31 posts tagged “hitomi”

As I blogged a few blogs ago, it was supposed to be going to China, but those plans had been changing up until about two weeks ago. Eventually it was decided I'd be going.

Hitomi came back that same week (Sunday) and I had less inclination to be anywhere without her. Plus I'd be missing out on Halloween. In some ways it was my fault, in that I was asked by work to give reasons why I was needed in Shenzhen and I came up with a pretty convincing e-mail, I suppose.

(By the way, I'm typing this in Hong Kong. China blocks pretty much all the blog sites out there. So that's why I hadn't posted any updates to Facebook or here.)

I'll need to update this as time goes by.

Flight: Eva Air leaves around 2AM for Taiwan from Seattle, and pretty much nobody's in the airport, so it's a pretty lonely affair. I was flying business but for whatever reason it was tough feeling comfortable sleeping. Shoulder room was great but I experienced the usual leg fatigue and being by a window of course I had to pee every few hours it seemed.

Felt pretty good in Taipei. The airport terminal I remember from my last to Taiwan with Hitomi brought back some good memories. But there was no Hitomi this time around. And though I had plenty of food on the flight in the middle of the night, I enjoyed breakfast yet again.

Hong Kong airport: Felt like a step up from Taipei. I was taking the ferry to Shenzhen and the ferry service will transfer your bags from the airline directly, which is a help. While waiting for the ferry, I bought some books and coffee. The ferry sounded better than it was: For one, you're inside. For another, there's a lot of waiting and being transferred.

Mainland China landing: Definitely pretty ghetto and strangely what I expect to see. Luckily, customs and immigration was efficient and not at all pushy like in the U.S. I exchanged some cash and proceed to the taxi area.

It was about 350RMB (Chinese money) to the hotel, and basically I was ripped off (again) by third World taxi drivers. Alas, it was only about $50 US, so no great harm. I thought I learned my lesson in Thailand: Never, ever ride in a taxi with no meter running. Plus I should have realized when the driver said he liked the U.S. I should have realized I was being conned.

Of course the first thing I do in the hotel is assemble my bicycle, which actually was difficult this time around. It's been awhile but also the front brake (caliper) was misbehaving. Somehow the nut on the middle of the screw got loose or something causing the head to get loose. A lot of knucle banging later and it was okay. Then: Where to ride?

Speaking of screws loose, yes I rode in Shenzhen, where the drivers are insane. Shenzhen, in short, is like a heavily polluted and spread out version of Hong Kong where the roads are bigger and traffic perhaps more vicious. In some ways, it's all a reflection of life is worth less and standards of living are sacrificed in the name of advancing progress. Some suspect Barack Obama may be Communist, but the Chinese are Communist, and the Party is more vicious and heartless than even your most avaricious right wing Republican's fantasy.

I highly value my life, yet paradoxically ride a bicycle in this sort of shit. Anyway, where should I go? I bought a map of the city, which was designed to work okay for drivers who take major roads, but I wanted to find minor ones, which tend to be more interesting. But the way the city was designed, there are basically islands of huge towers and communities and they are like islands surrounded by big roads. Taxis are thankfully cheap (for us foreigners) and there is a subway which provides refuge for pedestrians.

In terms of traffic safety, here are some things to note: Pedestrians must yield to motorists. Motorists never signal. They can drive however they want, as fast as they want. Note: There are bicycle lanes, but motorists can and will use those for parking or driving if they feel like it. If you are more than 1 second late accelerating, they will honk at you. They will honk when passing on the left or right or if you are in front of them. Seatbelts are optional, especially in taxis where the buckles might be broken or missing. If the driver wears one, he will likely be sitting on the shoulder strap.

First ride I did: Came back exhilerated but my lungs hurt from...something in the air. And in addition to the persistent pollution, which scarily blankets the sky with a dull brown on even a sunny day, a lot of places smell like old garbage, ala Ho Chi Min City. What am I doing here?

