eduFire, of Montreal, the Sounds, and Fabio:
My Weekend in Celebrities

That is the short version of everything that happened during July Surpise (aka oM noM noM 2009) or, to the common people, “this weekend”.

Prologue to the weekend:
Thursday night, I went with Joey to try my hand at curling (yes, that Canadian sport, eh) in Fremont, CA. He’s a veteran curler of 1 year, but this was my first try. It was surprisingly fun (being dragged/slid along the ice by a 42 pound rock is good times! Oh yes, and sweeping). Noam was making her way into SF at the same time to celebrate her birthday weekend in the best place she could, clearly. Originally, the plan was for this to be a surprise, but logistics won out and we carefully crafted the perfect weekend.

eduFire with Koichi
Friday morning, I Caltrained to SF for a visit to the eduFire office. eduFire is basically a social media site for education — you go there to take classes, teach them, or tutor, all with live video conferencing, but I was introduced to the site through the 2nd jblogger conference back in March (I’ve also taken a couple classes). The famous Koichi of tofugu.com, the twitterverse (and eduFire, obviously) welcomed me to the lovely office and showed me around. I did some user testing for eduFire, one intern was around that day, so we all went to lunch at a nearby Caribbean place (yummy!) All in all good times, thanks for letting me visit @eduFire.

Afterwards, I wandered around San Francisco for a long while. Hiked and hiked. Found Alcatraz and a number of other good views. Eventually I ended up at 901 Columbus Cafe, where I had some chai, and later a bagel, while I got some work done. Later, Noam and her mom picked me up and we headed to their hotel room. It was her birthday, yay!! And now we transition to the next celebrities…

Some photos from my walk through San Francisco

of Montreal with Kevin Barnes
Now, I’ve been an of Montreal fan for a couple of years now, and have seen them in concert a few times. I was not going to pass up the opportunity to see them this time around, and the plan was to go with Bhargav, Mukund, and Boyce too, other Bay Area interns from IL. The plan to have a car fell through, though, and we were challenged with how to the concert and then get back to Silicon Valley after Caltrains stopped running.

Thankfully, my phone was still hanging on to dear battery life at this point, and Google transit got me and Noam to the right BART and to the concert. Once we got to the station, it wasn’t necessary to know where the actual concert venue was, you could just be a sheep and follow the masses of indie kids there. We checked our bags and prayed they wouldn’t be stolen, and proceeded to chill in the lobby.

The concert started a bit late, but soon enough of Montreal was doing their thing, engaging the id, etc. However, the party was crashing some of the audience — right as they started playing, some guy who was WAY too high zombie-walked through our group and made it out of the room (hopefully). I had never seen people as messed up at an oM concert, nor as many drag queens (but they seemed to be relatively unintrusive). Surprisingly, Kevin Barnes stayed 100% clothed the entire time. I repeat: he was NOT nude, covered in shaving cream and red paint. What kind of of Montreal concert *is this*?? But it was great anyway. Here’s Kevin:

After the concert, we decided to start heading back. BART taken to Fremont, and then a taxi back home. Again, Oakland’s potential sketchiness was warded off by friendly of Montreal fans. And Noam, who scored an anti-meat brochure. Oh, and it was 11:25 pm.

A few more concert pics

We made it back by 1:00 AM to the total surprise of Joey. Score! (Surprise is the theme of the weekend).

The Sounds with Maja Ivarsson
Saturday Noam, Joey and I ate our way from Santa Clara to Mountain View, experiencing coffee, Turkish food, and dessert. We wandered Mountain View for a while, viewed some Mountains, and headed to the extremely early concert at the Shoreline Amphitheatre (7PM — well, we got there at 7:30). The Sounds were opening for No Doubt, and as The Sounds are one of the best bands ever, I had to see them, even though they were just the first opener and not even printed on the ticket. Alas. The Shoreline holds 22,000 people, and we were very far away, but still managed to party it up as The Sounds played an awesome but brief set. The main opening band, Paramore, was quite crappy, and the lead singer was really patronizing, yelling things like, “DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE!?!?!” (Yes, I do. I’m right here.) and “IN CASE YOU FORGOT, WE’RE PARAMORE!!!” Nice, lady.

