vancouver, day one

On 5/1/07, Leo wrote:

After buying some things at Daiso, Jennie and I went to eat Tako balls, which are street-stand octopus balls. They were so good. And to make it even better, they had bottled Canada Dry! It was a great final meal in Japan.

We went to Muji for a quick shopping excursion before heading to the airport. We bought some final drinks and snacks at the train station, and the trip to the airport was 30 minutes long. We checked in, bought some more gifts, and were on the flight home.

The flight was rough, with more turbulence than the flight to Japan. I watched the Good German, which was a little boring. I also watched House - All In again. It's nice to catch more details the second time around. Hugh Laurie is great.

We arrived home, dropped off Jennie, and ate lunch. After unpacking I took a nap with the heat pad on my right knee. My leg feels a little better. It's after dinner, I'm now watching the fourth game of the Canucks-Ducks series.

I'm back! And I'm glad. I don't think I can take much more walking. I need to sleep well before I head down to California with Heman.

Lord, thanks for safety, thanks for a good experience, thanks for an opportunity for growth, and thanks for your provisions!

osaka, day two

On 4/30/07, Leo wrote:

It’s our last day here, and I’m looking forward to going home. It’s been a good experience and a fun one at that, but I’m tired of shopping and all the walking around.

After breakfast at the hotel, which consisted of miso soup, toasted butter buns, potato salad and orange juice, we went shopping at the Namba underground shopping area, and Shinsaibashi. Shinsaibashi is populated with trendy boutique stores, so most of their merchandise was neither our style, nor within our shopping budget. I discovered a few shirts that I could wear at home, so I finally managed to have something to show for my time shopping.

Sogo is a huge department store, and the view from the roof is fantastic. I could see all of Osaka from the 15th floor. I bought an onigiri (seafood-wrapped rice triangle with seafood inside) at their classy food fair.

We met Raphael at the hotel, and he showed us to a few different spots in Namba. We met up with Shannon and Crystal, and went to Chanto, an izakaya restaurant. Izakaya restaurants are known for their Japanese tapas. The table was very interesting; we all sat on the edge of a circle, with our feet dangled into the circle. The table was slightly above our knees. The food was unique, and tasted good. We bought ice-cream dessert at 7-11, and ate it at the riverside.

We just ate breakfast, and Jennie is shopping for some last minute gifts. If there's time after we check out of the hotel, we’ll see if there’s something to buy at Daiso. After that, we take the train to Kansai airport, and I’m headed home!

I don’t remember the last time I did so much shopping. I guess it was the same in Hong Kong. I think I’ve had enough of shopping vacations. Bring on the sand and surf.

My feet are sore, and my calves are sore. I’m looking forward to sleeping in my own bed.

osaka, day one

On 4/30/07, Leo wrote:

It’s after day 6, and I’m in the computer room at our hotel in Osaka. After a late night at Big Echo, we slept for 3.5 hours, showered and packed. We met at the computer station in Ueno, and dragged our luggage to the Ueno train station. We bought buns and drinks, and took the train to Tokyo. From Tokyo station, we took the Shinkansen bullet train to Osaka. We threw our huge luggage on the shelves above the seats, and slept almost all the way to Osaka. Along the way, we took pictures of Mount Fuji.

When we arrived at Osaka, we took the subway to Namba, pulled our luggage up twenty stairs and through a busy street. It's Golden Week, when the whole country has a holiday, so the streets are ridiculously crowded.

Speaking of crowds, there are a huge number of people here with a spatial impediment. In Tokyo, it's very crowded, but everyone intuitively knows everyone else's walking paths. People do not bump into each other. In Osaka, people will cut into your lane, stop in front of you, or put out their hands so that you don't bump into them, even though you are five meters away from them. I hope this impediment is not contagious.

We ate lunch at an okanomiyaki restaurant. It took 20 minutes to cook each okanomiyaki, but they were pretty good. They are a lot thicker here than in Vancouver. We weren't allowed to take pictures of the chefs. I think it's because they're yakuza.

We spent the afternoon at Namba Walk, the underground shopping area. We also walked through Shinsaibashi, an open-air shopping mall I would liken to Harajuku. There are different boutiques, brand-name stores, and department stores littered throughout.

We’ve done so much walking. My feet are very tired. We're going to do more shopping, but since this is the last day, I'm going to enjoy it, and have fun. After all, this is my vacation.

