Chicago, LA, and Home Again

We wrapped up our super busy February with a move into our not-quite-completed home:

we hired professional movers this time to save our backs!

It's a little awkward to live in a home with no stove/kitchen sink/dishwasher/master bedroom/washer-dryer. We can't actually unpack things, because some walls still need to be painted, we don't have interior doors or trim, we're still missing light fixtures, closet doors/systems, and the kitchen is still under construction (counters need grinding, walls need tile). But it's such a relief to be in a home we own, with no worries about the landlord finding out about our (four!) cats, and knowing we can change anything we want.

the current state of the living room

Our current "kitchen" - toaster oven, coffee pot, and hot water dispenser.

It's not all under construction...the flooring is in, and our toilet is awesome.

Princess approves of the new floors!

our fancy toilet, with the heated seat and "nightlight."

We moved the kitties into the home, then 4 days later, took off for Chicago for Wedding Reception Round 2. It was actually really nice to see people I hadn't seen in a long while, and catch up with old friends. I was so busy with friends and family, I didn't even take any pictures!

And then we were off to LA, where we ate our way through the first few days. We had been daydreaming about the food - so we cruised around, alternating running into restaurants and eating in the car. 

Cook's tortas! It's on Atlantic and you should really go.

Donut Friend in Highland Park - I got mine with dulce de leche, bananas and whipped cream.

Ceviche at Guisado's in Echo Park.

Mole tacos and Bistek en salsa roja at Guisado's.

the charcuterie platter at Bestia, where we also saw Gordon Ramsay!

We stayed in a super creepy mansion in Echo Park's historical Victorian neighborhood. The homes are all from the late 1800s and are very well restored and maintained. However, that doesn't detract from the scary factor. This is a pic of the home from the outside:

I was pretty nervous every time we came home late, convinced I'd see a ghostly apparition standing at the top of the stairs, or around the corner....or at the side of my bed. But it did have a nice view:

  

The view from the 3rd story balcony

Honestly the location was ideal for our jaunts around town. We could be back in our old 'hood in 10 minutes. In fact, it was so close to downtown, that one morning Mike ran out and brought me back breakfast in bed!

the coddled egg from Eggslut in Grand Central Market - breakfast is served!

Our LA Wedding Reception Round 3 was just as wonderful as the Chicago one - but imagine having everyone you love in one room, with like 45 seconds to talk to each one. It's overwhelming! I wish I could spend a whole day with each one of our friends and family...and even that wouldn't be enough. I think another trip to Chicago and LA is in order for this year.

But while we're home, we're chipping away at the house projects, one by one. Today, we finally got the carpet installed in the master bedroom, and I'm finishing up the paint so we can move in. Completed "after" pic of the master bedroom coming up soon!

Adding a little drama to the master bedroom with the dark accent wall!

Los Angeles and Back!

You know how some things sound better in theory than in real life? Driving from Bend to Los Angeles is sort of like that. Since it'd been awhile (8 months!) since we'd made the drive, we'd forgotten how loooong the drive is. Even split into two days, it was still a good 7-8 hours of sitting in the car each day. On the bright side, it gave us time to work on our relationship and communication skills, especially when we finally hit Los Angeles traffic!

oh, traffic. I did not miss you.

It was all worth it when we arrived back at the Barker Block, our former home. Our friend Steve was out of town and generously lent us his loft, which has an amazing city view.

the LA city skyline.

the LA skyline during a sunset!

Of course the first thing I wanted to do was get some Mexican food....we've been missing it. We headed over to Northgate market in Boyle Heights, and picked up tamales, guacamole, and ceviche. With two kinds of chips. I gorged myself. And did not feel guilty in the slightest!

3 kinds of tamales - chiles, pork, and chicken. YUM.

Then our friend, Sheila made us kabobs and homemade hummus, with lemon cake for dessert. She does stuff fancy. I love her presentation, with her gorgeous silverware, serving plates, and cloth napkins. 

the beautiful spread Sheila made for us!

We also got to eat lots of Japanese food with my cousin and our favorite travel friends, Josh and Bernice, in Little Tokyo, but I ate all that food so quickly I forgot to take pictures! What can I say, there is no place like Los Angeles for deliciousness. Bend can't compare in the gastronomy department.