at 9:00 the 20 fans of The Sounds lined up for autographs and photos, while the other 21,980 concertgoers waited for No Doubt to come onstage. Finally we made it to the front of the line and got a miniposter signed:

And most importantly, got a picture with Maja!! Yeah yeah it was kind of dark, but look she’s an angel in that spotlight. While I get secondhand smoke from *her* cigarette (#truefan) – thanks to Charlie for making this picture look nicer :)

No Doubt came on, the crowd roared, and they played older hits I actually knew (upon further inspection, they don’t actually have any new songs, so it worked out well). I, having read this article about Gwen Stefani’s abs, was fully prepared for the concert.

We left comfortably early enough to miss the 1.5 hour traffic jam that surely followed (as we experienced from the same theatre on 4th of July).

Finally, the evening ended with introducing Noam to a Tim Tam Slam. You can go investigate that one on your own.

Gilroy Garlic Festival with Fabio
Sunday morning, Joey, Noam, Erik and I headed south to Gilroy for the annual Gilroy Garlic Festival. The traffic was worse than the No Doubt concert and we spent hours in the sweltering heat (the only time this summer when I’ve actually been hot) eating all kinds of garlic treats. YUMMY. I was totally bummed that they ran out of garlic ice cream (this could be my new favorite flavor!) but I did have some garlic chicken stir fry, garlic fries and garlic mustards, olives, etc.

I bought a cute parasol too!

Other than eating garlic and wandering… Noam and I decided we desperately needed to ride the teacup ride (since I missed out on this during childhood). So we made up for lost time, a decade and a half later.

Here are ACTUAL SCREAMS OF TERROR as we rode in this spinning teacup. Note the relative ages of the other people on this ride. This was possibly the most fun thing Moam has ever done.

One of the main attractions of the garlic festival was special guest Fabio (from Top Chef)! Zomg! We got to watch him do a live cooking show, and make fun of himself to the audience for an hour. The best part was that they didn’t have any ingredients or utensils ready before the show started, and he kept complaining that he didn’t have the pepper (and then he had to go unwrap it, break the seal, open it, etc etc.) He kept saying “I know I’m not Emeril, but can someone bring me a colander??” At some point, a man dressed in a giant garlic suit came out to say hi to Fabio, and did nothing. It was all bizarre and almost surreal. No one was allowed to eat the food Fabio made. His microphone kept falling off. The electric mixer didn’t work. Etc. etc. Cooking live is ROUGH. But, the best part was watching Joey be extraordinarily entertained by all of this.

Other photos from the Garlic Festival:

After that, it was:
Gilroy -> Santa Cruz, where we visited my apartment, the meadow, and downtown for food
Santa Cruz -> Santa Clara to pick up Noam’s stuff
Santa Clara -> San Francisco to drop Noam off at the airport
San Francisco -> Santa Clara to pack the rest of my stuff (including bike)
Santa Clara -> Santa Cruz to drop me off at my apt
And for Joey, Santa Cruz -> Santa Clara to go home.

It was a lot of driving.

And an epic weekend. Goodnight.

The Sannomiya Butt Statue Phenomenon

So here goes my Japan Blog Matsuri virginity… (where jbloggers all over make a post around a particular theme each month… July = WEIRD Japan).

The best weird thing about Kobe, Japan, is, without question, the butt statue, and its associated interaction phenomenon.

Located right beside Sannomiya station in the heart of Kobe, the butt statue is a popular meeting place for Kobe kids, or place to hang out and chat on your keitai.

Behold:

Several questions come to mind.

Why the torsos and butts?
Why in front of the Häagen-Dazs?
Why the giant Meg Ryan advertisement? (At least, it was there for the whole year I lived there. I don’t know what’s there now. Anyone care to update me?)