I am thankful for vacations, their ability to refresh me, and the opportunity to handle and release stresses.

And now it’s back to the impeded streets of Osaka.

tokyo, day 5

On 4/29/07, Leo wrote:

It is the morning after an eventful day 5. We finally managed to sleep in until 9am. After lunch at the train station, I met up with Jennie, we chatted for a bit, and then we traveled to Harajuku. While we were shopping, it started to pour outside, much like it did that day at the museum. We walked from restaurant to restaurant, trying to find a refuge while the typhoon filled the sky with raindrops. We found a ramen restaurant where I ordered ramen served with corn and a square of butter. We returned to Ueno and shopped at Muji and IOIO. There were some shirts at IOIO that I really liked, but they were each $150 CAN. I couldn’t get myself to do it. Thankfully, I finally found something within my budget at Muji.

We splurged on foot massages. After the massages, we went back to Ameyoko to buy gifts, and ate ramen for dinner. We met up with the rest of the guys, and ate dinner at a Korean barbeque restaurant. Jennie and I entertained and confused our friends. After dinner, we sang karaoke at Big Echo until 4am.

Songs I now like to sing at karaoke: Copacabana, and You Lift Me Up.

We had 3.5 hours of sleep, and now we're headed toward Osaka.

Thanks Tokyo, you’ve been great!

tokyo, day 4

On 4/28/07, Leo wrote:

It’s noon after day 4, and yesterday we had another shopping day. We ate breakfast at the train station, and walked to Ueno Park. The park is a green oasis from the buildings and sidewalks. I didn’t realize how much I appreciated and missed the natural setting of Vancouver. After the park, we walked to the Ameyako street market, Harajuku, and Shibuya 109-2 for more shopping. The highlight was the KDDI telephone store in Harajuku, where we bought gifts for our friends. We returned, ate noodles with John, and took the subway to Roppongi. We were looking for karaoke, but instead found streets filled with black guys promoting their strip shows. What was memorable and disturbing was a creepy 50-year-old Japanese man walking into Lucy and trying to proposition her.

John, Lucy, Mark and I ate lunch at the train station, and Jennie got her hair cut at a very nice Japanese salon. Hopefully we will have time for karaoke tonight.

tokyo, day three

On 4/27/07, Leo wrote:

It’s after day 3, and it’s 9:30am on Friday. We slept very well, but we woke up at around 6am, even though we wanted to sleep in.

Yesterday we had breakfast at Cafe Veloce, a Japanese coffee shop. It’s like Starbucks, but with better food and better service. We ate salmon sandwiches and royal ice milk tea. Royal is 30 yen more than the regular iced tea, but has fresh milk instead of packaged milk. Lucy and John showed up for breakfast, and Jennifer also showed up to get a sandwich.

After breakfast, we walked toward Sensoji Temple, and bought a cookie from a bakery on the way to Sensoji. The sun started to shine brightly at the temple, and we took pictures. Unfortunately, my camera ran out of battery, so we were down to one camera. We managed to take pictures of high school kids gathering smoke fumes into their clothes, because it’s apparently good luck.

After Sensoji, we traveled to Ryoguku, home of the Tokyo-Edo museum. After learning about the history of Japan for a few hours, we were set to travel to Ginza. At 3pm, the skies turned dark grey, and we saw the largest downpour and windstorm of our trip. Trees, once vertical, were blown horizontal. Rows of schoolchildren were looking out of windows, amazed at the amount of wind and falling water. Pedestrians were being drenched as they fought to keep their umbrellas open. We decided to eat instead of brave the insane weather, and we finally had our first chasiuramen and tempura soba of our vacation.

When the rain died down, we walked to Ginza, a district known for its huge department stores. I was looking forward to visiting the Sony store. They had new computers and mp3 players, but I was not as impressed as I was when I visited and played with the first generation playstation. We bought a custard-filled pastry from the milky store, and ate it as we waited for the rest of the group, who had gone to the Canon building. We spent most of our time at Uniqlo, a Japanese Gap-style store. We returned to Ueno, bought some onigiri from the Neways convenience store, and ate at the hotel. We were planning to head out for karaoke, but John came home late, and Lucy came home even later than John.

I slept, took a long shower, and then slept some more. We re-packed our bags, and now I feel really good. We haven’t walked this far and this often for a long time. I hope we get foot massages. I hope today will be nice and relaxing.

