Its snowing! �

Now in Osaka. Off to Kyoto.

And the marathon starts!

This is for all you gamers. HAHAHA. �

忙しすぎ＞。＜too busy

Has it really been about 3 months since my last post? GOSH, I'm a failure....but I promise I haven't forgotten about this blog. Just been too busy with everything the past few months. When I get time, I'll sit down and give this blog the attention that it deserves. Until then, check out my youtube channel to see some of the things that I've been up to.

Aloha ★.｡･:*:･ﾟ'☆

Gosh...I'm so tired. HAHA. Being in the lab doing experiments all morning and now I'm so hungry.�

Anyway, I have things to put up on my blog. But we'll see when I get around to actually writing it.

アローハ！(^_^)

Ate at a hawaiian food restaurant last night. Got to eat kalua pig for the first time in a long while. Was soooo good! �
Also...want to see if I can pictures thru email posting. I wonder how it'll come out. �

停電 Blackout

Yay! Powers back! That means blogging time!

What do you mean Aaron? What blackout?? Well, Typhoon 9 (Muifa) is currently overhead and I've been without power for maybe...almost 24 hours.
On to other things, like thinking back to the last time I wrote in this blog....wow, more than a month. I'm getting so good at this! HAHAHA. Why does it seem like the only time I write in this is when there is a typhoon...

I left off last time with the 24 charity marathon thing for the Tohoku region. This time, I can now proudly say that I'm going to be running in a real marathon! BRING IT ON!! I'll take you...of course, I have to get into shape first...good motivation right? LOL.

Well, since the last time, there has been only a few things that have happened. To begin with, on 7-9, we had the foreign student festival which was basically food booths and dancing/special talents demonstration. After this event, most of the groups went and had their own parties. However, since I did nothing but watch and relax, a few of us 理学部 people had our own little party. Basically, it involved sitting on a rooftop drinking. Good times, good times.

 Two weekends later (7-23), there was the てだこ祭り in Urasoe-shi. It was kinda a spur of the moment thing. Wasn't planning on going but ended up going and totally enjoyed myself. I guess I'll take this time to mention my youtube. You can check out videos there (including those of Asia Aria, awesome violinist).

The following day, I went and did two different things. First was (finally) able to go snorkeling for fun. Not sure on the exact place that we went, but it was a fairly nice area. Spent maybe 2/3 hours out there before heading back in. Luckily, didn't get burnt too bad (except the top of my head...oh well).

After that, had a grand total of maybe...30 minutes of rest before cooking food and heading over to my friends place to have a...err....going away(?) party. It was more of a see you in a year party for my friend (Yuka) who's gonna study in UHM for a year. It was fun and we'll definitely have more of those dinner parties.

Well, there's one more thing to plug here. I'm now a volunteer at the 世界ウチナーンチュ大会. So, if you are coming, let me know so we can meet up at some of the events!! Ironically, I happened to meet some of the volunteers at the charity marathon and they are in fact wearing their t-shirts...Hahaha, I had said I was interested, but didn't imagine that I would end up working with them!

Well, I'm gonna stop here and hope that this will upload...before my power goes out (crosses fingers that the power doesn't go out)

また台風？ Again typhoon?

Yeah, to make a long story short, its been three weeks since we had that really big typhoon hit us. It was super strong and everything. According to my friend, it was a very unusual typhoon. And, there's usually only one typhoon, on average, that comes and hits Okinawa this early. Yet, here i sit 3 weeks late and there's another typhoon overhead right now. This time there shouldn't be any blackout though. Its not nearly as powerful as the last one. It is a nice change though. Lately, its become really hot in Okinawa. Feeling in the 100's (I think the hottest was 108F).

But, enough of that. There's just one weekend that something actually happened so I'll talk about that now.

So, it all started on 6-10. Well, actually the night of. If you look at the pictures around this text, you can guess there was some sort of drinking event. (Seems to happen often enough...) This 飲み会 (drinking event) was to celebrate the new new 4th year students entering the lab. Except that only 3 of the 5 came (1 of the 3 from my lab, the girl). The drinking started at 8. We were at the 居酒屋 until 12 and we walked around a bit (since Toki-sensei was quite drunk). It was pretty fun and we ended up drinking quite a bit.
While walking around, I got to meet up with another friend who just graduated from our lab. He, ironically, also came back from a 飲み会 and was getting some air. We were hungry so we went to Lawson and bought cup ramen and ate as we just talked story. It turns out that he was going to leave to America (New Mexico) in 2 weeks and so his office had a party for him and one other coworker who was leaving the next day.
So, I finally got back to my dorm at around 3 in the morning. Got washed up and everything and finally got to bed at around 4:30.
The next day was just as busy! Starting from12, there was a 理学部 (science department) volleyball event. It was a total of 4 hours and I thought there would at least be some breaks inbetween games. Turns out that I was completely wrong. It was basically 3.5 hours of straight volleyball playing. It was quite difficult but fun! I'm definitely going again next year!
I got home and took about a 30 minute nap before eating a quick dinner and heading off to another event. It was a 24 hour charity marathon for the Tohoku region. For those that don't know, the Tohoku region is the region that got hit really hard by the Tsunami a few months ago. The point of the event was to walk/run as far as we want and the total would hopefully end up being enough to have gone all the way to Tohoku. I'm not sure, but there was probably some money or something that was also being raised. But I'm not sure. I ended up walking 7.5 miles. Yes, I was exhausted after the 4 hours of volleyball but it was for a good cause. I figure that whats a little pain compared to what those in Tohoku have felt.

