Trip to Hawaii
++Big Island++6/12/07 to 6/15/07

After the Loooong flight (Oita-Osaka-Oahu-Big Island), we finally arrived Big Island! Need to have a tropical drink!!


We stayed condominium type resort so we relaxed in the living room, had breakfast at the balcony, cooked dinner....


We also went out for local foods. This is LocoMoco. Probably it was not the healthiest food, it was sooo good. The gravy was wonderful.

Main event at Big Island...Volcano National Park.

After walking thorough the rain forest....

We saw the crater! Are we going to walk down there on the crater? I saw some steam coming out and it looks hot...


YES, we are....
Steven explaining how the hold were made...Tell me more Mr.Scientist!




Next day we took a snorkeling cruise. It was the first time for Steven to snorkel.

Well, he liked the snack bar on the boat.

Dolphins came to say hi to us :)
Snorkeling was SO much fun. Steven loved it and he was the last one to come back to the boat. We got off from the boat with a HUGE appetite.

Oh, Steven, your drinks is so CUTE :)

The Kona coffee at Coffee Shack was wonderful!!
Goofing off to kill time for the flight to Honolulu...

I had henna tattoo at the Local Farmer's market. Cool!! The last meal at Big Island was at Lulu's.

Oh..As Steven found a new job in Beppu, I also found one here in Big Island :)

OK. Enough goofing off, let's go to Honolulu already.

Trip to Japan-6/7/07-6/12/07

Went back to my hometown, Beppu to attend my father's 13th memorial day. 13 years has passed already...still cannot believe that he is not here with us...

Since my siblings also come home for the event, my mom's house gets crowded so we stayed at ryokan (Japanese inn) which is 5 mins away from the house. Kannawa is a old town has hot spring history. A lot of people have come here and stayed for relaxing or curing their problems.It was the third time to stay at this ryokan. We like the three different kinds of hot tubs and Japanese breakfast there. We get up around 7am, take a hot tub and during cooling down ourselves in the room, we get a call "Your breakfast is ready". After the wonderful Japnese breakfast, go out for sight-seeing/visit our relatives, have a great dinner at mom's house, come back to Ryokan, take a bath again and say "Ahhhhhh....gokuraku, gokuraku (it is like a heaven!)" Finally we go to sleep smelling fresh green tatami . What a tough life we are having ! ;)

And Steven found his new job there, Yukaki (stiring water to control the temperature).

We went Mt.Tsurumi to see Miyama kirishima. My father passed away when he climbed the mountain to see this flower so I didn't want to see it for a long time but for his 13th memorial day, I thought it was the time to go see it with my soul mate:)





Katsudon(fried pork with egg on the rice) and UnaJu (BBQed eel on the rice) were the Steven's strong requests so we had them (not in one day...). Especially he loves UnaJu at Imase and we told the people at the restaurant we came all the way from US to eat their UnaJu and they were so happy to hear it. We like their Unagi because it is Kansai style which is NOT steamed before BBQed so crispy outside and juicy inside....Mmmmm. I grow up with this and miss this so much and now Steven misses this too :)


We visited my 92 year-old grandma at hospital. My mom putting obachan (grandma) the scarf which is omiyage (gift)from us. We also played cards with her and she is so good at it. Steven and I took her out. The hospital doesn't allow her to drink beer and she was eager to have one so.......we got her one! Notice Steven is drinking tea while obachan (grandma) is enjoying her beer. When I was a kid, I used to stay over at her house on the weekend as many time as I could because I LOVED to stay with her and grandpa which has passed away 20 years ago.

We left Oita airport to Itami airport, take a bus to Kansai airport to go to......(to be continued)

+More knitting+
During my 2 week vacation, I had some time to knit and here are my works. Camera case and starfish hat...Even I didn't see a single starfish in Hawaii last week, the starfish is still my favorite motif.

Isn't it cute?

The purple thing is still going on...

+Knitting days+
I have been knitting recently and here is my latest masterpiece, a cotton mini skirt. I can wear it on the jeans, tights, or legings :):) Isn't it cute?

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Now I am so excited about my next project. It looks blue in the picture but it is purple actually. Guess what this will be....