New Year's Day in Tokyo

It is New Year's Day here in Japan !
And we just at the traditional "Oshougatsu" (New Year's) food,

"Osechi Ryouri".

And a little sake and the "Ozouni" soup.
I was a little sleepy because we went to a local shrine temple
to greet the new year day around 12:30 am this morning.

Hope this year will be great for everyone !!!

hiro

Package arrived

I ordered some thingys on 12/19 and finally received the package today...but there were many things missing on the box (Out of Stock!!)...

Used some coupons when I bought w/ refund for out of stock products today...I ended up paying $0.22 for all of these. hahaha

Yoshie

back in JDM land !

I have landed safely in Japan and I just had dinner
with my parents in Tokyo !!!
On the way to Tokyo from Narita International Airport,
I bought these goodie snacks in the Narita Express train !!

It is freezing cold here in Tokyo. And everyone is wearing
masks to avoid getting the flu virus. It's gonna be tough
to spend a couple weeks here without getting sick.
Time to load up on vitamin C !!!

hiro

LAX

I'm in LAX now waiting to
board my plane.
Booooring...

Hiro

Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with SprintSpeed

Christmas season 2008

I went out for dinner on both Christmas Eve and on the
Christmas night. And when I went out for a dinner to
Shinsengumi ramen with Mama Gushi and Chika, they
gave me a Christmas present. The super rare limited
edition Scion headphones!! I can listen to my favorite
J-Pop at the airport tomorrow with these cool headsets!!!

Thank you Mama Gushi and Chika chan !!

This was my first time at this particular Shinsengumi,
but both the ramen, small dishes, and desserts were
all super good. They handmake each desserts and half
of them was already sold out, so I will come back for
more next year !!!
And we gathered at our team manager Koji's house
for the Christmas dinner. Koji has prepared this huge
roast beef. It was soooo goooood that I forgot to take
a pic of the dinner table. I think it was the best roast
beef I've ever had. Seriously !!

On the left, Koji is slicing the roast beef with the electric
sword. On the right is his wife Mako caring for their
fast growing son, Koki !!

Koki is growing fast and getting smarter. He is very
cute but behind his smirk, he must be thinking of
new ways to cause trouble !!! And I wish I was
as flexible was he is !!

The dessert was this strawberry short cake from Bonjour.
It was super good too !

Thank you very much to Koji and his family for always
inviting us for holiday dinners !!!
Economy sucks for everyone in the world now, but
it's nice to be able to celebrate with good food and
great friends to forget about all the bad things (^o^)//

hiro

it's back !

it finally came back from Technosquare with the new
roll cage !

Richie Watanabe is the fabrication master at Technosquare.
He always builds nice cages for me.

Technosquare also does engine, transmission, rear ends
for all racing applications. If you would like more info,
please check out the site below :

http://www.driftpro.com/technosquare_inc.html

hiro

deja vu 2 . . .

hiro

deja vu . . . . .

The rain today really messed up this week's scheduling
on the "To Do" list...

And I thought I just did this a couple of weeks ago...

hiro

Fred 62

This was last week, but I went to a diner called Fred 62.

I ordered this peanut butter shake with Yosshi~ because
he told me it's really good.... And it was actually super good.
We were sitting outside on a very cold day, not a good day
and time for a shake, but it was so good that I finished it
in no time !!! A few other dudes from ASPEC (where Yosshi~
works in the US) came along as well.
ASPEC : http://www.aspecproducts.com

I ordered a chicken fried steak and this came out.
It's very different from what we get at denny's and
similar places. It was not so oily and was very good !!

I guess this area is called the "Los Feliz" and somewhat
of an hip expensive area. The food was definitely not
on the cheap side, but it was all good and they are open
24 hours ! I'll definitely come back here for another
peanut butter shake (^0^)/

hiro

this year's last driftday !!!

Yesterday, we just had our last DriftDay for 2008 !
www.driftday.com

It's been a very rough year for the Team DriftPro, but
it was very good day and I am glad we ended the year
with a useful practice day under the sunny sun (^0^)
This is Yoshie's car in front of the huge US Air Force aircraft !
The 240sx hatch behind it belongs to Kat Tanaka who is also
an improving female drifter with her SR20DET equipped car.

One of my student in line to do his practice in my 1JZ Cressida.
He was having lots of fun burning up rubber !!
I bought these JDM snacks the day before to prepare for the
long DriftDay !! The trend this year in Japan was the new
"salt flavor" chocolates. Seems like the 'sweet & salty' taste
was a pretty big hit in JDM land.

