so LAME...

Why do we use answering machines to screen calls and then have call waiting so we won’t miss a call from someone we didn’t want to talk to in the first place???

and... S.Cal is another place to add on the list of people ordering double cheeseburgers, large fries and a DIET coke.

...I'm feeling you on this one Reg.

Good Manners

Ros Natasha and I have been hittin the weights over at good ole Joyfit since March for our GetRight 2007 Plan. With the exception of the moaning and groaning, everything had been going really well and it gives me an opportunity to catch up with the girls 3times a week. So, a while back… me and Ros were resting in between sets. I mean, afterall, unlike the other women in there straining to lift their 1kg weights (which in my opinion they would get more of a workout if they lifted THEIR SHOE) weeeeee on the other hand are actually breaking a sweat. So needless to say, after our set we NEED a 2 or 3 minutes break to catch our breath and rest our muscles. Well, this lady staffer (who was in need of a workout herself, might I add) came over and told Ros off for talking. I HAVE NEVER in my life heard of no talking in the gym! Now, there were plenty of other people talking but maybe our foreign words perked up ears and some found it annoying. I find the man who breathes REALLY heavy in and out, grunts and groans, drips sweat all over the machine, and looks like a chipmunk to be annoying, but do I go over and ask him to stop? NO! OH..and we were in the LADIES ZONE which means that we have priority over the males, only 3 of which lift more than we do. And besides that, I pay my damned membership dues EVERY month so I’m going to talk as much as I damn well please! …especially because it was Ros who was told off and NOT ME ;).

Besides the dirty look every now and then, this lady has kept her distance. Well last week the “ladies zone” was gone and there was a MANNER CHECK sign up! Manner Check in ENGLISH! ANNNNND since no one else in that whole gym can speak English, I can’t help but to think that the sign was a little passive aggressive stab at us token foreigners. Added to the rules: no sitting on benches to rest, no leaving weights on benches, no taking breaks for more than 30secs. I think I’m going to make a bright yellow MANNER check of my own.

It’s going to say:

If you are lifting less than 2kgs,
do us all a favor and do it at home so you aren’t taking up mat space.
If you are over 40 and male,
do NOT wear spandex that suck onto your lil willie; thus revealing the fact that it really is little…leave something to the imagination PLEASE!
If you look like the girl whose head spins around from the exorcist,
please refrain from looking directly at me. You creep me out and give me nightmares at night.
If you wear baggy sweats, a hat tilted to the side and make-up to the gym,
you will be removed from the area, YOU ARE NOT DRESSED “hip hop” chic.
If you are convulsing/spazzing and falling on your ass on the stretch mat,
this is not break dancing and it is really distracting.
If you are an employee at a gym,
take advantage of the opportunity and work out yourself every now and then. No one wants a fat trainer telling them to lose weight or to do one more set!
If you are the HOT trainer that leads the kick boxing class,
lose the shirt.

These are my “MANNER CHECKS” let’s compromise. You give a little and Ill do the same and we will all ENJOY our JoyFit experience just a little more.

ME=

Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving

"Clever" is the word that perhaps describes ENTPs best. The professor who juggles half a dozen ideas for research papers and grant proposals in his mind while giving a highly entertaining lecture on an abstruse subject is a classic example of the type. So is the stand-up comedian whose lampoons are not only funny, but incisively accurate.

ENTPs are usually verbally as well as cerebrally quick, and generally love to argue--both for its own sake, and to show off their often-impressive skills. They tend to have a perverse sense of humor as well, and enjoy playing devil's advocate. They sometimes confuse, even inadvertently hurt, those who don't understand or accept the concept of argument as a sport. When they express their underlying principles, however, they may feel awkward and speak abruptly and intensely.

The least developed area for the ENTP is the Sensing-Feeling arena. If the Sensing areas are neglected, the ENTP may tend to not take care of details in their life. If the Feeling part of themself is neglected, the ENTP may not value other people's input enough, or may become overly harsh and aggressive.

Under stress, the ENTP may lose their ability to generate possibilities, and become obsessed with minor details. These details may seem to be extremely important to the ENTP, but in reality are usually not important to the big picture.

