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Day on the town with Carl
Lovely day really!
We started off with a jaunt around the neighborhood. The plan was to get lunchy-like things at one of Carl's favored pastry shops, but go figure, both of them (Honore and Besalu) were closed for the holidays. Whoops. So we ended up at the Java Bean, which is a few doors down from Besalu. On the way there, we checked out the Ballard House (that is, Zach's house, which I lived in for a few years and then Carl took over my half afterwards) since it is under construction. It does not, infact, have a second floor anymore, and the first floor is being gutted. Very strange to see.
We got lunch at the Java Bean, and Oren ended up meeting us there (he was also out walking). Then the three of us walked to Oren's place. On the way there, it was raining, but it was also RAINBOWING. At one point there was a double rainbow over 60th street, and you could even see the full arch of the rainbow for a while; I would have put the pot of gold as being somewhere near the Ballard Post Office if I had to guess. It was quite pretty.
After hanging out at Oren's for a bit (and I've apparently gotten my American PS2 back, whoops) we went to Rock Box and Carl got to listen to me singing for an hour and a half (I exaggerate a little, but since I know a lot more songs and it was me pushing to go, I ended up singing a lot, he sang some Hikawa Kiyoshi stuff, and we sang together some Spitz, and so on). My current push song is 何度でも by Dreams Come True and it's just those long tongue-twister parts that are killing me (Carl pointed out the irony of a line towards the end, "喘ぎ嘆きながら自分と戦ってみるよ" which is literally exactly how you feel by the time you are singing it, like you are panting and fighting against yourself) but I feel I can master this song if I just practice it some. Just have to find a Japanese karaoke place in San Francisco, this shouldn't be such a hard thing :(
We went to Taste of India for dinner with Oren and his girlfriend. There was a gigantic line to get in, so they gave us paper cups of hot chai while we were waiting, and a bit later came around with potato pakora appetizer plates for people who were waiting as well! And then when we DID get seated, they also gave us ANOTHER free plate of appetizers. So in the end we had waaaaaaaay too much food... but well, that was the entire point of not eating much for lunch. And chai! Chai chai chai so much for my no-caffeine thing the last few days.
Carl and I went to Half Price Books after that, where he got a few books and I read an entire book about Moe Berg in about 45 minutes (I speed-read; I've already read a few books about him so there wasn't a ton of new infor in it).
Came home, and I think now that it's almost 3am I am off the chai caffeine high. Also I am sad because I can't watch Kohaku Uta Gassen for the first time in years. This not-being-in-Japan thing really hits me hard sometimes. I wonder if I'll ever adjust, or if I'll just have to move back there someday? Sigh. Come to think of it, despite that I was supposed to be back in the US for this year, I actually did spend 3 months of the year in Japan. It doesn't feel like that much, I wish it could have been more, especially given that next year I'll be lucky if I can spend more than 3-4 WEEKS in Japan total. Alas.
It doesn't feel like it's been a whole year. I think I was much better at not wasting time when I was over there. Always had something to do like explore or watch baseball or whatever, and always had so many adventures even if they were just "what weird shit will 14-year-olds think of next?" sorts of things.
We started off with a jaunt around the neighborhood. The plan was to get lunchy-like things at one of Carl's favored pastry shops, but go figure, both of them (Honore and Besalu) were closed for the holidays. Whoops. So we ended up at the Java Bean, which is a few doors down from Besalu. On the way there, we checked out the Ballard House (that is, Zach's house, which I lived in for a few years and then Carl took over my half afterwards) since it is under construction. It does not, infact, have a second floor anymore, and the first floor is being gutted. Very strange to see.
We got lunch at the Java Bean, and Oren ended up meeting us there (he was also out walking). Then the three of us walked to Oren's place. On the way there, it was raining, but it was also RAINBOWING. At one point there was a double rainbow over 60th street, and you could even see the full arch of the rainbow for a while; I would have put the pot of gold as being somewhere near the Ballard Post Office if I had to guess. It was quite pretty.
After hanging out at Oren's for a bit (and I've apparently gotten my American PS2 back, whoops) we went to Rock Box and Carl got to listen to me singing for an hour and a half (I exaggerate a little, but since I know a lot more songs and it was me pushing to go, I ended up singing a lot, he sang some Hikawa Kiyoshi stuff, and we sang together some Spitz, and so on). My current push song is 何度でも by Dreams Come True and it's just those long tongue-twister parts that are killing me (Carl pointed out the irony of a line towards the end, "喘ぎ嘆きながら自分と戦ってみるよ" which is literally exactly how you feel by the time you are singing it, like you are panting and fighting against yourself) but I feel I can master this song if I just practice it some. Just have to find a Japanese karaoke place in San Francisco, this shouldn't be such a hard thing :(
We went to Taste of India for dinner with Oren and his girlfriend. There was a gigantic line to get in, so they gave us paper cups of hot chai while we were waiting, and a bit later came around with potato pakora appetizer plates for people who were waiting as well! And then when we DID get seated, they also gave us ANOTHER free plate of appetizers. So in the end we had waaaaaaaay too much food... but well, that was the entire point of not eating much for lunch. And chai! Chai chai chai so much for my no-caffeine thing the last few days.
Carl and I went to Half Price Books after that, where he got a few books and I read an entire book about Moe Berg in about 45 minutes (I speed-read; I've already read a few books about him so there wasn't a ton of new infor in it).
Came home, and I think now that it's almost 3am I am off the chai caffeine high. Also I am sad because I can't watch Kohaku Uta Gassen for the first time in years. This not-being-in-Japan thing really hits me hard sometimes. I wonder if I'll ever adjust, or if I'll just have to move back there someday? Sigh. Come to think of it, despite that I was supposed to be back in the US for this year, I actually did spend 3 months of the year in Japan. It doesn't feel like that much, I wish it could have been more, especially given that next year I'll be lucky if I can spend more than 3-4 WEEKS in Japan total. Alas.
It doesn't feel like it's been a whole year. I think I was much better at not wasting time when I was over there. Always had something to do like explore or watch baseball or whatever, and always had so many adventures even if they were just "what weird shit will 14-year-olds think of next?" sorts of things.