It’s been tiring, but I am thankful for good weather, and good friends.

tokyo, day two

On 4/26/07, Leo wrote:

It’s after day 2, it’s 5:25am, and I have a sniffly nose. We left the window open for fresh air, but the air made the room cooler than comfortable. So now I am up, burning some energy, and trying to tire myself into bed for another two hours.

After waking up at 5am yesterday, we played cards, watched television, and fell asleep again.

After waking up, we ate breakfast at Yoshinoya (pork on rice, and beef on rice), and caught the train to Shinjuku. Shinjuku is the business district of Japan. It is mostly populated with high class department stores. We walked through an alley that focused on pachinko parlors and porn theatres, and saw people lining up to starting playing pachinko. We walked through 8 floors of the Times Square department store, and I bought a nice pen from Tokyo Hands. I relaxed by using the foot-massager.

I bought some t-shirts and an umbrella at Uniqlo. These are t-shirts with interesting designs. I wish I brought less t-shirts of my own.

We walked upstairs and ate lunch at a ricebowl restaurant in Shinjuku. Jennie had salmon on rice, and I had beef and octopus on rice. After Shinjuku, we went to Harajuku, the place where young people dress up in different costumes. We didn’t see many interesting clothes for guys, as the Harajuku section that we visited was mostly clothes for women. Jennie bought clothes and jewelry.

After Harajuku, we traveled to Shibuya, which is a huge shopping district. We were looking for somewhere to sit down after walking for so long, and we stumbled upon Wired Cafe, which is the 7th floor on a video rental store. I had a Ginger Soda, which tasted like Koala Springs with shredded ginger, and Jennie had a berry ice drink.

At Shibuya, we went shopping for Jennie`s shoes and clothes. We spent an hour at Shibuya 109 but found nothing, because everything is interesting and overpriced. There is a Shibuya 109-2 for guys, but we didn’t have a chance to see it. I doubt it that the clothes would be within my price range, but it’d be interesting to see what the fashion trends are in Tokyo. I hope to find another Uniqlo type store.

We ate dinner at a tapas place in Shibuya. The food was unique and tasted good, but loud Japanese smokers marred the ambience. Another negative was the fact that the restaurant billed us for appetizers that we didn’t even eat. Apart from that, I want to give the place a positive review, because the food was flavorful, and I was happily eating even though I wasn’t hungry at the time.

Thus ended day 2 of our Tokyo trip.

Today we are planning to visit Asakusa and Roppongi. Maybe today we will do less shopping and see more cultural sights, but it’s tough to find the cultural sights because the roads seldom have names.

Amidst all this activity, I appreciate being blessed with a chance to travel, and with everything that is happening. Every little event helps me learn about my environment and myself.

tokyo, day one

Rather than writing one long post about my trip to Japan, I will recap my trip, one post and one day at a time.

On 4/25/07, Leo Chiu wrote:

It’s 5 o’clock in the morning and I just woke up. It was a very long day.

At 1pm in the afternoon, we took off from YVR. We had a relaxing flight. We ate lunch, we watched Dreamgirls (a good musical), we ate some more, we slept, we watched The Prestige (which was good until the ending), and we ate again.

We landed, we picked up our luggage, and we were told not to take pictures while at the airport. We walked through the airport looking for maps and train tickets, and some of us waited while others bought local attractions tickets. Once we bought our train tickets, we rushed onto the train. As we sat down, we realized that we had boarded the wrong car. As the train was moving, we tried to pull our luggage to the right car. We didn’t make it in time, so we ended up in a private compartment. We sat there for 15 minutes, and then the conductors told us we needed to move to another car.

From Ueno Station, we dragged our luggage 6 blocks toward our hotel. It was dark and tiring, not to mention intimidating because the map was not helpful to us. What if it took hours to find the hotel?

Eventually, I saw the sign for Oakhotel. After we threw our luggage into our rooms, we ate noodles from a restaurant where you order your meal ticket from a vending machine, hand your meal ticket to the cook, and he cooks it for you.

We walked to Akihibara, the district known for its electronics. Most stores were closed at 8pm, except for a big department store. We rode a virtual saddle, used a shoulder massager, and stood on the body shaker. We walked until 9pm, and went home to sleep. I fell asleep so quickly.

The hotel is small. The room is small. The toilet seat is cracked on one side. The washroom is small. When I towel off, I have to pull off moves from The Matrix. This will take getting used to. I don’t have cabin fever yet, but if I don’t get enough rest, who knows?