After this, we went to Karaoke to pop the karaoke cherry of my friend. LOL. It turns out that he actually had a good time and is looking forward to going again! So, that was a success!

Well, I'm over looking at my computer screen. Been doing it all day since I didn't go out at all today cause of the typhoon. Hopefully tomorrow will be better so that I can go biking or something.
Until next time, ALOHA~~! ヾ(*´∀｀*)ノ

台風。。。 Typhoon...

Heh, this is sort of embarrassing but it has now been over a month since I last updated my blog. Usually I'm taking a while because there's not much going on or not feeling it. Well, this time I've been thinking about doing this blog for AT LEAST the past month. But, every time I sit down to actually work on it, something else tends to come up. So, since its been over a month, I sort of have a lot to talk about. Though, it really hasn't been all to interesting.

So, first off, there was this thing called 'Golden Week' which, for most people, is a 1 week (actually...9/10 day) vacation. My grand total of vacation days was...3. (ーー;) Added to that, the rainy season started one week early. 'What does that mean?' you may be asking yourself. Well, the rainy season usually starts the week AFTER Golden Week. So, for all of you that can't put it together, the rainy season started during Golden Week. So, for the 3 days of break that I did have, it was raining (hard) for about 2/3 of it. Luckily, being the idiot I am, I still went out and had lots of fun.

The first day of Golden Week, we (as in Minoru, Roy, and me) went down to the port where Minoru and many other exchange students were going to participate in the ハーリー (hari boat race). Going there, the sky's were overcast but it seemed like a fairly good day. Take our bikes? Sure why not right? LUCKILY we weren't stupid enough to not look at the weather report which called for heavy rains. So, we caught the bus down...after quite an adventure walking. LOL. At the matsuri, I had my fair share of food there. (One of the BEST things about the festivals is the festival food!!) Then we went to go hangout at the Ryudai area and wait for the Ryudai teams to start their hari boat trials. There were a total of three teams that would be in different trials (meaning that it was possible for Ryudai to get 3 different trophies). The 理学部 (science dept) was first up and took their trial. I didn't get to watch because..quite frankly, I didn't know they had left. LOL (whoops...). The exchange students and the 工学部 (engineering dept) were to be second up. By this point, I guess you could say it was raining cats and dogs...but that might be being too nice to the rain. It was storming by this time and, for the most part, umbrellas weren't going to help out too much. It was raining hard enough that the whole festival shutdown for the day. Which was unfortunate because I was looking forward to the race as well as seeing D-51 live for the night show. Oh well, can't do anything.

The second day of Golden Week, it was still storming up a storm (hahaha...). So, I just walked with Minoru to GEO and got some DVDs to watch. Also, ended up playing a lot of Starcraft 2 during the day since it really was the first day in a long time that I was home actually early enough to play with a lot of people.

The third day of my Golden Week, Thursday, was the best as far as overall weather goes. Also, it was an awesome day in general cause we went driving! So awesome! There are so many different places that we went to (I can't remember all the names...so I'll just put up some pictures because a pictures worth more than 100 words...or something like that). We also got really lucky with timings. When the rain would come, it would be while we were in the car and when we were out and doing the whole tourist thing, it was just overcast. However, on the way back, the weather became sunny as heck which kind of disappointing to us since we couldn't be out in it. (rental cars have this annoying time limit thing...LOL).

Also on this day, it was the last day of the Hari festival. Meaning, there's usually a big name group or singer that comes in to close out the festival. This year, it was Orange Range!　(ノ^_^)ノ  For those that haven't heard, here is one of their more famous songs. They were the very last act, right before the fireworks. We got there the VERY second that their encore finished. (ーー;) So, to feel better about myself, I of course splurged myself on more matsuri food. We also got to watch the fireworks show. For those of you that haven't been to a fireworks show in Japan, ITS A MUST! Just saying, its definitely an experience.