Bend also doesn't have our friends or family, which we miss dearly! We are trying to convince them to visit and/or move up to Oregon...it took me years and years to make good friends in LA, and it'd just be easier to import your friends to your new hometown, you know?

Funny thing about this picture - two of the people "drinking" don't actually drink!

We had to leave town after only 3 days, but we managed to squeeze in a couple burgers at In-and-Out. 

My half eaten cheeseburger and Mike's animal style fries.

And when we finally arrived back in Oregon, a rainbow was there to greet us. Sure, it dumped 8 inches of snow the very next day, but we're still happy to be back home. We're getting used to shoveling the driveway; it's great cardio. 

Wishing everyone a happy and healthy 2015, and may your year be full of adventure! 

Sayōnara, Tokyo, until next time!

As our Tokyo trip wound down, we packed as much as we could into each day, making carefully plotted and planned itineraries, and packing our backpacks with band-aids and bottles of water. We were on a mission. 

We made a special effort to get to a Tokyo skatepark. We were totally impressed by the little kids shredding it up here! I think it made Mike and Josh feel old.

The larger skate park, with its gnarly ramps. BMX bikers used it as well.

Josh and Mike on one of the ramps they had in the back!

Another long trek took us to the Tokyo National Museum. This is where many of the most special Japanese artifacts and historical treasures are housed. It is comprised of 7 main buildings, 6 outlying buildings, and parks and gardens. Basically, it's too big to see everything all at once, so we did the best we could and tackled a couple of the main exhibits.

A whole room full of samurai swords. Wish they had more info in English!

One of the most interesting things I saw was the Buddha, in stone and sculptural pieces from early AD, from three Asian countries - China, India, and Japan. I loved seeing the similarities and differences between each country's take on their deity.

The Buddha as represented by India (almost always sitting, usually in Lotus).

Buddha carvings (statue and the reliefs in the back) in limestone from China.

Japan's take on the Buddha - with guardians.

My favorite piece was this contemporary (1881) piece by Miyagawa Kozan. Those two crabs looked so real in person, that it seemed like they were taxidermied and attached to the bowl, but they're porcelain.

This bowl is representative of Satsuma-style pottery.

I will say that America has something to learn from Asia, in terms of museums and public availability. Every museum Mike and I visited on our trip, from the Hong Kong History Museum to the Macau Museum, cost less than $6.00 to enter. In comparison, the LA Natural History Museum cost $12-$20, and the Art Institute of Chicago cost $27.00. Shouldn't we, as a society, want people to be educated and exposed to history and art? I think if our entrance fees were a little more affordable, maybe we'd have a few less ignorant people. 

One place Mike was determined to see, was the Lucky Cat Shrine, otherwise known as the Gotokuji Temple. I'm sure you've seen Lucky Cats in random Asian restaurants and stores. The original Lucky Cat's name was Tama, and he helped this particular temple flourish, and with it, his legend. Although it's a little bit outside of Tokyo, in the suburb of Setagaya, it was worth the trek.

The Lucky Cat Shrine, and many people's offerings.

The grounds of the temple are beautiful and include a cemetery and several other temples and shrines. You can purchase porcelain lucky cat statues here, to leave at the shrine as an offering (which we did), or to bring home and give yourself some luck (which we also did). Mike wanted one for Subietech HQ, so we got the largest one! He hand-carried that sucker back to the US.

Ringing the bell and leaving an offering at the temple.

Leaving another offering (can't have too many prayers!) of a little cat.

You can also purchase prayer boards, on which you write a wish/hope/prayer and leave, with an offering, at the temple. I got one and wrote a little hope for our future. I think we covered our wishing and praying for the day.

So many prayers, and ours just one of the bunch.

We continued our cat theme with a stop for drinks at a cat café! This was one of Bernice's must-dos for Tokyo, and as all of us are cat lovers, we were happy to oblige. I must say, with all the rules they have at this place (wear their provided slippers, wash your hands, don't bring in your bags, etc), these are some of the luckiest and cleanest cats alive. The room looked like a crazy cat girl exploded.

everything in this entire room is for the kitties and scratchable!