Hitomi (who's in Japan) called me out of the blue. It was good to talk to her. I hadn't talked to her since Friday. I was in the middle of work, unfortunately and had to keep the conversation short.

Something threw me off about her phone call. For whatever reason, I didn't really want to talk. Isn't there a rule when you're on vacation you're only allowed send postcards, letters, or e-mail? But I understand her position. More frequently, I'm out of town and Hitomi's at home. And being alone on vacation feels incredibly alone.

Last weekend I was out hiking with friends. We went off to Manning Provincial Park in B.C. Admittedly I didn't think too much about my wife while freezing in the mountains. I wasn't struggling to survive but the cold took my mind off a lot of things back home. And let's not discount the great scenery: Where we were camped probably has one of the best views of the North Cascades than anywhere else.

Also to keep my mind of Hitomi, I was busily ordering a bunch of manga. I kind of got shopper's euphoria there for a bit. Lately, I've gotten into girl's love manga (often called "yuri" in the West) so I ordered a couple of those sorts of titles.

From what I hear, Hitomi managed to assemble her bicycle and is getting ready to ride on her own through Shikoku. I wish her luck. She's only riding about 40-50 miles for a few days, but she said it was pretty warm so it might be difficult in the heat.

(I mentioned being kicked out a concert over the weekend on Facebook. A little background on this first.)

Halko Momoi is a very popular singer and voice actor, at least in the anime community in Japan. Definitely one of the top five performers of her genre. She's my wife's most favorite performer.

Momoi was approached by Mr. O (not his real name) to perform at this fairly small event. Mr. O with the chairman of Anime Vegas, helped bring her to the event. This decision was made at the last minute. Her dedicated fans, mostly from out of state, including Hitomi and I, made special last-minute travel arrangements (flight, hotel, etc.) as well as worked on a "call book", brought hundreds of glow sticks, etc. We dedicated fans also make an effort to do live internet broadcasts, translate material, etc.

As it so happens, we were allowed to internet broadcast some of the performances at Anime Vegas. But not the concert for Momoi. And although the connection (through an EVDO modem) was physically disconnected, someone it was reestablished again automatically. (Or deliberately?)

Contractually speaking, free live broadcast was not allowed, although live recording was. As it turns out, the chairman got informed that the live broadcast was active. (By whom?) And then convention security was upon, at least, some of us. The guy manning the computer was kicked out immediately. And--by being in the front row with an Momoi t-shirt on?--some of us other guys were told to get out as well. (Not Hitomi, who looks innocent I suppose.)

I had nothing to do with any of the broadcast. I'm just part of this fan club, and I didn't know what was going on. Still there I was out in the hall with the chairman and a couple of other innocent and angry fans during the middle of the performance. Two or three songs later, we were let back in. Hitomi was a bit confused by this and you can read her blog, if you can read Japanese.

Needlessly to say, us fans were upset at all this, and vow not to return. Especially since she was only performing a short one hour set and here I was spending three days in Las Vegas, which is like Los Angeles but a lot more miserable.

...I could also fill this post with a list of things that weren't cool about the event but I will keep it to this.

To make up for all this I did have a lot of fun at meals with her fans. Monday, since Momoi wasn't showing up at all, Hitomi and I went and enjoyed a few short hikes on the outside of town, at Red Rock Canyon.

Friday

Left early in the morning to catch an earlier flight. Hitomi and I were on "standby" since she wanted to get to San Jose for Momoi's afternoon panel. Since I switched later I wasn't sure I'd be on the same flight. Took a taxi ($21 or so) to the Convention Center. According to Hitomi, to reach light rail system by bus takes "forever", even though you can see it's about a half mile away. Maybe after the San Jose airport remodel is done it will be faster.

Got rooms at the Hotel Saint Claire for about $105 a night. James T. was willing to have us stay at a more distant hotel but the hotel wasn't in walking distance.

