Last day in Kumamoto

I've been in my hometown for a month so far, this is my first time that I've stayed in Kumamoto such a long time after I graduated high school. It's always good to see my family, I love them so much.

Leaving to Kyoto tomorrow with friend , It's going to be a fun trip to see my brother in Kyoto.

Thank you all sooo much for the wonderful time in Kumamoto!! I will be back soon!

Hageno-Yu@Oguni

There are so many famous hot spring place in Aso@Kumamoto, We visited one of the popular one, Hageno-yu@Oguni today. It's 2hours drive from Kumamoto city, beautiful autumn day, stopped at Daikanbou on the way back to see the spectacular view from the top of the mountain!

It's Monday today so there is no one in the big outside bath where you can see the whole mountain view, it's like our private bath yeey.

My friend, she is coming to Tokyo to see me soon, so not going to miss her. :)

moonlight drive

My friend and I went driving up to Aso at almost 9pm, it's too dark to see anything though, very mysterious fun drive. :D
We stopped by Ura-Cafe when back to the town, it exists at very very small place but once you enter the gate, it's just amazing! Food was very nice, I love jazzy and cozy atmosphere too.
Ura-Cafe

Only 4days left in Kumamoto, I am getting excited about my Kyoto trip soon. :))

Skype latest version's bug

I am having problem on latest version of Skype, version name ; Skype 4.2.0.187 that was released a month ago, the problem is when I use video chat, the video frequently freeze, you can fix it by rebooting Skype application though, really annoying. I've never had this problem until Skype 4.2.0.169 which was released 5months ago.
It seems like there are many people are having the same problem as mine and try down grade to version 4.1 and It's all fixed.

Make sure that automatically update is unchecked in Advanced Settings, otherwise you will get the latest version next time you log in Skype.

If you are having a trouble, try install older version in here .
I installed Skype 4.1.0.179 , let's see if I can talk properly.

Thanks!

Jigoku Onsen@Aso,Kumamoto

Monday was the national holiday in Japan, I don't know what day is for though,
my friends and I went driving to Aso@Kumamoto, It was a perfect sunny day for out going :)

We left Kumamoto city at 12:00 afternoon and arrived Kusasenri after 2 hours, and driving up to the mountain to take hot spring, we end up to Jigoku Onsen where is known for curing several chronic disease,
The bath exists in hidden narrow place, not too clean, but kind of like a minor onsen place for those who try to recover from their diseases, or local people who live right next to the onsen area. The water in the bath is gushing from the mountain with sulfur so it has natural white colour, you can't see your foot in the water, and smells like a eggshell. it's kind of gross, you can't take a bath too long. :D going to be killed by this strong smell.

We saw the beautiful sunset from top of the mountain ;)
I am going back to Tokyo soon. Going to miss Kumamoto for sure...

Kumamoto Castle

My friends and I went to castle autumn festival last night, There were thousands of bamboo arranged on the street and lighted candles was set in it. It's a fantastic view to see the long street towards to the main castle. You can hardly see it from the pic though, KUMAMOTO is also created by each chunk of bamboos.

Going to watch Knight & Day movie today with parents. :)

DEAN & DELUCA Recipes

Is there anyone can cook this recipes for me? Looks really yummy!

DEAN & DELUCA RECIPES

Otachimisaki

My friend R and I left Kumamoto to Otachimisaki@Ashikita at 10am in the morning,
It was about 3hours drive to the beach, It's sunny autumn day.
The beach is white sand and sky blue water, and no one was there because of Wednesday, Everyone should be working, not me and my friend though.. lol

We found 2kitties on the road, their eyes weren't opened yet, so cleaned up faces and finally it's opened and saw their beautiful grey/blue eyes!!
They were just tiny sweet kitties.

We went to police,city council,the mall etc to find the pet owner, but they all just said that all they can do is to send kitty to facility to kill them in next day. :'(
So we decided to ditch them at the bench of the park so that someone who want pet is going to find them and take them home.

I still regret that I could be better in some way, maybe I should take them home,,, but my family has 2cats already, they were also abandoned in the park, I found them last year, already grown up to the big fat cat now.

I think, (well I am trying to think) I did my best for them,
Please please DO NOT abandon your pets, consider to do early spay neuter if you don't wish them to have baby. :)
If you plan to have a pet, Please go to animal care centre first to take these animals waiting for your help. Animals in the pet shop, they are just fine as they are already, try to help animals in need.

