Sunday, April 03, 2005



When I went to work on Friday I heard an ambulance in the subdivision area around Sumitomo. There were people popping their heads out of their doors and windows trying to track the ambulance path. I heard it stop but couldn't see where, as it was behind me.
There are so many old people in this neighborhood that when you hear an ambulance there is a 90% chance that someone has died or is heading to the hospital to die.
Well someone died.
Today I saw the house where the funeral is being held.
Now this person comes from a very rich family and was very popular. There were two full sized busses parked on the street for mourners and there were more people walking from around the neighborhood. It is a little freaky looking as they are all dressed exactly the same - black jacket, black tie and a white shirt. The only difference between men and women is the black pants verses black skirt. I could tell this family was wealthy by the amazing decorations adorning the front door of their massively huge house. They had huge lanterns, like you see at the shrines, on either side of their front gate.
Then there was the hearse.
THIS WAS COOL!
Back home a hearse looks much like a stretched rolls with its ass end a little odd looking, well here they look like shrines on wheels.
NO JOKE!
Now take this address below and check out the shrine picture. Sorry I can not link it as my work computer has all those cool buttons blocked for some odd reason.
http://imageevent.com/andreainjapan/goldenweek2004/kinkakujitemple?p=0&n=1&m=21&c=4&w=4&b=0&s=0&z=2&l=5
Now take that shrine top and shrink it down and attach it on top of a car. That is what a Japanese hearse looks like!! Well in Japan it is called a reikyusya - a soul carrying car.
.....
Last weekend we went to Shizuoka to see their Cherry blossom spring festival. THERE WERE SOOOOO MANY PEOPLE!!!! It was almost a little crazy. The festival is really a parade and is actually the same as the Shimada Obi Matsuri. There are tons of pictures on my picture page if you want to check that out.
Li decided to take part in this scavenger hunt sort of delio. Basically you had to collect stamps from different places. Li collected all the stamps but we didn't do it at a breakneck speed. We did a bit of shopping too and stopped for a bit to eat. Well by the time we got back to the start point with Lis finished sheets it was still early in the afternoon but they had run out of prizes. Poor Li, he was actually a little upset by it. He was looking forward to his prize. Hehe
During our shopping I bought some lipstick. Yayayaya I do wear some sometimes. Well I have started wearing Estee Lauder makeup because I was able to get my skin colored powder there. Asian colours are a little different. Well I decided to splurge on a very nice Estee Lauder pink. Well soooo cooooollll, they engraved my name into the cap of my lipstick in gold script! I am totally going to buy Estee Lauder from now on so I can use that cap on all my lipsticks. It is so cool!! Li is always rolling his eyes at girly things but even he thought that was kind of cool, so did his mom.

JiXiang was perfect of course. She has become a very good baby at restaurants and shopping. She is also so damn cute she causes traffic jams, literally. We tried to cross the road through the big parade. We ran across quickly only to be stopped on the parade side of the crowd by two older women that went all gaga over Ji. Those two women were joined by two more ladies and a little girl. Lasted for almost 5 minutes before they went
- Ohhh! You are trying to cross the road!
Hehe
She is such a good little girl.
She gets all silly in the morning sometimes. She is not really hungry but she doesn't want me to put her down yet so he holds my poor battered tit and puts this sly little smile on her face. When you call her on it she breaks into a huge smile and does a giddy squeal.
Last night Grandma was playing with this bell and JiXiang did a real laugh. She started squealing all happy and then went HAHAHA Squeal!!! Grandma was so impressed by that she had to phone home and tell grandpa.
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Posted by (Top)Andrea::4/03/2005 :: 0 Comments:

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