The New Me

Check out the new harido!!

I’m just sitting here counting the days until we get to go home. From where I’m sitting it’s no more than 6 more working days. I can’t wait. I miss all the green mountains, blue sea, and white rolling clouds. Ok lets not get too cliché, but you know what I mean. I miss the small and simple things from home. Things like Large sized drinks actually being large. I miss Zippy’s and their oh-so-culturally mixed foods available to order at anytime. I miss the fact that things other than convenient stores are open 24 hours. I miss hanging out at PH and cruising with Jake guys. I even miss some of my family members. But the one thing I’m really missing is the warm 80 degree weather. It’s too cold here. I was trying to compare last year’s winter to this years and it seem like this year is much colder. I hate that I have to shed four layers of clothes whenever I get home and just to step out again I have to put them back on. If I’m not mistaken, Hawaii is still T-shirt and shorts weather right?

Well we started our Christmas shopping yesterday. It wasn’t successful at all. It seems like a bunch of you are going to get candy. Actually I’ve been keeping my eyes open for some of the rare candies that are found only in Japan but they don’t seem to exist anymore. Either that or Hawaii has finally caught up with Japan and their confectionary market.

So anyway we started off early right after work and walked around but the “dying hunger” was effecting us both. (Me and Krystal) After a long brainstorming session, we decided to go to a place called Café 60’s. A theme restaurant/café where they have 50’s and 60’s Americana as decoration. The first floor is a American western theme where they have some wooden tables and chairs to look like an old saloon. It was a little crowded so we decided to go upstairs to the 50’s diner and it was pretty awesome! The diner gave an eerie sense of comfort being surrounded by Elvis and Marilyn Monroe pictures and paraphernalia. The floor was tiled in the black and white checkers (like Joel’s house I believe) and the booths were painted in alternating baby blue and baby pink. It was truly a 50’s diner. Anyway we ordered a few burgers and even a salad. The salad wasn’t an ordinary salad. It had mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, and pesto all under a balsamic vinegar dressing. SOOOOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOOOD! I really wanted to get a shake with my dinner but they didn’t have any, but I got the next best thing, a coke float. The burgers were pretty awesome compared to Japan standards. Krystal got an avocado burger, which was basically a regular burger with thick guacamole type spread. And I got the 60’s burger. It had the usual lettuce, cheese, tomato, but it also had a fried fish filet and teriyaki chicken. IT WAS AWESOME!! I believe Jack Black calls this type of burger a “Surf and Turf.” All I know is that it was crazy good. It also went perfectly with the coke float.

After the dinner we tried to do more shopping but it was too cold to walk around anymore. Plus we were failing in finding all the things we wanted to get for that day, so we decided to treat ourselves to a relaxation break at Latone (massage and relaxation center). Then we came home and watched the movie “The Notebook.”

I heard a lot of people talk about how good “The Notebook” was so I needed to see for myself. It was a pretty intense romance story that had some really sincere parts to it. Not to mention that Rachel McAdams was in it. I remember someone telling me how their grandpa got totally hooked on Rachel McAdams after he saw this movie and I can totally see why. She plays such a fun and crazy girl that almost anyone could and would fall in love with. I thought she was pretty hot in Red Eye (a shitty movie that was watch-able because of her) but she really held her own when it came to acting in The Notebook. Ehh it was pretty good.

Anyway last Friday we went out with Eluke (Elisa and Luke) to dinner on a double date thing. They wanted to take me and Krystal out for a quiet birthday dinner. We ended up at DeMonde which is this burger place (not as good as 60’s Café) and had a few drinks totally stuffed ourselves. It was nice catching up with Elisa and Luke and hanging out. After dinner we decided to go to karaoke because Luke had only been a few times and with big groups so he hadn’t had good microphone time. We sang our hearts for 2 hours and decided to call it a night.

Saturday was supposed to be Krystal’s hair cut day but everywhere were went ended up being booked. Krystal had been looking forward to cutting her hair and getting a straight perm. (?) Anyway she seemed pretty bummed about all the places being full but we happened to check out this small place right by our house. It was called the Like Like Hair Resort. Can it be Li-ke Li-ke as in Likelike Dive INN? It actually was. The guy who owned the place visited Hawaii, Oahu and loved it. He saw a sign for Like Like and decided liked the way it sounded so he named the store that. The place is kind of a hair salon place for younger adults. There were lots of deals for college students and high school students.

Well anyway as Krystal talked about getting her hair done I kind of got a notion to get my hair cut too. I wanted to get rid of the old generic Asian look and get a generic Japanese look. So anyway after 12 years of having the same haircut I got a new style. It may not look as drastic too you guys but I’ve had the same hair for over 12 years and I needed to change it. I remember just before coming on JET I asked Lisa and Krystal whether or not I should change my hair style We talked about a lot of different options but the bottom line was that I looked good with my original hairdo. .So I never got it changed until this past weekend. So how does it look? Well I can say now that my Asian disguise is now complete. I can completely blend into the Japanese populous.

Then on Sunday I went to visit my aunt who lives in Osaka. She’s the aunt that I just found out recently that she is my aunt. Anyway the last time I saw her was when my parents came to visit me in October and I never really got in touch with her since. I made a promise to my mom that I visit her before I leave for Hawaii so I did. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. Well the last thing I remember was how drunk my aunt was and how much she was irritating me that night in October. But she’s actually really nice when she’s sober. We got to her house and chatted for a while. Then she took us to eat yakiniku. The place had really good Korean food and we totally pigged out. Afterwards we went to karaoke and had a good time. It was kind of weird because my aunt is 31 and I’m 25. She’s only 6 years older which could easily be an older sibling. During the night she would phase in and out of aunt mode. It seems like sometimes she was trying to be a good aunt and at other times it was like she was a friend of ours partying on a Sunday. My aunt’s boyfriend whom I just called “uncle,” is pretty cool too. He’s the one that keeps my aunt in check when she starts to veer. It was really fun seeing them again. But it did wear us out for work on Monday. I think that’s why I had so much trouble shopping yesterday. The body was running on empty and I need to rest. Unfortunately today is clean-up day since we neglected the apartment for about a week. And there is a lot that needs to be done before we go back home for the holidays. But then again just 6 more days….