"The world is a great book; he who never stirs from home, reads only a page." -Saint Augustine

"Talk happiness; talk faith; talk health. Say you are well, and all is
well with you, and God shall hear your words and make them true."  -Ella Wheeler-Wilcox

well, then.  from now on, i'll be talking happiness, faith, and health because currently there are so many goals i have for myself and sometimes they seem so far away from me that i feel as if they're almost impossible, but now, i know that they are not.  頑張ります！

growing up is hard to do.

yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!
sam, you rock my world. 

one year later... and sam's coming back to japan!
last year, september 2006- tokyo with sam & friends.
this year, september 2006- gunma, then tokyo with sam.
yay!  soooooooooo excited, sam!
we're gonna have such a chill and fun 10 days. 

tokyo/gunma 2007, here we come!

everyone, please meet yusuke.


(he's the dude inside the giant pink poo)

he's my new best friend.  i asked him to be my best friend and his response was, "ok!  sure, why not?"

hahahhhhaahhahahahahahhaahahahahahahaha.  i love him.  <3

i swear, we're like long lost twins.  he used to live in L.A. (pasadena, specifically) and now he's back in his hometown in gunma.  i live in gunma now and my hometown is L.A. (arcadia, specifically).  i used to work in logistics (imports) and love to dance.  he currently works in logistics (exports) and loves to dance.

spent last weekend in gunma with chau cuz it'd be the last weekend we'd be able to hang out before she goes back to America ().  the weekend ended up being super fun, though. 

Friday: went to Island Hills (nicest venue ever) to watch yasu perform.  i guess it's a wedding hall, but they rent out their facilities for parties once in awhile.  the place was gorgeous, the performance was great.  fun times.

Island Hills:

even the bathroom was fancy.

"yasu, u're a pimp!"

yasu performing with his group m@ija:

Saturday: went to RAISE in Ota with akira & chau for the "natural high" party.  cutest club~ ever.  i fell in love with it once we got inside.  it looks like a run-down warehouse that they converted into a club/performance venue.  my favorite part is the small dance floor in front of the bar that looks like an igloo/cave.  LOVE IT.  once we arrived, that room/dj was spinning reggae music.  it was such a great, island-y feel.

hide was dj'n that night, so we went to support him, too.  his first set was house cuz it was a house party, but at the end of the night, he started spinning r&b and other songs we dance to in class.  it was so much fun... ^^  chau and i were so glad we stayed the extra 2 hours.

(wish you could've joined us, yumi.  missed you.  house just isn't the same without my partner in crime)

akira pre-partied in my skull house slippers.  

Sunday:  
after getting home at 630am and getting into bed at about 730am, chau & i attempted to wake up to go jet skiing at a bbq in isesaki with yasu & friends.  we actually managed to wake up a lil past noon, but it took us forever to get ready, eat breakfast, stop by the mall for swimming suits... and then we hit MAD traffic.  it should only take 30 min to drive to isesaki, but with the traffic, it took us 1.5 hours... and we both had dinner plans at 7.  we got to isesaki at about 540pm... and then couldn't find them, so we had to drive all the way back...
(we found out later that the engine on the jet ski had stopped... so they got pulled down the river from isesaki to takasaki!  that's why he didn't pick up our phone calls...)
oooooh man.  it's all good, though, cuz the ride was so chill and fun.  we just drove, listened to good music, and gossiped.  felt like a mini road trip with one of your good girlfriends.  ahhhhhhhhhh, so fun.  i can't believe it's gonna end soon.  1 year went by so fast.  i wonder what's in store this upcoming year.

god, i love purikura, my gunze buddies, and my dance teachers.
imma miss you chau & akira .  don't leave me...

*my puppy!  chau's best friend/shopping buddy she drags around

suuuuuuuuuuch a cute picture (on the left). 
pure happiness . 

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Happy Birthday, Akira & Hide!