Met some familiar faces and I tried to remember some names. Just a few Momoi fans from Japan came, and I suspect it was fear of the swine flu that kept them home. A few were rooming with locals, like Kent, who has been a fan since 1998 or so. Momoi's Japanese fans are very nice, but singularly obsessed, really.

Opening ceremonies were a casual affair. Fanime's a casual con, really. There were taiko drummers outside but they weren't too great technically but had showmanship. We mostly hung around until Momoi made a brief appearance.

Momoi's panel for today was titled "Path of the Otaku" according to the schedule but I guess she thought it was about "Seiyuu and Singing", which was supposed to be the theme for tomorrow. As usual, lots of vague, open-ended questions, although there were some specific and interesting ones as well.

Re: Path of the Otaku. As it turns out, I don't think any of the "Momoists" (fans) had girlfriends or boyfriends. (Just a guess.) To me, it seems the path of the otaku is a lonely path, in this respect. It would have been interesting to discuss what does it really mean to live your (entire) life for a particular hobby.

Went to watch Fist of the North Star, following the panel. I saw the movie version. I hadn't watched a whole lot it before, just bits and pieces, so I felt really educated to learn the backstory about exploding heads. Guy running the room hadn't setup the sound properly so I complained. Not a whole lot of interest in older anime these days, it seems.

Dinner...I went with several people in a car to Mitsuwa, a Japanese supermarket. We bought cheap (tasting) Japanese bento and curry. I complained about my katsudon which needed spice or pepper or something.

Saw Detroit Metal City, a parody about a death metal band. First up was the live action version, then some of the animated version.

Saturday

Hitomi left early to catch a movie, which was canceled and replaced with a serious Korean ganster movie. Koreans really love gangster movies. I wonder if Seoul is safe? I slept in a bit and saw some of K-ON!, which is probably the hit of 2009 in Japan.

Momoi autograph session at 12PM.

Following this was a maid life performance on Stage 0. Momoi shows up.

The past few years, Fanime has had a maid--English, not French--brigade, which dresses up accordingly and actually says the sort of lines you'd hear in a Japanese Maid Cafe. (I wonder why not just use formal English?) They also are expected to sing and dance a little on stage, play games with customers at a cafe, and take pictures.

3PM was Momoi's panel, followed by a call workshop. I spent a few hours translating an article for the call book, which was probably more of a souvenier for those that received it, than study guide as it was intended. Ironically, I'm not into learning calls myself, but I have somehow put in a lot of time working on them anyway. The workshop was for practicing calls but turned into more about otagei, which is a related topic. Otagei is pretty straightforward, except for the infamous Thunder Snake technique.

I killed some time looking at cosplayers out front of the convention area. Eventually we congregated and headed out for dinner. Found a Baja Fresh resturant, it lots of empty seating, fortunately.

Came back and watched two hours of "Anime Hell" which isn't really about anime or hell, but a collection of weird animation, clips from Japanese television, etc., that anime fans would enjoy. I guess "Hell" part refers to the black humor aspect. At 12AM was "Evangelion: Endless Debate" which would have been fun to participate in but I headed off to bed instead.

Hitomi's obsession was uploading pictures and blogging throughout the convention. Take a look at her blog...

Sunday

Day of the concert. Serious Momoists were itching to arrive first in line for an 8PM concert at around noon. I spent some time unwrapping glow sticks in boxes.

I went to see the voice actors for Resident Evil 5 at a panel. Saw how they blue (green?) screened it, and did facial motion capture. I was thinking that somehow all or most of the character movement, including stunts, and facial animation was actually animated from hand. But in reality, all of it was captured.