Well, after Golden Week, there wasn't really too much going on. Life just went on as usual. Went to lab, came home, ate and slept. Every Monday go to badminton which is always a blast. The picture above is my friends dog and another friends kid. They were so cute together ヾ(*´∀｀*)ノ♪

I was actually all set to write this blog last weekend. I had already picked out all the pictures and everything. I just told myself that I need to finish my homework. Which, I was getting to slowly. Now, why would I be wasting my weekend indoors? Any guesses? Well, we had a category 3/4 (I'm not sure if it made it up to 4...but it was very close) typhoon hit us Saturday night/Sunday morning. This would not have been a problem at all because I was well prepared for it. Enough food and such. But, we lost power for 12+ hours. That kind of threw a wrench in my plans for working on my computer since I wasn't sure when my power would be back. Had to save my battery for times that I actually needed it.
So, maybe you're asking if it was really as bad as I'm saying. Well, here are some pictures (with some descriptions):

These are all pictures from my normal walking around. I didn't go and search them out because it was really all around.

Its hard to see in this picture, but the leaves on the trees are all brown. These were all very healthy green the day before the typhoon. All throughout campus, I found that many leaves had become brown (of those that were still on the trees).

Well, that's all for this edition. Hope to update soon. Until then, stay safe and...oh yeah...when was the world gonna end? Yeah, live it up til then ^-^ 笑

新しい年 New Year

So, its been almost a month since my last post and, honestly, there isn't much to say. I certainly hope that none of you reading this were waiting on the edge of your seats because I'd say, unless things start picking up (activity wise) there won't be much to post about. We do have Golden Week starting from next week Friday. Its SUPPOSED TO BE a week long vacation. Of course, if you a professor that doesn't really think about it, the Monday and Friday that usually are given as days off are not given. So, I still have class on Monday and have to go out in the field on Friday. So, my Golden Week will be a three day weekend and three days in the middle of the week off. Luckily, the plan is to try and get up to Churaumi-aquarium sometime in the middle of all that. So, there's bound to be something to talk about in a couple of weeks :)

Anyway, the last time I wrote was of all the people graduating. Now, I can report that the THREE new 4th year students have started (sort of) coming to the lab. So, its not as lonely in the lab anymore. Once we go out for the welcome party, I'll try and see if I can get pictures and do an introduction like last time.

Hm, there's really only one big event to talk about here. As many of you already know, there was an enormous event that happened to Tohoku Japan. Yes, I already made my donation (as much as I could spare). Well, in Okinawa, on 3.27, we had the 沖縄国際映画祭 (Okinawan International Music Festival). It definitely took on a much different tone compared to previous years (from what I could tell). It was a lot of fun and here are some pictures ^^

Well, that's all for today. I'll plug to my Japanese blog again and I'll hopefully update it tomorrow morning (since its been nearly 2 months since I wrote anything there).

Hope all is well with you guys :)　(m｀∀´)m

~Aloha~☆彡

寂しくなるな。。。 Getting lonely...

For once I've been actually trying to get onto my blog and actually write stuff. Its cause these past two weeks have been very filled with activities and such. Most were amazingly fun but many were also semi-sad events. But, before getting to all of that, have to talk of that thing called research...Its still going on which is making me very busy throughout the week. Hopefully things will lighten a little once I get more into a routine and figure out how to do things quicker but more than likely things will get more busy as I continue to add new data inputs to my experiment. Oh well, as I said in one of my earlier posts...H-A-V-E T-O L-O-V-E R-E-S-A-R-C-H ❤☆彡♬

That's really all I wanna talk about for my research.

On to the more interesting things! Last week, the 17th, I went on a short vacation to Hiroshima to visit with Lisa. She studied abroad in Hawaii a few years ago and then we also met a few times while I was in Fukuoka last year. (She was meeting a mutual friend and we got to restart our friendship at that time also. ♪)
Anyway, part of the reason for going to visit her was to basically say 'congratulations' to her since she graduated from college and also starts her job from....wow...today (dang, time sure flies). So, being the Hawaii person that I am, I of course had to lei her :) Here is Lisa with her Kimono on wearing the lei I made. It actually came out pretty well considering its my first time making it :) ♬

 

I think that this story will be very long so, if nothing else, enjoy the pictures (because there will be lots). I think its best to have pictures since it tells more than words (sometimes..LOL)

 

So, the first day I got to Hiroshima, I met Lisa at Hiroshima station and from there walked to her apartment. It was maybe a 10/15 minute walk which was nice and relaxing after sitting in a bus and airplane for a few hours. Also, I was surprised at Lisa's apartment. Its a family sized apartment. After dropping off my luggage at her house, we took a 'promenade' on the 'Promenade of Peace (平和の道)'. We walked about 45 minutes or an hour down to ほん道り (hondori) which is a big shopping district in Hiroshima. There, I met up with Eddie who's currently an English teaching assistant at 女学院大学 in 牛田. If you can't understand the kanji, hes working at an all girls university in Ushita (neighboring area of Hiroshima). For my first meal, we went to an Okonomiyaki shop (お好み焼き） and I had Hiroshima style okonomiyaki for the first first time. It was very interesting and also VERY tasty. ❤ I would definitely recommend eating it if you are in Hiroshima. After eating the okonomiyaki, the three of us went to Karaoke where we sang for maybe...4 hours? I think. Also, one of Lisa's friends joined us for part of the time. We then walked all the way back in the nice COLD night. (It was actually snowing earlier when I had first got into Hiroshima.)