Of course the cat café was right near the Harujuku District, so that was our next stop. There are no words for the insanity here.

A shot of Takeshita Dori (Takeshita Street), stuffed with fashion stores.

We stopped in at a Daiso, one of my favorite Japanese stores, on their main street, and bought a package of 20 masks for less than $1.00! We randomly wore them around town for the rest of the trip, and amusingly, no one even took notice. I wonder what kind of looks I'd get if I did this in Bend.

Josh and Bernice going incognito on Takeshita Dori.

Next, we walked up the street to the Meiji Shrine, which was built in the early 1900's to honor the deified spirits of Emperor Meiji and the Empress Shoken. It is surrounded by over 100,000 trees, donated from all over Japan. It is a natural oasis in the middle of Tokyo.

The forested path to the Shrine.

Many sake brewers make offers each year to the Emperor and Empress.

The 40 ft tall Torii gate, made from 1,500 year old Cypress trees from Taiwan.

Cleansing our hands and mouths in the traditional way, prior to entering the shrine.

You can purchase prayer boards here, or simply write a prayer on a piece of paper, and drop it in the box with a little donation. Since we'd already spent the whole morning praying at the Gotokuji Temple, we just prayed on paper here. 

Mike, deep in thought, before the rows and rows of prayer boards.

the courtyard of the main shrine

Our final pilgrimage of the trip was to the Mecca for all Subaru lovers, the STI Gallery. This is a museum dedicated solely to Subaru STIs. In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, this is a car that is famous for excelling in rally racing (motor races along actual roads, rather than a track). If you'd like to see all the pictures from this museum, you can go to the Subietech HQ website, or "like" them on Facebook. 

To the untrained eye, this is a museum full of blue cars.

The museum is in Mitaka, which is about an hour on public transit from Tokyo. So understandably, they don't get a lot of visitors - only a few a week. The museum manager, Ken, spoke perfect English and was happy to answer questions and let Mike and Josh peek under the hoods.

Mike and Josh geeking out with the museum manager.

We had the whole museum to ourselves.

The treatment we received at the museum exemplified what we'd been experiencing all week in Japan. Everyone thanked us for liking Subarus, and acted really grateful that we had come to visit them. As a whole, the Japanese people were very polite and gracious to visitors, and we really came to appreciate and love Tokyo, despite all the communication difficulties. Next year, we will be sure to learn a lot more Japanese before we go!

It is worth mentioning that we were in these countries while some major events went down - the protests in Hong Kong, and the eruption of Mt. Ontake. While we were not physically affected, it does affect us emotionally, and I have been thinking about those whose lives were lost or changed. Life is precious and unpredictable. Be sure you are living it, enjoying it, fulfilling your purpose and experiencing everything you can - none of us know how much time we are given.

A photo of Izumi Noguchi, right before the eruption.

Admiralty protests - Photo by Bill Kwan

Admiralty protests - Photo by Bill Kwan

Tokyo is Winning! at Food

Many, many people, even people who had not been to Tokyo, warned us about the cost of food in Japan. After 6 days in this delicious city, it is my assessment that these people must have eaten only hotel food, food from restaurants with English menus, and/or Michelin-starred restaurants. 

We did none of these things, for many reasons - we're cheap, have a sense of adventure, we're cheap... In fact, we pretty much did the opposite, starting with our first restaurant (in the Sumida ward, on Mukojima Street), in which the poor waitress/owner had to stand on a chair to point to pictures of their food (as the entire menu was in Japanese with no pictures). See below:

Fortunately some words such as "shishito" and "shitake," are already Japanese!

We wanted to try everything, so we paced ourselves and only ate "snack" size meals, so we could stop in at any restaurant we wanted. Case in point, about 2 hours after the above meal, we popped into a conveyor belt sushi joint, called "Sushi Go Round," in the Asakusa district. It was self serve green tea, ginger, wasabi, and soy, and fish was charged by the plate. It was some of the best sushi I've ever had. I meant to only eat a couple pieces, and ended up having 4 plates.

the plate prices are listed to the left, on the wall.

so fresh and so tempting as it cruises by, and so easy to just pull off the conveyor belt.

toro (tuna belly) for only 500 yen, which is about $4.80.