Carl Horn had a panel on manga and in particular Dark Horse Manga. In terms of print quality, they are probably the best. (There are really some terrible importers, like Tokyo Pop or CMX which somehow get by doing a half-ass job, so maybe consumers don't really care?) It was interesting to hear him talk about the printing and proof process. And also the move to publishing combined volumes of manga, which retailers love and saves money for publishers as well. Still, a thick book is hard to read. I was going to ask about slip covers--like why nobody does them--but forgot. (Okay, it's obviously a cost issue but I'd still like to see them.)

Visited the Maid Cafe. It was busy the whole convention. Hitomi had saved a spot for me and was waiting with other Momoists. All the maids were really nice. Our assigned maid was trying hard to interact with everyone but somehow either people were distracted or shy. She drew everyone a picture and we played a simple game. Then they put on a little performance, similar to the one the day before and we had pictures with the group.

Snuck into the Gurren Lagan documentary and watched how animators slave away to create a few seconds worth of footage. Hitomi wanted to see it but went outside to wait in line.

Johnathan, a Momoist, was helping out with the NicoNicoDouga (NND) panel. I was curious and went. NND explanation: People upload funny shit to this site. And then peoples' comments fly across the screen. Also: Japanese have their own set of Internet memes so the same concept is repeated over and over again. And unlike Youtube (which the Japanese do use), NND supports live streaming so the entire panel was streamed as well.

Then saw Baccano!, which was a recommended by some older fans...Lots of 1920s Italian mobsters and families going after each other. However one family in particular seems to have a few immortal people. Immortality comes in handy when you're a gangster.

Went to Anime Music Videos "Best of 2009". Interesting that AMVs have caught on world wide so they have an International community and international competition. Lots of effort to combine footage you don't own with music you don't own either. Sometimes the result is "cool" but the flaw I see most often is they are too overwhelming (lots of cuts) or long. The best are actually kind of repetitive or have a variety of pacing.

I finally make my way outside to the line. Hitomi's camped out. I play Momoi songs on my Blackberry. A girl ahead of me looks uncomfortable, lonely, and unhappy. I'm sitting next to her on a concrete wall surrounding the perimeter of the concert hall. She eventually stands up, as if she might have sat in something sticky, but I couldn't tell what it was.

Filtering in, I secure two seats about 2 rows back from the front. We weren't sitting in the front row but there are bigger fans than us and Hitomi doesn't like to be in front anyway.

Opening act was a anime music cover band, Makenai. They sang well-known songs and did a fairly decent job, but it was obvious the sound was a bit messed up and feedback was obvious. (Amaturish sound technicians strike once again.) They did have a few of their own songs, and the last of these was decent. Momoi fans being who they are were equipped with light sticks and had a few calls coordinted for the well-known songs, so it got pretty lively. But many of us were holding back, since we were preserving energy for the main event.

Needless to say, Momoi being the veteran that she is, put on a solid show. Not all my absolute favorites but many of them. With all the enthusastic jumping and gesturing I was sweating through my shirt. (Maybe from my bicycle training I have built up better endurance but I seem to sweat more even though I'm not straining.) With all the movement, I was a bit wary of landing on Hitomi but we had an extra seat open next to us so it wasn't too crowded.

I tried following the calls, and being a tall guy I knew for sure the people behind me were paying attention. But at times, I found myself paying attention to the first row rather than the performance itself, so I had to let myself go on autopilot.

Ninety minutes sure went by quickly. The biggest disappointment was how she was obviously pressed for time, not even having time to introduce her band members or "MC" as much as she usually does.

Concert's over and we are shooed out of the theater as quickly as possible. Out on the steps of the hall people are taking video, sharing pictures, and fans were interviewing fans about how the concert went. I had FOOD on the the mind but people were inclined to simply hang out. When the front lights went out, it was a sign to get out. So now the roving group of Momoists went to seek food. Not many places open at around midnight in Downtown San Jose, as we discover. Eventually somebody finds out Jack in the Box is open and nearby and people congregate there. I hit up a Tacqueria, grab a burrito, and head on over.