And, the Phenomenon:
To a Kobe native, the butt statue is *invisible*. You can always spot an outsider as someone who walks by the butt statue and notices its existence (and usually stares inquisitively for quite a while). I will never forget telling my host mom I was to meet someone at the butt statue, and she hadn’t realized it existed until I pointed it out.

The butts are invisible…

Buzzer Beat: A series of awkward pictures

Buzzer Beat: The show that seems to think I should take Yamapi seriously (yeah, like that’s happening anytime soon!)

The story of the first episode, told in pictures…

Yamapi is a 24-year old salaryman, on the basketball team (at his company).

Their team colors are delightful and masculine (I promise I did not photoshop this.)

The delightfully adorable Aibu Saki is his girlfriend. And, a cheerleader. I’m glad to see she has stopped dating robots like she did last summer. Whoops.

But clearly, Yamapi is a very insecure dude. Especially about his relationship with Saki. But luckily, we can be assured that he will not end up alone. Through a series of coincidental run-ins, he meets a violinist (Kitagawa Keiko). One night she sees him practicing, and appreciates the *rhythm* of his *basketball* skills. No, I’m serious.

But during a recital, she breaks a violin string. AWKWARD. Also, the recital was happening in parallel with the basketball game of pinkness above.

Yamapi has great matching pants & bag. True fashion sense, man.

Yamapi’s mom is the ever-wise and amazing Maya Miki. I’ve never seen her be anything other than fabulous. She did give Aibu Saki great advice last year about that robot boyfriend, so I’m sure she’ll advise everyone well again this time.

Buzzer Beat appears to have basketball as a backdrop, but it’s clearly not *about* basketball (thank goodness) — more in a Seventeen Again kind of way, where Yamapi=Zac Efron is dissatisfied with his life, and has something to do with basketball, and cute hair. (No, actually, Yamapi has weird hair in this show.)

Episode 1 aired this week on Fuji TV at 9PM (not that I was there). Now, this means it’s a 月9 (getsu-ku) drama. (Japanese language explanation– 月 is the first kanji in “Monday” and the 9 refers to the time). In general, this is *the* slot to have a drama with high ratings. I suppose everyone comes home Monday night and just needs to get their drama on (though, I don’t really think Japan has a case of the Mondays, not compared to the US anyway).

There is a Wikipedia page (Japanese) that’s a list of which dramas have been 月9 dramas since the late 80’s. Extremely successful 月9 dramas have included Love Generation, Long Vacation, Yamato Nadeshiko, and others.

One interesting thing is that last season’s 月9 drama was actually Konkatsu! which had the lowest rated 月9 episode ever. Hopefully Buzzer Beat fares a bit better, and I do love Fuji-TV.

Apparently this is what basketball guys do in the locker room.

And one last lovely picture:
Yamapi shows his matching skills again, as he selects a t-shirt, a girl’s bicycle, and graffiti in the same shade.

Dandy Daddy? Episode 1

Classy opening quote from this show:

恋を知らない娘は不幸であるが、
娘の恋を知った父親はもっと不幸である。
A girl who is not in love is unfortunate,
But a father who knows his daughter is in love, is even more unfortunate.

What happens when a romance-author-single-dad’s teenage daughter finally finds a boyfriend? Mayhem. And existential crisis.

Dandy Daddy? is one of this summer’s dramas, starring Tachi Hiroshi, and the first episode aired last week. The story is very reminiscent of the summer 2007 drama Papa to Musume no Nanokakan (think Freaky Friday, but a father/daughter swap). Tachi Hiroshi again plays the overprotective father, but this summer, instead of a metaphysical dilemma, he faces a more philosophical dilemma. He writes romance novels for a living, and preaches people to follow love wherever it will take them — yet of course is ready to pounce as soon as he sees even the most feminine hair-clip-wearing high school boy take one glance at his daughter. Hypocritical much?

Snooping in his daughter’s phone when he suspects she has a boyfriend

Akari, his daughter, goes to high school that just went coed — imagine the backlash! She is appropriately annoyed at her father’s antics (phone theft? really??)

Note the collection of dad’s romance novels on the shelf.