We kept passing a little joint on our street (Mukojima) that had pictures of kobe beef in the windows. We took a chance and tried it. Although no one spoke a lick of English, a very kind fellow diner, who had spent a year in Australia and had perfect English, graciously helped us out.

our favorite friends to travel with, Josh and Bernice!

You can barely see it, but that bowl at the bottom of the picture above had a tiny grater and a salt rock in it, to grate onto the grill. Pretty neat. 

The gorgeous spread of beef. Unfortunately we couldn't read any of the labels!

That boat of beef melted like butter in your mouth. We couldn't stop thinking about it, especially since the meal cost less than $20/person - including our drinks, side dishes, and a huge salad with tofu so silky fresh, Mike even helped himself to seconds (and he hates tofu). Bernice swore it was just like burrata. So we went back two nights later and ordered the same thing, and then some.

One day we found ourselves in the Yokohama subway station, which is attached to an enormous, multi-level mall. The entire underground level was all restaurants and bakeries. We were starving and started deciding where we'd like to eat by staring at the fake food in the front windows. If all else fails, you can always run outside and take pictures of what you'd like to order. Katsu (food breaded in panko bread crumbs and fried) won out.

this entire meal set was only $10.00 USD!

Since the restaurant specialized in katsu, some items were unidentifiable until you bit into them. I lucked out with my order - I could tell what the shrimp and the Japanese eggplant were, but the circular thing on the left was a surprise. A pleasant surprise - it was a tender, succulent pork tenderloin medallion. YUM. The other things in the sadly over-exposed picture were shredded cabbage salad, Japanese potato salad, clam miso soup (with the cutest, tiniest mini-clams!), chawan mushi (an egg custard with mushroom, cilantro, and shrimp), and pickled Japanese veggies. 

After that meal, even though I was stuffed, I had to try Beard Papa since I was in Japan (there's several of them in Los Angeles). It tasted the same as in the States, so we're not missing out on anything!

Happy to report that the US Beard Papa is just as good!

As our confidence with communicating improved, we took more risks and ate in more dives, hole-in-the-walls, and random food stands. One late night, Bernice and I were craving ramen, and stumbled into this little place by the Sumida River.

this tiny ramen joint only had 8 seats and two choices for ramen.

Ramen topped with slivered wood ear mushroom, nori, egg, pork, and green onions.

Another day, we passed by a man selling yakitori (various meats and veggies, usually chicken, grilled on skewers over charcoal), so we stopped for a snack.

Josh and Bernice ogling the various yakitori - under $1.00 per stick!

Mike enjoying chicken grilled with leeks/onions.

We were wandering home from the subway that same day, and taking a wrong turn, we found another random stand - for sushi! Normally, I wouldn't buy sushi from a random street stand. But they had lots of customers, and hey, when in Rome, right? Besides, for 500 yen ($4.80) per roll, how could we pass it up? Although heavy on the rice, the fish was swimmingly fresh.

Yes, I wore my yoga pants around Tokyo - we were eating a lot!

Mike doing the ordering.

On one of our last days in Tokyo, we finally made it to Ramen Street, where there are dozens of little ramen restaurants, with greeters calling you at every doorway, trying to convince you to come in. When you do finally step in, they show you to the vending machine and walk away. 

I know, I was thinking the same thing - ramen from a vending machine?!?

Turns out you just order the ramen, gyoza, drinks, etc. from the machine, and it gives you a ticket, which you hand to the waitress. They bring out your food, and that's it! No money has to exchange hands, and the waitresses don't have to be bothered with people's bills. Quite clever, really.

Enjoying our meal! Yum.

I was so happy to have Bernice with me on this trip, because she loves food just as much as I do, and gets excited about things like miso-marinated beef tongue, and says "Yum!" instead of "Eww!" when I order liver skewers. I can't wait until we go back - 6 days was not enough to try everything we saw. I didn't get to try okonomiyaki (savory Japanese pancakes), takoyaki (octopus stuffed into little dough balls), mochi (rice flour treats), or the crepe cones (crepes rolled up like ice cream cones with fresh fruit and whipped cream)! There just wasn't enough room in my stomach. So until next time, Tokyo!

At a late night izakaya, where we had a private room.