Lots of chatting about this and that. Eventually we're done eating and are taking up space. I head back to the convention center, while Hitomi heads to bed. (Actually, Hitomi heads back to post various videos and pictures.) I discover there's not much to do but hang out in the Pr0n room and watch Night Shift Nurses. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to call it Fucking Nasty, though I have worse in manga format. Notably, though, what I haven't seen in a manga are public hairs stuck to the face of a woman nor ejaculate in the texture of cottage cheese. Combine sex with violence and suicide and it's a bit of a downer. Most amusing moment of the night: Staffer passes through the video room with a megaphone, asking for everyone for "hand check".

3am and I'm a bit tired. Still we wake up around 9-10am. It's the last day. Momoi's autograph session is one of the few events I go to. 3PM we watch closing ceremonies and the convention's over. Then we spend the last few hours at a Japanese supermarket and bookstore. (Some out-of-towners don't have these I guess.)

Hitomi and I checked out the University Street Fair. I've decided I've been to enough fairs in my life. Perhaps helping out many weekends with the Steel Silhouettes booth has spoiled their appeal. Still, they often sell some clothes that Hitomi (or my sisters) might like, like hemp or clothes imported from India or Nepal. We went briefly in the morning and then I went off to Downtown Seattle by bicycle.

On the streets in front of Pike Place Market was a cheese festival. And I've had a craving for cheese recently, so why not check it out?

Unfortunately, it's now (nearly) summer and the Market is now packed with tourists and locals. Add in festival goers and there were sure a lot of lines. Maybe 20-30 people in one line to taste a couple different cheeses at each booth. The lines weren't going anywhere, as far as I could tell. I went instead to a fish monger and bought some king crab and smoked salmon and left.

The heat was intolerable. I wore a long sleeve windbreaker to protect my sunburned arms. Wearing it when riding wasn't bad, but stopped at traffic lights really caused me to heat up. Plus I somehow picked up some warm, rank water. I walked into Hiroki for some cake, and the salesperson gave me a concerned look as I was dripping sweat onto the floor.

So it'll probably be until October or November until I visit the Market again.

Whistler, Canada


Originally uploaded by ochawan

A little bit away from the actual summit where we had lunch, our ski guide took this one.

It's a little unclear from the picture that I'm actually getting sunburned. Too bad I didn't use any sunscreen on my neck and lips...

Oh, lots of really dry powder on the way down. A little bit scary for me at the beginning as I accidentally skied into the steepest section of the hill.

Hitomi and I skied Mount Hood on Saturday.

The pictures are trapped inside Hitomi's new camera.

Here's a synopsis: Hitomi signed up for Nintendo's (cheap) ski trip to Mt Hood. Or as she explained it, managed to get to the top of the waiting list and somebody dropped off. Ultimately, to get there and back, we spent more time on a bus than on the mountain itself. Still, the trip was fairly enjoyable, better in the sunny morning than later when reduced visibility, more snow, and flat lighting made it a difficult afternoon. I enjoyed my new skis and boots, both a bit lighter, thus a little harder to control than the heavy rental setup I was used to.

Hitomi had a tougher time with her longer and stiffer skis, I think. Still, she made it down the same slopes as I did, a little more carefully and gracefully.

The runs on Mt Hood aren't as steep as Crystal's, at least the "blue" ones felt more "green" to me. We dipped into some steeper, less groomed terrain. At some point I hope we can transition over to the "blacker" runs. It's not as if I need more challenge to have fun, but I feel to learn better control in the backcountry and build confidence I need to try less forgiving conditions.

Case in point: The following day, Kevin, Hitomi and I went up to Snoqualmie Pass and skiied some backcountry. First we (Hitomi and I) practiced "skinning" uphill and steep terrain, making kick turns and AVA turns. Conditions were wet. Unbeknownst to someone like me, the snow was super-saturated, thus heavy and hard to turn in. Or, you could turn but you couldn't turn back the other way. Luckily we had been near an old logging road, so the return was straightforward through snowmobile "groomed" terrain. I managed I crash a number of times, mostly through experimentation. Even the littlest of slopes made it near impossible to turn. It would have been fun and fast to return through the trees, but even Kevin decided against that.

