn itself was nice enough, though sadly their wireless internet signal was too weak to provide a useful connection. We both got up early Sunday morning, and the hosts of the inn set up breakfast ahead of schedule just for us. We sat by a window facing the garden, where we watched blue birds lured by tempting peanuts. We went for a morning stroll along the ocean, where we crossed paths with many pet owners walking their dogs. On our way back, we walked down the town's main street, where we gazed at kitties and bunnies through a pet store window.

After we checked out of the inn, we drove down to Cannery Row, where we had another adventure locating parking. (There are no left turns in Monterey!) We got to the aquarium soon after it opened and leisurely explored the exhibits. I snapped many photos, particularly of Kit the baby sea otter. Once we left the aquarium, we had lunch at a lovely Thai place across the street. Then we browsed the Cannery Row shops, where I spent way more money than I should have. (But...but...sea otter socks! How could I refuse?)

We drove back safely, and I was tasked with planning an activity we can do for my next long weekend coming up in April. The stipulation is that it must be vomit-free.

It has certainly been a busy couple of weeks. I met my parents at the airport after work on May 22, stumbling across them by chance just as I was turning on my cell phone to call them. In the morning, we started with an early breakfast at a nearby restaurant, then we went to San Francisco to check out the farmers' market at the Ferry Building. I picked up several things there, including a pound of biwa for making tarts. From there, we walked along the edge of the water until we came to Pier 39, where we browsed the shops and watched the sea lions hanging out. We walked back through North Beach and Chinatown.

On Sunday morning, we headed back to the city, starting off in the Mission district, where we walked around the neighborhood admiring the murals. Then we lined up to watch the Carnaval parade. I hadn't realized the parade would last three full hours. I filled up my camera with pictures and movies, though most of the best shots were ruined because the press photographers were standing in the street directly in front of the performers. A lot of my shots mostly show photographers' backs. My camera battery gave up at around the two hour mark. After the parade, we browsed through the various vendor stalls. We followed that up with a stop at Japantown for an okonomiyaki dinner and a brief visit to Borders.

I had to work during the week, so my parents amused themselves doing their own sightseeing. They went a number of places, including Golden Gate Park. Meanwhile, I started my ten-week cargo training module, beginning with the post office international mail room on Tuesday. The mail is very different from the passenger baggage environment. The pace is more relaxed, since you're not dealing with cranky passengers in a hurry to catch connecting flights, but on the other hand it seems that people are willing to send far more contraband through the mail than they risk carrying through the airport. We not only have to watch out for agricultural commodities such as uncertified seeds or sausages, we also have to recognize dutiable goods, counterfeit merchandise, and various drugs of concern. All that, while being on the alert for radioactive packages.

On Tuesday night, I took my parents out to watch Wicked. That was a lot of fun. And of course it got the songs stuck in my head again. On Wednesday I managed to take some time during my lunch break to greet gnine and xparrot as they made a connection through the airport on their way back from Japan.

Saturday the 30th, we went back to the Mission district, where we walked up the street and checked out some of the small markets. We continued on through the Castro area, finally ending up at Haight-Ashbury, where we stopped for lunch at a small Indian restaurant. The next day we took my dad to catch his early morning flight at the airport...then got stranded when we tried to take the BART back to Millbrae, not realizing that the earliest train on Sundays doesn't come until 9am.

On Monday I started working in air cargo, though the beginning has been a bit rocky because my supervisor is just starting out and hasn't gotten the training module into a routine yet. For example, he was supposed to give me and another trainee a safety orientation on Monday, but due to one delay or another, he wound up not giving it the entire week. I was supposed to go out shadowing various customs teams, but none of that has been arranged. I did spend two days at the Plant Inspection Station watching slide shows about various plant pests that we are trying to prevent from coming into the country (or at least California). The cargo inspectors have a great deal of responsibility. I had to condemn a large shipment of fresh flowers worth thousands of dollars on Friday because of finding one harmful snail.

This weekend, mangaroo came over to join me as I showed megory an Avatar marathon. We actually managed to make it all the way through the series by Sunday evening. That was quite thrilling.

We'll see what the rest of this week brings.