366 Project–Week 2

During the second week of the year, I had my last few days at home and then returned to Japan.



(8/366) My sister and my good friend J. We had my dad’s side of the family plus a few friends over so I could see everyone while I was home. It was a blast.



(9/366) We played Family Cranium that a friend gave us for Christmas. Family Cranium was loads of fun. Here E is drawing something with her eyes closed that my dad has to guess. She’s a really great artist, even with her eyes closed.



(10/366) The view as we left LAX and headed for SFO – I loved all the lines of water in this particular shot. On the way home I got the joy of flying down to LAX and then SFO before finally flying out for Haneda (Tokyo). It was a LONG day of flying.



(11/366) This day only really existed for me on the plane. Finding the outlets that are always supposedly on planes was pretty exciting. I saw the guy in the row across from me pulling out his cord and I asked what he was going to plug it in to. Turns out they put these in a super sensible spot – under the arm rest!



(12/366) Taking off from Haneda Airport (Tokyo). After an incredibly long layover in Haneda Airport, we finally left. Haneda does not like to share their electricity – there were a couple of desk spots, for using your computer, but no other plugs. If you’re like me and have a computer with very little battery life then you’re out of luck.



(13/366) On my first day back to work, the office lady and I went out to lunch. I don’t know what the stuff in the container was – some sort of veggies that were stringy like Natto, but actually tasted good.



(14/366) My luggage came! In Japan, people rarely travel with lots of luggage. Often, they send it via the post to wherever they are heading so they don’t have to deal with it on trains. When I arrived in Haneda, I sent my luggage ahead.

366 Project–Week 1

I decided to start a 366 project this year (same as a 365 project, but plus a day for leap year). This project consists of taking a photo everyday over the course of a year and posting them.

I started on January 1, but due to the fact that I had a very limited 3 weeks at home, I didn’t get around to doing any editing/sorting of photos done while I was at home.



(1/366) First photo taken of the new year. These are my friends who we’ve deemed “The Crazies.” Our favorite kind of New Year’s Party consists of playing lots of games.



(2/366) A visit to the world’s largest book store! Powells, nick named “the City of Books” takes up an entire city block for it’s main store. It also claims that it’s the world’s largest new, used, rare and out of print book store. It also has a nice little spot across the street – that section is filled with the nerdy, science books. And I looked very smart walking in to find a book about Lightroom.



(3/366) A family favorite, sausage spinach loaf. Not sure where my mom got this recipe, but she’s been making it since I was a kid. It’s pretty simple – roll out a rhodes bread dough (you could probably even make your own dough); layer spinach, jack cheese and sausage on it; roll it back up into a loaf shape and bake!



(4/366) Tacos al pastor from the taco stand in my college town. The taco stand might be my favorite restaurant in the world.



(5/366) My sister and brother-in-law took me out for breakfast. J’s cocoa came with more whip than I’ve ever seen on a mug of cocoa.



(6/366) For his Christmas present, I took my dad to the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum. My dad is a Vietnam Vet (as you can tell by the stripes on his hat) and wanted to see helicopters, of which they only had a few in the main museum. Thankfully we asked before we went over to the space part and they told us that they were in the space museum’s area.



(7/366) Took my littlest sister for a “sister date” shortly before I left. We played lots of games and went for ice cream. This game was our favorite. It was in Japanese and I could understand a lot of what it said, but they also had good pictures so E had no problem understanding either.

Where did the time go?

I'm sitting here and it's January 7th in one minute. Where did the time go?

I thought 3 weeks would be so much time with my family and yet, here I am almost at the end! I'm not ready to leave yet.

Guess it's another lesson in having to remember to live in the present and enjoy every moment!

More about my travels soon. I've taken tons of pictures with family and friends this year. I'm sure lots of them will end up back on my blog when I get back. 

Poetry

I was chatting with my friend Brooke this evening and we were talking about poetry this evening. I told her that I think part of my problem with poetry is that my brain is still in elementary, everything must rhyme mode and high school everything must have a deep meaning mode and my brain just kind of falls apart. 

So she wrote this for me:

"As weather gets colder
And I get older
It becomes more apparent
That I’m not a ferret"

By Brooke (She's got a really cool website right now, check it out).

Help donate meals to kids in need

Like Kidfresh on facebook to help them donate to kids in need through City Harvest! For each like they’ll donate 30 meals.



They are nearly at the end of their time to donate 300,000 meals to kids in need, so if you’re reading this today. Click the link and like kidfresh.

Their foods sound like they’re full of veggies! I like the sound of that.

I found this on All Day I Dream About Food's site. She has even more information than I'm posting. 

Coming home

It's been a little while since I updated my blog. Updates about the past couple of weeks to come soon, but first . . .

I'm coming home for Christmas next week!!!

Or for an exact time until my plane in Sapporo takes off:



It's going to be fun to see my family. My mom told me this evening that my littlest sis had said that one of the reasons Christmas is her favorite is because she gets to see me. I can't wait to see her and give her a hug!

Another Awesome Oregon Video

I found this video on Google+ thanks to Ben Canales. I think it's one of the most beautiful videos of Oregon I've ever seen. Though I really love travel Portland's Love Letter to Portland video as well.

This video is best viewed full screen. (Dad - if you click the arrow button in the bottom right, it will become full screen).


Finding Oregon from Uncage the Soul Productions on Vimeo.

Makes me so excited to be home and see Oregon in all it's beauty while I'm there!