 

So, for those of you that are familiar with Hiroshima and some of its history, you will also likely know the pictures above. My second day, we went to the 原爆ドーム (the A-bomb dome) and the surrounding area. The upper picture is a picture of the dome from afar. The picture on the bottom right was taking from inside the  museum like area and its showing what Hiroshima looked after the A-bomb had hit Hiroshima. The red ball is the height at which the bomb was detonated. The picture on the bottom left is actually completely made out of paper cranes and its made in memory of all the children that were affected by the radiation.

Inside of the museum(ish) area, I could have taken many pictures but I feel that its something that I shouldn't share but rather something that everyone should go and experience. Its definitely an eye opening experience. And also, very cheap to get in.

 

Following the visit to the 原爆ドーム, we took a 20 minute walk to Hiroshima castle.  Its a nice little castle that's had to be rebuilt many times. Also, Ume was blooming at the time so got to see some flowers. Not the same as the Sakura, but still very pretty. After going through the entire castle, we again walked all the way back to Lisa's house and cooked curry for dinner in Lisa's new pot. We had a little bit of an accident but it all worked out in the end.

 

The following day was a trip over to the famous 宮島 (miyajima) with its famous red gate that's sometimes in the water and sometimes out of the water. When I saw it in the pictures, I always thought that it'd be really cool to go and see it and walk all the way out to it. I also thought that it was just a normal size gate. Boy was I surprised at the massiveness of it. If you look closely at the bottom right pictures, there's a kayak there. That kind of gives you an idea of how big the gate is! I didn't get to walk all the way out to it but I did get within a SW of it (like, 50 yards or so). LOL.

I was also very surprised that there were many deers in the area. I thought that Nara was really the only place in Japan that was known for deer but Miyajima is also well known for its deers also. Boy, I sure do learn a lot when I go traveling around to different places. ☆彡

Here's a picture of Lisa and me in front of the gate. Also, one of the famous snack foods from Hiroshima is that Manju in the right picture. It was very good and tastes best if hot. (called もみじ)
We then headed back to the mainland of Hiroshima. But, before heading back to Hiroshima station, we stopped at a 駅弁 store and bought some bentos. Its supposedly well known for its good tasting food and it did not disappoint. I don't remember the name of the place, but I can look it up later if anyone wants to eat at it.

After returning to the Lisa's home, I packed some stuff and headed up to Eddie's place for the night. We ended up back at Hondori for dinner at an all-you-can-eat shabu-shabu (しゃぶしゃぶ食べ放題). I haven't had that in soooooo long and it was cheap considering that its shabu-shabu. Needless to say we ate A LOT and got stuffed silly. On the way back, we went to pick up some food to cook the next day. It was really late at night and many things were already sold out. In addition, there were limits put on for how much food could be bought by one person.
That night, we spent many hours playing Wii and just killing time. Did finally get his SC2 started the following day also. It was also a good thing we went to buy food the day before because on the following day, it was raining pretty heavy (might have been snow but we were too lazy to go out into it. LOL). So, we basically spent a lazy Sunday indoors for most of the day.

We did finally venture out to town for dinner with his friends. That was also an experience. LONG STORY...LOL. But, in any case, did get to see the 原爆ドーム at night. Its pretty cool at night. This would also be my last night in Hiroshima so I got back to Lisa's apartment and did some quick packing to be ready to leave the next day.
And that's pretty much my Hiroshima trip.

So, I came back on the 21st, Monday. The next day I was out in the field collecting samples for my experiment and everything. Gosh..no rest >.< LOL. But, there were other things to look forward to in the week.

The 23rd was graduation day for most everyone in my research lab. So, I was kinda busy making lei's for all of them also. Also had to mix-in finishing my own research stuff at the same time. This led to...very tiring days.
Here's pictures that I took with my research lab students and friends.

On Friday, we had our cleaning of the lab area and also got to meet the incoming 4th year students. We had a 飲み会 that night to celebrate everything being done.








Well, that will just about cover everything for this edition. Our 'spring break' is coming to a close soon (although, I haven't really had too much of a break) so hopefully I'll be able to make more friends and go out and to more stuff on the weekends once people are back from vacation.

Hope all is well for you and remember to keep East Japan in your prayers. They still need our help dearly and any support that can be offered would be appreciated!

Mahalo and Aloha~~! ☆彡