At times like this, it’s good to remember my blessings, and to count them one by one.

And now, maybe I can go to sleep.

Leo in Los Angeles

My trip to Los Angeles is fresh in my mind, so I’ll recap our California adventure.

I returned from Japan on Tuesday, so I take it pretty easy on Wednesday. We pack, we meet with our guys’ groups, and we plan an itinerary for our trip.

On Thursday, we eat lunch, and head to the airport. We sleep on the plane, and wake up in sunny LA. We walk down the long corridor to the LAX baggage claim, and pick up a map from the information desk. It was strange, but even though this is the same airport I arrived at to meet up with An in 2005, it feels much different. Last time I was there, it felt like a strange, foreign place. This time, it feels like a place not far removed from Vancouver.

We claim our baggage, and take the complimentary shuttle to Budget rent-a-car. We sign the forms, and walk to the parking lot towards our Chevrolet HHR. It's not a bad car, but it smells like something indecipherable. The air inside the HHR is stifling, although it smells better after we drive down the highway for a few minutes.

I felt shell-shock while driving in LA. There are six lanes of traffic, and everyone drives erratically compared to BC drivers. The HHR handles like a go-kart, with quick response but shaky stability.

We eat dinner at the hotel restaurant, Hot Tomato. The food was decent, but we didn't return. We drove to Vons, Safeway's alter-ego in the states, and bought muffins and juice for breakfast, and water bottles for our trip.

On Friday, we drive to Valencia, home of Six Flags Magic Mountain. We enter the $15/day parking lot, and walk five minutes to get to the main entrance. We walk through several buildings until we reach the annual pass building. We are fitted with our passes, and we finally reach the X, the best ride in all of SFMM. The lines for the rides are short, so we managed to ride the X twice. It is a relatively short ride, but every second of it is exciting, as every second you feel like you might certainly die. We ride the other huge rides in the park, but they all pale in comparison to the X.

At night, we eat dinner at In'n'Out, which is known for their great burgers. On this night, they are average. We end the night sitting in the hot tub, soothing our muscles which have become tense from the excitement of the rides.

On Saturday, we return to Six Flags, but this time we walk toward Hurricane Harbor, the waterslides section of the theme park. We slid down two slides, the latter of which damaged our elbows and backs. The wind starts to pick up, and we wait out the young tornado, lying on the beach chairs, with our midsize towels shielding us from the gust. After 30 minutes, we had enough.

We eat lunch at the Mooseburger Lodge, and ride the log-rides and raft-rides that we didn't ride on Friday. We leave early, and drive to Hollywood. We find cheap parking at the shopping mall, and eat dinner at the famous Mel's Drive-in. Reuben sandwiches and yogurt shakes, meatloaf and root beer floats. We take pictures at Mann's Chinese Theatre and along Hollywood Boulevard, and spent the evening at Virgin Megastore.

On Sunday, we wake up late, and find our car battery dead. We spend one hour waiting for a jump, and after the jump fails, we wait two hours for a replacement car. When we finally get our Buick LaCrosse (which is a fantastic car) we drive to Santa Monica, and walked along the pier and Third Avenue. The wind almost knocked our hats into the water. After taking some fantastic sunset shots, we drove to Chili's for dinner, where we eat some of the BEST BABY BACK RIBS EVER.

On Monday’s drive to the airport, the highways are not as daunting as they were when we arrived. The frightening roads have been tamed; the immensity of the freeway has been shrunk. Sometimes it takes a second trip to become comfortable at a location, sometimes it takes mere days. I love the feeling you get when you realize that at the end of a trip, you leave as a different person than when you began.

please pray for grandma

It's been 3 days since I returned from Los Angeles, and although I felt energetic on my first day back to work, I've been feeling less energetic since then. This partly has to do with my grandmother breaking her hip, and her being admitted to a hospital. I don't remember ever seeing her in a hospital bed, in all these years of knowing her. She doesn't seem to be in a painful state, because she still had her energy when we went to visit her. She is on the waiting list for surgery, although no one knows when the surgery will happen. Everyone in the family is visiting her, but it's tough for grandma because most everyone has to visit after they finish work. She is currently at St. Paul's Hospital, where her nurses or doctors cannot speak Chinese. Please pray that the surgery and rehabilitation goes well.

I will write about my travels in a future post.