by audrey -

Back in the bay

Soooo today starts week 3 of Back in California. :)
Week 1 was a blur, but a sort of awesome blur.

Dont wash hands in crab tank
Don't wash hands in crab tank

In my first day back (a Monday) I went to my opthalmologist (uncle) and got a year’s order of contacts and an updated prescription. Was tempted to poke the crabs at the Chinese supermarket.  Dumplings for dinner. :)

Le 5
Le 5

Tuesday: Drove from LA to SF (5 hours, no traffic), getting to work in time for an afternoon meeting.  Tried new Indian restaurant on Castro with friends (two old, one new).  Particularly nice since I’d been expecting to go it alone in SF that night.

Wednesday: ate burrito + fruit salad in a one-person picnic lunch.  prix fixe dinner at Alexander’s Steakhouse with good friends.

In 'n Out

Thursday: In ‘n Out dinner w/ another friend.  Picked up dude from airport – late night Chinese food w/ another friend.

Friday: hiking in Muir Woods. Warm redwood bark is an unsurpassably happy-inducing smell. Crossing the Golden Gate bridge and drinking in some ocean views isn’t so bad for the happy levels either.

Saturday: checked out an apartment, Where the Wild Things Are, and a birthday party.

Sunday: mini-reunion with college friends (some actually not seen in 5 years), marveled at quarter-life old age, ate pizza.

All in my first week back from Japan. Heh. Lotsa California-ey stuff there. Feel like that could’ve all been spread over a whole month and I’d still feel good about it.

by Audrey -

Apology to a hat

Today was a sad day. My hat, the hat I scoured Tokyo shops for, meant to warm my ears for years hence, has been lost to a cold, premature death by the waterfalls of Lake Toya in Aomori prefecture.

Perhaps for an hour, it was hopeful of a happy reunion. Inevitably and all too quickly, that confidence faded with the residual warmth from my pocket. It lies collapsed somewhere, helpless and lifeless, that last shred of warmth long since sucked into muddy leaves and gray twilight.

The problem with group tours (okay, one problem) is that even when you realize you’ve dropped something, say, half an hour into a walk, you can’t go back for it. So maybe (just maybe) you jog back, intensely scanning the road, but after five minutes of blank trail, you have to turn back or you’ll hold up the bus. Also, maybe your dad is screaming at you and your mom shouldn’t be made to hold your stuff too much longer.

A replaceable accessory, yes. But I still feel like I’m letting someone down. Like disappointing a kid, or a puppy.

I know I could’ve found it. But I didn’t. And now it can’t be a hat, it has to be a decomposing lump of fabric, or maybe another scrap of nothing in the lost-and-found.
And all because I was careless.

Maybe I’m getting soft in old age. Or maybe I never outgrew an attachment to fuzzy things.

Bye, hat. I’m sorry.

by audrey -

One week!

Six days from right now, I’ll be on a plane from Tokyo to Hokkaido.
Two weeks from now, I’ll be floating somewhere over the Pacific.

One year goes by really really fast.
Goodness.
People keep asking what I’m going to fit in before I go, if I want to see or buy or eat something.

No, not really.

Partially because work is really busy, and partially because, well, I’ve been here for a year.

Thanks to Typhoon Melor (known to Japanese citizens as Typhoon #18), my last pair of sneakers from the states is probably not coming home.  Two have fallen prey to the wear and tear of Tokyo pavement, this last pair was doing okay, but after a few soakings, I begin to wonder whether I should stick my feet in them at all.  Like I said, not coming home.

blacows
blacows cheeseburger + jalapeno

On an unrelated note (but really, don’t all notes relate somehow to food?), they opened a wagyu hamburger place that’s smack in the middle of my walk home from Ebisu station.  I dragged a friend there for dinner last week.  It had opened the weekend before, but I was too busy playing in Kansai to check it out.  Plus, it’s kind of hard to march into a giant hamburger store by yourself.  Ramen, yes.  Burger, hm…

Yes, it was a $15 hamburger.  It came with 5 little wedges of potato.   We thought that was kinda stingy of them, but then we took stock of the burger.  The burger was delicious, and humongous.  Well flavored, good quality meat (made from black, raised-in-Japan bovine = black cows = blacows (the restaurant name)), savory tomato sauce (not ketchup), and for me…ahem…jalapeno + cheese.  Really good.  I think I have to eat gruel + boiled spinach for two weeks to compensate for the hit to the arteries(not happening), but reaaally good.

I go back to work now.