Speaking of trees, yes I did wrap (hug) a little 4' tree, at low speed. And on a downhill section I was struck by a bough of fir in the mouth. Yum.

SIFF had a free screening, which we aren't obliged to attend but it's a free movie so we went. A Swedish(?) movie, a period piece movie, which I did not remember the name of. The story was about a mother in an unhappy marriage, who had aspired to be a photographer and who was in love with another man but who remained loyal to her drunk husband and raised her 7 kids. She did find a measure of happiness in the end but most of the movie you're frustrated with her. Hitomi liked the clothing (costumes) of the period, circa 1920s, which all really resembled the kinds of clothes she buys.

Post movie we met Eurika and Tylor at the nearby QFC to carpool south.

We spent more time today driving to and from the Sakura-con meeting than actually at the meeting, which was at the Covington Library somewhere in the vicinity of Auburn. Similar to last year, we held a meeting to divvy up the Japanese guests and get familiar with the expense process. Mostly what I (and Hitomi) do is act as a walking wallet, personal shopper, tour guide, drink and food orderer, and general escort. There's other staff around to translate panels, etc.

Post-meeting, mostly Japanese relations staff went to Malay Satay Hut and mostly Eurika talked about prior years and the difficult situtations she's been in. She talks a lot, probably about 90% of the words spoken at our 8 person table were hers. (Not hyperbole.)

Eurika bought a durian shake. Hitomi and I tried just a little of it: Durian admittedly tastes fine but unfortunately does smell bad, a smell which we discovered would return to our mouths as part of the digestive process, i.e. when burping. I'm a little scared to visit the toliet tomorrow.

Hitomi's off skiing Crystal Mountain tomorrow. I would go, I guess, if the snow conditions were better (newer) and I had enough rest from the prior week. Taking the day off, physically and mentally seems prudent. I actually spent some of today (Saturday) entering names into a bug tracking system I'm setting up. It took about 4-5 database exports to get the data right, and about 3 imports to get the data imported correctly. And I'm not 100% done, as I still need to import the attachments to the bugs.

Oh, and speaking of not skiing, I'm also not going to do the Chilly Hilly, Sounds like a fun ride but I could use the rest.

Crystal Moutain February 14, 2009


Originally uploaded by ochawan

Hitomi's been bugging me to go skiing recently. There are a couple of excuses that have kept me away from the mountains. Mostly it has been not having a good car (snow tires or chains) for getting through the snow. In the snow, I've also been quite cold and wet, if only due to a lack of proper clothing. And I never did care much for paying a lot of money for (often crappy) rental equipment or lift tickets. And I've been on many ski trips where the conditions were either icy or slushy or wet, or when there was not enough snow. And I've had a share of painful experiences falling or being out of control.

Last year I attempted to wear some alpine skis borrowed from Kevin. I was in deep snow on a steep slope in deep forest without having skied recently, and (of course) I uncontrollably descended. This was the only time I had gone skiing with Hitomi, so she was convinced I didn't know even how to stop.

Through the magic of the Internet and a few phone calls, she signed us up for a day out at Crystal Mountain, opposite Mt. Rainier, and a few hours' worth of lessons. There was a bus from the Park & Ride at 6:45AM and all we had to do was walk down.

The lessons were provided by Jed, an old timer who used to be stationed in Japan and knew a fair bit of Japanese. He was nice to us both and though Hitomi was more advanced, Hitomi had yet to use newer skis with newer techniques. Jed led us through some exercises and so once I paid attention to my body position, practiced a bit, and relaxed I felt I could ski again. Having the lessons certainly helped the process go quicker, though the lesson was expensive.

