Photos are from a couple weeks ago, when I bought this flowerpot cupcake kit that I found at Cost Plus World Market. They were so cute, I couldn’t resist! The chocolate cupcakes and frosting were made from the mixes that were provided in the kit. It tasted okay, and the presentation came out a little messy…Â looking forward to making some cupcakes from scratch in these cute little silicon pots!
I swear I don’t just eat cupcakes all the time, even though my blog posts may suggest otherwise….
Dan and I have wanted to see The Cove since we saw previews for it last year, and we finally watched it this past weekend. It was one the most riveting and heartwrenching documentaries I have ever seen.
I have of course been aware of Japan’s whaling for years now, as well as of how barbaric and dangerous it is to the ecological balance of the world. Still, it’s one thing to hear about it and read it on the news, and another thing to witness the actual slaughter.
I was ignorant, however, of the shocking proportions of dolphin hunting that goes on in the country, as well as of the fact that Japan is responsible for shipping out their dolphins to marine parks such as Sea World. What’s worse, they kill the thousands of other dolphins that don’t make the cut for their meat, which is mercury-laden and should not even have a place in the human diet.
The movie follows former dolphin trainer Ric O’Barry and fellow activists in their efforts to document and expose the dolphin hunting operations in Taiji in Wakayama prefecture of Japan. They elude the local guards and authorities to successfully plant video camera in the cove at which these dolphins are herded in, away from the public eye, to be butchered en masse. I was deeply saddened, angered, and ashamed by the horrific reality that was brought to light in this film, and towards the end I was fighting back both tears and nausea as the waters turned red from the bloodbath. I felt ill with guilt from having just come back from visiting Sea World last weekend, and from the sinking realization of what I had unknowingly supported. It’s tragic that due to cover-ups by the Japanese fishing industry, the majority of Japan’s citizens also remain uninformed and clueless of the human depravity in Taiji that results in the unnecessary and inhumane killing of 23,000 dolphins every year. Every year.
The Cove is a film that I feel that everyone must see. It is eye-opening and powerful… but most importantly, it is the truth. A truth that, though ugly, needs to be communicated to as many people as possible, so that the atrocious operations of Taiji can be permanently shut down. Please watch the movie, and find out what you can do to help.
I can’t believe it’s already April! It feels like just the other day we were ringing in the new year, and a quarter of the year has already passed us by. April has always held a lot of meaning and memories for me.
In school, it was always characteristically the busiest month of the year for me, in terms of putting on International Street Fair and the fact that most of our APIA events for AASU took place during April.
This April marks seven years since Dan and I have been together.
And it was on that fateful day of April 16th three years ago that thousands of lives at our university were forever altered by the actions of a single gunman.
Especially due to this last incident, I can’t really say that I can look back on all of my memories of April with fondness, but it has certainly always been a very emotionally loaded month for me. Since moving to California, April has always been the month I feel the strongest pangs of homesickness. My favorite flower is the cherry blossom, and there’s nothing more gorgeous in April than the 3,800 cherry blossom trees that come into full bloom for a couple weeks every year around the Tidal Basin of the Potomac.
This lovely scene in Washington, DC used to be only a 15-minute drive away from me when I lived in Northern Virginia, but I have not had the pleasure of seeing it in years, due to college and moving out to California, and I have really come to miss it.
The ephemeral nature of the cherry blossoms remind us of the transience of life — characterized by their amazing beauty when in bloom and their swifth death shortly afterwards, the blossoms have often been regarded as a symbol of mortality by the Japanese, and prominently appears in various forms of Japanese art, music and culture. Cherry blossoms, despite their fleeting lifetime every spring, still effloresce and flourish every year, and quickly but gracefully wilt away once they have reached their peak. It’s a reminder of the brevity and delicate aspect of our own human lives, and the importance of living each day to the fullest with no regrets, as if it were our last.
As cheesy as this may sound, I actually have a cherry blossom playlist on my iPod and I have it on repeat every spring when it’s cherry blossom season. There are countless songs about cherry blossoms in Japanese music, but these are my personal top five.
5. 「サクラ色〠by アンジェラ・ア゠(Sakurairo by Angela Aki)
Angela Aki is a half Japanese, half Italian-American singer-songwriter and pianist who grew up in Japan but attended George Washington University — she even has ties to my hometown of Vienna, Virginia, where she recorded her first English album These Words at Jammin Java. She has said that the cherry blossoms she sings of in this song are those in DC, and how they reminded her of her home in Japan. Angela Aki has a really beautiful, powerful voice and this song is one of my favorites by her.
4. 「ã•ãらã€by ケツメイシ (Sakura by Ketsumeishi)
I love this song — it’s a sad song about lost love, but the lyrics are beautiful. I also like the upbeat tempo and the “rap” that comes in here and there. My good friend Richard from school used to sing this song every time we went karaoke, without fail — and was pretty good at it, too!
