Is okonameyaki romantic?

Happy Valentine's...

Snow snow snow!

It being a whole new year, I thought about starting a whole new blog, but for now I'll keep this one chugging along. The snowstorms were relentless this year, it seemed like we'd never see it melt away. Kitty braved it and after some initial fear and wonderment, grew to love running through the snow and digging for treats (our neighborhood has a lot of discarded chicken bones and open cans of cat food lying around for some reason). Here are some highlights...

Enjoy the holidays!

Happy Holidays and here's to a great 2011!

Last bits of Fall

I usually get some good foliage shots, but this year fall got away from me.

Brazilian TV gets me

Check out my Brazilian TV cameo! They came by our shop to shoot some things and interviewed me but luckily they cut that part out. Apparently Brazilians never wear hats so they're fascinated by our need for them. They also call hats, chapeu like the French.

Espana, valle? no valle? valle.

When we landed in Spain, it felt so easy to get there. Why haven't we done this before? It's just a little plane ride across some ocean, was the first thought. But as the trip went on, we realized how lucky we are to have the opportunity to travel somewhere across an ocean.

We were sort of isolated initially in a resort city Malaga, a town popular for British vacationers. It was kind of interesting seeing things the quaint Spanish town thought us foreigners would enjoy. For some reason our resort had rifle shooting as an activity (which we accidentally slept through), and the last night the performer at the bar by our room was this amazing guitar nerd. He played everything from Queen to Bon Jovi.


We trekked on the Renfe train (very very reasonable prices) to Sevilla and Cordoba. Tapas, cheap beer, cafe con leche, beautiful architecture, Moorish history, friendly locals were thoroughly enjoyed.

Scott's Argentine accent was recognized much to his parents' delight! I was so thankful for Scott's ability to communicate. It made travel much easier and made for lots of odd and wonderful interactions with the locals.


As Scott said, we liked how things just kept happening around us. In Sevilla, we just happened to be going the same time U2 was in town and a lot of the hostels decided to jack up their prices (regularly 20 euros, U2 prices 300 euros a night!). We managed to find a normal priced hostel where we met a young Argentine who was traveling for 2 months across Europe. Good conversationalist but insanely stinky feet which we recognized once we bunked with him. I mean, we're not that sensitive but seriously, I've never been woken up from a scent. It was like a punch in the face! So the first night, not so rested.


The second day in Sevilla happened to be the day of this nationwide strike, Huelga General. It was more of a party in Sevilla and a march with hundreds filing down the historical streets so sadly lots of places we wanted to visit were closed. But we decided this was cooler anyway.

In Cordoba, we saw the amazing Mezquita with its mixture of Muslim and Christian architecture and art but also landed on the day they announced their candidacy for European Capital of Culture.




I also found a historical hat shop and met the owner, a 5th generation haberdasher. The shop was like a museum and he showed us a beautiful handmade, traditional flamenco hat.

Due to our NYC stubbornness, we walked A LOT and were pretty exhausted by the end of it. Ironically we did not siesta though we had to work around the siesta hours. We definitely could have used better timing, but overall our timing allowed us to be a part of some historical events.

While walking on to the plane, there was an older couple in front of us, older but fit. And I whispered to Scott, maybe the next time we'll be able to take a trip like this will be when we're their age. Hopefully we'll have more adventures in store for us yet!

Back to back medals baby!

But that's not what the Shorinji Kempo Taikai (tournament) was about of course. It's not about winning, it's about working hard to accomplish a goal, and feeling a sense of accomplishment... and winning 3 medals again! I mean, I really shouldn't brag, but it's my blog so I shall continue to say that I was very pleased and surprised to win in all 3 categories that I entered in. I also have to thank all my friends and family who came out to support me and watch and cheer. It was really great to see friendly faces in the audience.


The main difference in this year's Taikai was that my dojo, the Shorinji Kempo New York City Branch hosted the 3 day event which included a study session as well as the big event. Helping to host an event with over 100 participants from all over the U.S. and Canada and special guests from Japan was quite an experience. I don't think I've ever been so stressed and filled with anxiety and excitement in my life. Ever. Did I mention I was asked to M.C. the whole event? I have also never worked so much on so little sleep. I believe Scott can attest to a slight mental breakdown the night of the last day.


But we did it and people were happy and we learned a lot about how to organize an event and what mistakes not to make again (order more vegetarian meals, who knew they were such an angry bunch), and definitely felt a sense of accomplishment. And did I mention I won some medals?

A note: I think I changed something before on my comments preferences and I just noticed that I hadn't published a bunch of them. Apologies! And thank you for reading. I was so glad to see people are still reading! I'll try to be more consistent with the posts for your reading pleasure...