Rentals weren't cheap either: About $35 each. I figure if we went about 10 times would be the same price as buying new equipment.

Although it was sunny and pleasant weather, the snow conditions weren't great, due to all the sun of the prior week and lack of new snow. There were just a few runs we did and the best were around the trees (shaded) where the snow was more fluffy.

Returning home it started to snow and I knew we should have left Sunday.

Although I've been feeling much stronger cycling this year my test today seemed to indicate, in terms of wattage, I'm about the same as I was end of last year. I did do better on a 5 minute test, about 5% improvement, but the same for 15. Which is disappointing, but there's some possibility I didn't test too accurately today. What you're trying to do in 15 minutes is really "lock in" at a constant rate, but I had stop and reduce my output bit by bit. So I feel if I just aimed a bit higher at the start, rather than be so ambitious I would have made a higher average. (I started off around 300+ watts but dropped to 260, and thus I ended up with an average of 269.) Anyway, that's how testing goes; you're off some days.

Last weekend I was in Vancouver for the Four Continents Figure Skating Championships. Hitomi and I took the train on Friday, which can be a maddeningly slow ride if you're in a hurry. On the way there I was trying to use an SSH connection over a VPN connection over a cell phone connection from my laptop and it would either be too slow or cut out inside tunnels or sporadically. So instead of feeling frustrated about Amtrak, I was frustrated at my connection.

Still, a scant 3-4 hours later, we arrived, went through customs, and had time for dim sum. We had a little time before the long program of women's figure skating.

There were about 24 skaters, and at 4-5 minutes apiece we were around until 10PM. Based on the scores of the short program the best skaters ("world class") were all at the end. Apparently, only a few skaters in the world can do (consistently) triple axel jumps. A good lot of them end up on their butts.

One difficult point was returning to the hotel. There mostly a lot of Asian (students?) who probably had no car waiting around with us at the bus stop for a ride downtown. Since it was late, of course very few buses were out and who ever heard of the city providing extra buses for events? So for all that waiting, it might have been faster to walk back.

Saturday was men's skating but we decided to arrive a bit later. We had a late breakfast which was really lunch, took the bus and saw a few hours of skating. Then we had time to walk along the water a bit and enjoy the sunset on English Bay. We ended up inside a not-so-great Korean restaurant on Robson Street, and after a bit more of wandering around we went into a Japanese cafe/dessert shop.

Vancouver is much, much busier than Seattle and much, much more Asian. Maybe 30%, if you're counting the people on the streets. I heard tons of Japanese, Korean, and Chinese chatter. As Hitomi puts it, it's not a great place to come for foreign exchange. (And I'd say the skating audience was about 30% Asian students as well. Lots of Korean and Japanese flags; maybe more than Canadian flags.)

Speaking of Asians, we went to see Grand Torino, staring Clint Eastwood and a bunch of Hmong refugees. I knew the ladies sold (dried) flowers at Pike Place Market, but I had no idea the boys were off joining gangs. A great movie, in several respects, but some of the characters were too sterotypical to take the movie very seriously.

Sunday was my favorite day of skating. It was a 2 hour exhibition program, with (more fun) music, lights, and happier skaters. The winners seemed elated, even the 3rd or 4th place finishers. And the routines weren't so jammed pack of jumps. A few jumps is interesting but after you see around 5-6 jumps and jump sequences (in just 4 minutes) it's not as cool, it's not artistic, but obviously done for racking up points.

The music and routines weren't schlocky like "Smucker's Star's on Ice" is, whose audience is frumpy, middle-aged women and their daughters with Wonder Bread taste. The nice thing about the exhibition is the skaters pick the music they like, which is at least a bit more contemporary, if not personal. (Side note: One skater picked music from "Mononoke Hime", but it wasn't one song, it was more like four or five tracks across different albums spliced together! I noticed this is quite typical, although maybe not that noticable with a longer classical number. I don't like hacked up music.)