3. 「桜ã€by コブクム(Sakura by Kobukuro)
Kobukuro’s Sakura is a true classic! I love all of Kobukuro’s ballads. This song also has a tinge of sadness, but the ultimate message is that of hope and having the strength to move forward with your life beyond loss and sorrow. It’s about becoming as strong as the single flower that endures through raging storms and strong winds to see the moment when the rain lets up.
2. 「ã•ãら （独唱）ã€by 森山直太朗 (Sakura (Solo) by Naotaro Moriyama)
This hit song, released in 2003, was Moriyama’s big break and launched him into superstardom. It’s become one of the most popular songs of the last decade, a staple graduation anthem often sung at commencement ceremonies across Japan. The style he sings in seems more traditional than modern, and it really is a classic graduation song in that it sings about the blossoming of youth and the inevitability of parting ways with friends. There are various versions out there, but the one here is his solo, accompanied by piano. I love this other version as well, in which Moriyama is backed by a chorus.
1. 「桜å‚ã€by ç¦å±±é›…æ²» (Sakura zaka by Masaharu Fukuyama)
This is my personal favorite! I fell in love with it when first hearing it in 2000 when it was released, and still love it ten years later. It is one of the most romantic songs I’ve ever heard, although it’s very bittersweet in that it is (again) about a love that has been lost. The soft melody, Fukuyama’s serene vocals and the depth of the lyrics has made it a classic favorite for me. It was a huge hit in Japan as well, selling 750,000 copies in its first week and it remained at the top of the charts for three consecutive weeks; it has sold over 2,300,000 copies overall on the Oricon charts, making it one of Fukuyama’s most successful songs.
I have a friend who can sing the song particularly well and he sang it on guitar for us once, which caused tears to spring to my eyes. I literally melted….
Other memorable “sakura” songs: Sakura no Toki by aiko, Sakura Iro Mau Koro by Nakashima Mika, Sakura by Ikimonogakari, Sakura by Kawaguchi Kyogo… can anyone thing of others?
To pick up where I left off from Part I of our trip to Southern California, we drove down to San Diego from Irvine in the morning to go to Sea World San Diego! It was my first time at any sort of marine mammal park/oceanarium (I’ve never been to Sea World or Marine World before), so I felt like a little kid marveling at all these cool sea creatures that you don’t get to see at your regular aquarium. After Sea World, we drove over to gorgeous La Jolla Cove… it was so stunningly beautiful, I didn’t want to leave.
Once again, I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking….
That night, we drove to Mariko’s parents’ house in Torrance after a delicious Mexican seafood dinner. The next morning, Dan and company came to pick me up and we made the seven-hour long drive back up to the Bay Area. (It wasn’t too bad — I slept about 80% of the ride, and spent much of the remaining 20% munching on various snacks.)
The trip down to SoCal had been pretty last minute — I had only booked my flight down less than two weeks beforehand — but it was really fun to spend some time with old friends. I was glad that I got to see Shun-chan before he moved back to Japan (although we’re hoping he’ll be back Stateside soon), and I missed having some good girl talk time with Mari. A huge thank you to Mariko for her hospitality and for driving us everywhere! Hopefully it won’t be too long before we get to see each other again. 🙂
Dan and I were both in Southern California this weekend, although we arrived separately and were in different parts of SoCal and didn’t see each other for much of the time. Dan and his film buddies were in Pasadena to shoot a short, and they drove down on Friday night, whereas I flew down on Friday morning and stayed in Irvine and Torrance to spend time with my friends from college — our plans just happened to fall on the same weekend, so we ended up both being down there but ironically separated until it came time for us to drive back up to the Bay Area.
Dan may blog about his shoot a little later, but this post will be all about my adventures this past weekend. 😛
My good friend Mariko lives in Irvine, and I hadn’t seen her since last June, so I was really happy to have a chance to go spend some time with her this time. Our friend Shun from Virginia Tech is moving back to Japan, and he was stopping by SoCal for the weekend before flying to the other side of the world, so it was a good chance to see him as well, before he left the U.S.
We spent most of Friday in the Los Angeles area and Saturday in San Diego. Here are some photos from Day One in Manhattan Beach and Irvine….
Looking at the photos, it looks like all we did was eat, scamper around the beach, and go eat some more… and more… and more…. which I suppose is essentially the gist of what happened. There’s just so much good food in the area, I end up wanting to eat everything I see. It was really nice to spend time with college friends and reminisce on our days back at Tech — sometimes I wish I could just go back and experience it all over again. (I believe I suffer from a bit of Peter Pan Complex.) But it’s comforting to see that your close friends from those days have never really changed that much, and that you can always pick up right where you left off with them. It really makes me grateful for the friendships I made and have been able to carry with me.
Stay tuned for Part II, in which we encounter giant sea creatures and scale treacherous rock cliffs. (Sounds so epic!)