Although I didn't buy this one, I just took a picture dedicated
to Yosshi~ Toshiking because we just went to eat at that
Ethiopian restaurant right before he went back to Japan. Hahaha~!!!
It's a chocolate called "Ethiopia Mocha".

I hope everyone is having or getting ready for the great
holiday season !!!

hiro

My favorate

Watermelon for Summer, and Clementines for Winter!!

Yoshie

Finally got them...

I ordered some skin care product on 12/02...and finally delivered today!

I ordered 4 of Olay products, and others are free sample gifts.

I can't stop shopping!

Yoshie

Xmas Gift

From my greatest friends, Cheston & Angie! Thank you!!

PS: I hope I won't get harassed by Hello Kitty's fans! hahaha (Amanda & Crystal)

Yoshie

Today's lunch !

Today's lunch was at Pink Berry in Santa Ana.
Pomegranate yogurt with mochi topping.
Since mochi is made of rice, it should be a ok lunch !

hiro

Today's shopping.

Here is what I got today...paid $3.18!

Yoshie

cakes and eating dinner with hands !!!

This is a cafe called Amandine on Wilshire near Santa Monica.
The cake was very goooood, and no wonder because I heard
that the owner is Japanese patisserie !!

Wilshire street is all lit up for the Christmas season !
This night, my friend wanted to eat an Ethiopian food.
And I decided to tag along to this restaurant on Fairfax.
Ethnic interior was kinda intemidating before trying out
the "never ever had before" food...

This is the appetizer combo plate.
It had a fish ball, yum ball, shrimp, another ball,
and a fried banana-like fruit.
To my surprise, all these weren't so bad.
Actually, pretty good indeed !!

My brave friend, who's always up for trying out something new,
is Yosshi~ Toshiking !
Here's him eating like an authentic Ethiopian, wrapping
the entree with the bread-like layer thing.
And yes, the entree plate was also very good !!!

Afterwards, we decided to shoot pool at a pool bar in Pasadena.
And no I don't have three hands.... that's Daijiro's hand with the
pool ball. I called him up because he live about 5min from here !
(Sorry you're out of the frame... Hahaha~!)
Yosshi~ was by far the best pool player amongst us ! He's the hustler !!!

hiro

candle light . . . . .

hiro

...My new pic...

The pic...I guess my phone has a lot of features...haha (Pic created by Taka...)

Yoshie

Recent Update

Update for this week...


Finally my car graphic was done today! Thank you sooo much for Naoki Kobayashi AKA King of Drift Association & Drift Day. He has been doing my graphics for years. He is really talented, and I love his work!


It was my Bday last week, and I got a new cell phone. I love this phone!


Other phone pic is the one Taka got...he just received it yesterday.


The last pic...I got those from one of the drug stores for this week deal...Over all, I paid $1.02 & $1 donation...hahaha Darn, coupon power!!

Yoshie

seiko & staba card

I asked for a souvenir from Dai when I heard that he was
going to Hawaii. I asked for the refillable money card for
Starbucks coffee. (we call them "Staba" in JDM language)
I have my own Hawaii Staba card, but it's getting pretty old
and scratched up from years of use.
And talking about scratches, my Seiko watch is pretty scratched up.
Recently, I'm more careful about this watch because one of
the pin to hold the band was almost falling off.
Thanks to my friend who let me know just in time
before it fell off.

This is the back of the Seiko. It's powered by Kinetic technology,
where every arm movement moves the pendulum inside to
continuously charge the power to keep the watch working.

I've had this watch for more than 3 years now, and the Kinetic
has been around many years before then, so it's a pretty old
technology now....., but I still think it's pretty cool !!

hiro

gas is cheaper and i can go further !

The gas is scary cheap these days !!!
It is a good news, but the speed that the price is coming down
is unreal. It's scary because it might go back up as fast as it
came down. . . .

But since the gas is a little cheaper, I can afford to go out
a little more and a little further.
Like this restaurant Furaibo in City of Industry.
They are famous for the Tabasaki Chicken (basically chicken wings).
You can choose various spicyness, but it's a totally different kind
of spicyness compared to the usual buffalo wings.
This is a ramen place called Daikokuya in downtown
Los Angeles. The ramen, gyoza, and fried rice was
all good !!! I heard that usually this place is crowded,
but I think I got lucky because I was able to sit right away !!

I'm back in regular golf practice now and this is the
practice range at Scholl Canyon GC. If you look closely,
you can see the downtown. They also have the shorter
Par 60 golf course, so I'll come back to play here in the future !

The sunset made the clouds really red. That was cool !
On the other side was the moon, but it was soooo white.
It was as if someone flashed a flourescent lamp onto the
surface of the moon !!

hiro