アkira と ひde,  お誕生日おめでとう！
*younger bro, brother-in-law, sisters, lover.
thanks for all the great memories.  i'll miss you both. 
Gunze won't be the same without you two...
we'll always have Gunze.
*Gunze 2006-2007

chau & i forced yet another one of our dance teachers to take purikura with us.

nice legs, akira. 
hide... oiyf.  no comment.
chau, why does it look like that's ur actual body?

then, we celebrated akira's and hide's birthdays over dinner at a crappy italian restaurant in saty. 

they wouldn't let us eat our cake there, so we asked if we could use a knife just to cut it. 
"No" was the curt and so very non-japanese answer.

ok.

"just a cut!"
切るだけ、切るだけ！

we finished the entire cake there while chanting "just a cut!" and 「切るだけ、切るだけ！」。
Needless to say, we pissed off the wait staff.  guess i'll never be eating there again. 
oh well.  it was worth it.

because of this video:

after dinner, we went to theSPA's (Maebashi's professional soccer team) soccer game @ Shikishima Park.
At the end of the game, we took pictures with Marlon & Tika, our Gunze buddies.
God, I love Gunze & Maebashi.  Where else would we be able to befriend both professional dancers and soccer players?

Tika & his baby

Tanabata (Star) Festival
After getting my first massage in gunma with chau, we both impulsed bought yukatas @ Saty before heading out to the maebashi tanabata matsuri.

My first Omatsuri & my first time wearing yukata in gunma!

yellow-ness & the biggest parfait on the face of the planet in a flower vase @ karaoke:

Karuizawa
The next day, Yumi, Greg, Andrew, & I drove up to Karuizawa to ride bikes (yay... :/ ) and to check out the outlets (yay!).  As expected, at some point, i fell off my bike.  Greg laughed at me, but he got his in the end.  Some time later, we were walking up a perfectly normal set of stairs from which Greg fell (pretty embarrassingly, i hear).  Andrew laughed at him, and shortly after that, he fell too. haahhahhahahha.  yumi was the only one that was safe from physical harm that day. 

Welcome, welcome to Karuizawa.

come to karuizawa!  the fun never stops!
ask greg.  he knows.

heh-.........

海の日！大好きだよ！
this past weekend was a much needed 3-day weekend.  Greg & Andrew went off on some road trip, leaving their apartment/weekly mansion vacant, so Yumi & I took that opportunity to house ourselves there for our pseudo-vacation in tokyo.  Thanks greg & andrew!  you guys are the sweetest. 

It was the first time we had a place in tokyo to just chill w/o having to worry about lugging our luggage across town or checking out of a hotel room by a certain time, so we took the opportunity to have a nice, fun, but relaxing weekend.  we ate, partied, got massages, slept in, the works!  and it was amazing.  i love marine day! 

the stupid typhoon ruined our plans to get tan at the beach, so we decided to make that saturday a massage & additional shopping day... oh, あぶない。

friday: mark farina @ yellow.  oh, i love you, mark farina.  he started spinning at 2am and i kept dancing til we had to leave.  yumi felt sick, but thankfully, once we got outside, she felt better.

saturday:
daikanyama= lunch & shopping & coffee.  omg.  cute stores.  evisu.  ...   ... .. . ...   あぶない is all i have to say.

i got the cutest cappuccino ever @ some random coffee shop in daikanyama

half way through my coffee, my lips became artists in their own right and created this (above right)

"i wonder what it'd be like if my head were enlarged that big.  damn.  that's one big head."

then, it was off to shibuya for massages.  yum.  then ramen.

sunday: omotesando & our beloved harajuku.  lunch @ the cute omotesando eki bakery, then more shopping.  then a coffee/snack break and we were re-energized to continue shopping.  yumi, next time.  jeans.  we're finding you jeans... and we're making sure i buy nothing. 

monday: yumi had to leave early for her baseball game... which her kids lost .  gomen ne.  i slept in and had a leisurely afternoon picking up stuff i needed in tokyo.  then, i headed back home for dinner with my taka heads to celebrate poni's birthday. 

good weekend.                    

Happy Birthday, Poni.
I love you.

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