Our trip plan was totally changed, since we met kitties though, still amazing trip! Thanks R!

How Will You Measure Your Life?

Here is an interesting article I found today, How will you measure your life?
It's written by HBS prof, Clayton M. Christensen , At the end of his class, he let his students discuss about below 3questions,

1. how can I be sure that I’ll be happy in my career?
2. how can I be sure that my relationships with my spouse and my family become an enduring source of happiness?

3. how can I be sure I’ll stay out of jail? ... lol :D

Try answering questions above , you might be able to clarify your own way to pursuit of happiness in your life. ;)

GIARDINO@S-SIGHT , YORU-CAFE

I had a great night with one of my best friend in Kumamoto last night.

She has been traveling all over the world and finally came back to hometown, she is a energetic girl :D

We had a great time together with nice Italian pizza and pasta @GIARDINO and ice cream @ 夜カフェ（YORU-CAFE）.

Takachiho, Hyuga@Miyazaki and summer festival

We left Mifune@Kumamoto to head for Miyazaki prefecture at 9am in the morning today.

The purpose of visiting Miyazaki is to see one of the famous spiritual place "Takachiho-Kyo" and beautiful beach with so many palm tree "Hyuga" . We found very small secret beach on the way and prayed for each one's hope on the edge of the cliff where is known for the place to pray and dream come true. :)

We headed back to Kumamoto around 7:30 and saw the big summer festival in the town,

By coincidence, we could see our high school re-union team was dancing through the main street in the festival! so cool!!

I would like to join next time... hope I am not yet too old.. lol

Thanks so much N,H,A for taking me out!

Aso trip with mom and dad

Me and my parents went driving up to Aso in afternoon today.
Tomorrow is a national holiday so everywhere was so crowded with many tourists. It's beautiful autumn season in Kumamoto.

I left this town, when I was 18years old, and I didn't go anywhere before leave.I was just high school girl who was playing volleyball allll the time and study real hard...
so all tourist spots in Kumamoto looks like very new to me. :)

Tomorrow my friends are going to take me to Miyazaki prefecture yey!

The Power of LESS

I found a book "The Power of LESS" in my luggage, just start reading since today,
The book suggests you to simplify your life instead of overloaded by constant stream of emails,news, requests, phone calls,

Building and making yourself instead of buying it,
Doing everything yourself instead of replying on others,

Do less,not more,but achieve more because of the choices you make.

Simplicity boils down to two steps :

1. Identify the essential
2. Eliminate the rest

I feel like I can do simple life here in Kumamoto, It's beautiful autumn season here , you can see the green farm 2 miles away from the window of my parents house. ;))

Back to Kumamoto

Just arrived Kumamoto tonight and had a dinner with cousin. It's always good to breathe fresh air in Kumamoto and meet my parents,friends,everyone.
I feel like I finally made it to home from long long trip :D but still missing something ...hmm.

My sweet babies are sleeping right next to me, the white and grey cat is Shinba, the black kitty is Nara, My mom took their name from Lion King :)　Shinba needs diet... lol.. too fat! almost same size as a dog..!

US$ was finally recovered today , since JP bank bought so many $ from the market. I thought it's kind of Japanese selfishness to just do that only for saving JP export business, but it's not really permanent solution to fix the relationship between USA and JP... no many changed on US side... so let's see what is going to happen.

Good night!


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Six Keys to Being Excellent at Anything

I like to read self-help article sometimes... if you are interested ;))

1. Pursue what you love. Passion is an incredible motivator. It fuels focus, resilience, and perseverance.

2. Do the hardest work first. We all move instinctively toward pleasure and away from pain. Most great performers, Ericsson and others have found, delay gratification and take on the difficult work of practice in the mornings, before they do anything else. That's when most of us have the most energy and the fewest distractions.

3. Practice intensely, without interruption for short periods of no longer than 90 minutes and then take a break. Ninety minutes appears to be the maximum amount of time that we can bring the highest level of focus to any given activity. The evidence is equally strong that great performers practice no more than 4 ½ hours a day.

4. Seek expert feedback, in intermittent doses. The simpler and more precise the feedback, the more equipped you are to make adjustments. Too much feedback, too continuously, however, can create cognitive overload, increase anxiety, and interfere with learning.
5. Take regular renewal breaks. Relaxing after intense effort not only provides an opportunity to rejuvenate, but also to metabolize and embed learning. It's also during rest that the right hemisphere becomes more dominant, which can lead to creative breakthroughs.