Tachi Hiroshi spends the whole of episode 1 sneaking around, following his daughter in case she might be going on a date, or talking to a boy. After meeting a nice boy, Yuki, from Akari’s class, he uses him as a pawn to help do his spying. Sometimes, dad has to meet with Yuki in public, and disguises are necessary.

Nice hat!

Yuki provides some insider info on Akari’s alleged “date”. Dad is furious to find out the boy in question is a brown-haired earring-wearing prettyboy, and things get a little rough down by the ferris wheel. Too bad daddy jumped too conclusions — this dude is NOT Akari’s date.

Ironically, by the end of episode 1, Akari straight up confronts her dad about her new boyfriend (maybe all the spying on her wasn’t necessary?) and it’s none other than his former ally, Yuki!

But if his daughter already has a boyfriend by the end of episode 1, what’s going to happen in the other 10 episodes…?って感じ　(　´_ゝ｀)ﾌｰﾝ

Based on the first episode, my impressions of: cheesy, cute, and totally relies on Tachi Hiroshi’s facial expressions. A little silly, and I’m not really digging the actress who plays Akari (I liked Aragaki Yui as his daughter!), but let’s give it another week or two to prove itself.

4th of July Weekend: East and West

Had a great 4th of July weekend, involving both Asian things (food and gardens) and of course, your classic fireworks, and a really good bagel.

On Saturday afternoon, we decided to go kite-flying! I haven’t been since last May, and Joey is the expert, but I wanted to improve my skills. Unfortunately, there was very little wind on Saturday, and being right up next to the mountains at Rancho San Antonio County Park did not help.

Unenthusiastic kite in the sky!

As we were entering the park, we were adequately warned of dangers. We made sure to practice being large and shouting.

Kite flying and pretty scenery, but no mountain lions:

Then it was off to Shoreline Ampitheatre to hear the symphony and watch the fireworks, with Joey, Erik, and Matt. There were lots of people there.

Good space-themed songs including: Star Trek, 2001, Star Wars, and some excellent fireworks!

After fireworks, and the post-fireworks sitting-in-the-parking lot for an hour, we were hungry and headed to downtown Mountain View. The only place that was open besides clubs was a Pho chain, where we got some very tasty Vietnamese food before heading our separate ways. A great way to end the 4th of July.

Sunday was another extremely stressful day. First stop was Noah’s Bagels where I felt definitely overcharged but did enjoy a magnificent bagel with cream cheese and lox, and a chai which I proceeded to spill on Joey.

Next we headed to Hakone Gardens, a Japanese garden founded in 1915, filled with some serious zen. Peaceful times as we explored the garden, taking many pictures. Here are a few of the nice places in the garden.

The bridge over the pond.

Cute little waterfall draining into the pond.

Bamboo garden – and we all know bamboo groves are possibly my favorite thing ever. The only sad part was that on many of the bamboo stalks, people had inscribed their initials and other such nonsense. Poor bamboo…

Another view of the pond, this time with a stone lantern. There were many stone lanterns, each unique of course, positioned all over the garden. They’re so adorable! Maybe I need to learn how to make Japanese gardens, other than on my iPhone…

Too many pictures to comment on, but click on the thumbnails to browse through some of the others…

After Hakone gardens, it was nearly time to head back to Santa Cruz. We felt like Chinese food, so I texted Tina for recommendations, while cross-referencing Yelp to decide on where to eat. The result landed us at Charlie Hong Kong (you know by just the name it’s going to be great already)…

What we had was the most Santa-Cruz-esque Chinese experience ever. Check this place out. Total beach shack kinda place:

Most of the food is rice bowls with different add-ons, but the have a pretty extensive vegan/vegetarian menu (that is Santa Cruz enough to begin with). The eating area was somewhat indoors, somewhat outdoors, and plenty of palm trees.

I enjoyed some vegan (I think) gado-gado with organic brown rice.

Joey and his rice bowl. Yumm.

Oh, Santa Cruz…

And this update would not be complete without one last amazing shot from the bamboo garden. Great weekend to get my 和 on.