6. Ritualize practice. Will and discipline are wildly overrated. As the researcher Roy Baumeister has found, none of us have very much of it. The best way to insure you'll take on difficult tasks is to ritualize them — build specific, inviolable times at which you do them, so that over time you do them without having to squander energy thinking about them.

Six Keys to Being Excellent at Anything

Still summer in Tokyo

Good, I didn't miss whole summer in Tokyo. still feeling hot and humid like typical Japanese summer season,it gets cold in the evening.

Some pics from my friend's house balcony, I left my tiny plants to her house, when I went to AZ last time, they are growing really fast.

I had a great time with my ex-coworkers last night, It's been for 3months,well it's not that long, but there are so many things to catch up.

Life is so interesting :) Everyone lives our own life everyday in each places somewhere in the world, and we can always gather up at one mutual spot again to share wonderful time. No matter where they are, no matter what they do, they are always my best friends!

I missed our favorite place, Piadina and Giorgio too. This is where I used to go after work to get glass of wine and Italian pizza and have a nice conversation with coworkers.

Have a good weekend! Good luck for all hard work A!

Back to Tokyo finally, exhausted

I finally made it! It was long long trip again to get to Narita from Phoenix, but as always it's another exciting experience.. Is there anyone who got trouble on both round trip like me? I stopped by 6 airports to get to Phoenix, and this time was only 3 but...stuck at the airport for 3hours and sent to the hotel somewhere in Oregon state for 1night...it was unprecedented crisis,I was so scared and lonely but in meantime it's a valuable experience too.

In return for my hardship, I got great friends on the trip,
2 girls from Chandler are connecting to Beijing from Narita, their seats were right next to me to Portland and stayed at same hotel, had a nice conversation with them all the time, :)

It's good to be back to Tokyo after 3months, I miss AZ though, still ok. Thanks R to take care of me here!

And and..today is very important day for me.. Happy Happy Birthday A!! Wish you all the best! xx

Stuck at Portland, Oregon

I am still at the hotel in Portland, OR... :( I am supposed to land in Tokyo already to see my friend now... huh... =(

I can't even believe it, Delta canceled the flight again, It was supposed to take off at 2pm yesterday,but due to oil leaking from the airplane, they tried to replace the problematic body parts so we had to wait for their progress for 2hours at the airport, and the last announcement from them was that not any flight is available today so we all stay at hotel for a while till next morning...

Portland is much cooler than Phoenix. I didn't see many tall building on the way to the hotel.

It's 5:10am in the morning, leaving soon to catch the morning flight to NRT.
Hopefully they are not going to cancel today's flight.

I am not going to use Delta never again!! ahhh--.

Ok, see you Japanese folks soon. :)

Back to Tokyo

Today is my last day here in Arizona, It's been so long vacation but overall I had a great time with everyone!! Thank you all very very much!!

It was such a nightmare about flight from NRT to PHX this time, the original flight was suddenly canceled due to bad weather in Seattle and Delta gave us horrible replaced flight which is Narita - Haneda - Kansai - Seattle - Salt Lake City - Phoenix , It took 2days to stop by 6airports. Can you believe it?? I was like zombie and don't even remember how I could survive with this horrible itinerary. But it's now one of my great memory :)

Thank you all sooo much for wonderful memories here, Look forward to see you again soon!

Also can't wait to see my friends and family in Tokyo soon!

Love xx
S


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Piranha 3D

The movie was out on 20th/Aug/2010 in the US.It was set on "Lake Victoria" which is fictional tourist spot in Arizona that vicious fish attack people on vacation. City official in the region where the film was shot is Lake Havasu Arizona.I didn't recognize which lake exactly,when I only looked at the scenery but for local people it should be distinctive, he already knew the lake and he has been there before. Hope the movie doesn't affect badly to Havasu tourist business.

These kind of movie goes either dumbest or good, and this one was still ok, I really liked it , though sometimes way too nasty and couldn't even look at the screen,especially with 3D glasses, vicious fish was popping up right on my eyes and grab ripped human's body...gross...

I've been to some lakes in Arizona, Since I got here, enjoyed wake boarding, but for a while, I don't really feel like to go into the water. hmm..

The movie reminds me of "Jaws" and "Open Water", if you like those movie, you got to watch this at the theater.

Piranha 3D