ENTPs are as innovative and ingenious at problem-solving as they are at verbal gymnastics; ENTPs have been known to cut corners without regard to the rules if it's expedient -- or simply in the collapse of an over-ambitious juggling act. Both at work and at home, ENTPs are very fond of "toys"--physical or intellectual, the more sophisticated the better. They tend to tire of these quickly, however, and move on to new ones.

ENTPs are basically optimists, but in spite of this (perhaps because of it?), they tend to become extremely petulant about small setbacks and inconveniences. (Major setbacks they tend to regard as challenges, and tackle with determination.) ENTPs have little patience with those they consider wrongheaded or unintelligent, and show little restraint in demonstrating this. However, they do tend to be extremely genial, if not charming, when not being harassed by life in general.

ENTPs are also good at acquiring friends who are as clever and entertaining as they are. Aside from those two areas, ENTPs tend to be oblivious of the rest of humanity, except as an audience -- good, bad, or potential.

As an ENTP, your primary mode of living is focused externally, where you take things in primarily via your intuition. Your secondary mode is internal, where you deal with things rationally and logically.

With Extraverted Intuition dominating their personality, the ENTP's primary interest in life is understanding the world that they live in. They are constantly absorbing ideas and images about the situations they are presented in their lives. Using their intuition to process this information, they are usually extremely quick and accurate in their ability to size up a situation. With the exception of their ENFP cousin, the ENTP has a deeper understanding of their environment than any of the other types.

This ability to intuitively understand people and situations puts the ENTP at a distinct advantage in their lives. They generally understand things quickly and with great depth. Accordingly, they are quite flexible and adapt well to a wide range of tasks. They are good at most anything that interests them. As they grow and further develop their intuitive abilities and insights, they become very aware of possibilities, and this makes them quite resourceful when solving problems.

ENTPs are less interested in developing plans of actions or making decisions than they are in generating possibilities and ideas. Following through on the implementation of an idea is usually a chore to the ENTP. For some ENTPs, this results in the habit of never finishing what they start. The ENTP who has not developed their Thinking process will have problems with jumping enthusiastically from idea to idea, without following through on their plans. The ENTP needs to take care to think through their ideas fully in order to take advantage of them.

The ENTP personality type is sometimes referred to the "Lawyer" type. The ENTP "lawyer" quickly and accurately understands a situation, and objectively and logically acts upon the situation. Their Thinking side makes their actions and decisions based on an objective list of rules or laws. If the ENTP was defending someone who had actually committed a crime, they are likely to take advantage of quirks in the law that will get their client off the hook. If they were to actually win the case, they would see their actions as completely fair and proper to the situation, because their actions were lawful. The guilt or innocence of their client would not be as relevant. If this type of reasoning goes uncompletely unchecked by the ENTP, it could result in a character that is perceived by others as unethical or even dishonest. The ENTP, who does not naturally consider the more personal or human element in decision making, should take care to notice the subjective, personal side of situations. This is a potential problem are for ENTPs. Although their logical abilities lend strength and purpose to the ENTP, they may also isolate them from their feelings and from other people.

Hiroshima!

inside the A-Bomb Dome... We went to The Peace Park…A-bomb dome and saw a parade. It was a heavy day (minus the parade) but well worth it. I couldn’t believe how unbiased the museum was… it spoke of the atrocities Japan inflicted on China and Korea as well as acknowledging their wrongdoings in WWII… they claim that by placing blame where its due as well as acknowledging your own faults, is the only way in moving forward and healing the wounds of the past. They are also revamping their textbooks in order to educate the younger generations in a truthful manner which doesn’t sugarcoat Japan’s past.
ringing the "Peace bell"

his monument stands in memory of all the children who dies as a result of the A-bomb. It was originally inspired by the death of Sadako Sasaki who was exposed to the radiation from the bomb at the age of 2. 10 years laters she developed leukemia that killed her. Her death compeeled her classmates to begin getting donation for the construction of a monument for all children who dies due to the atomic bomb.

Sadako thought that if she could fold 1,000 paper cranes that her life would be spared...unfortunately this did not come true...but people still fold paper 1,000s of cranes and put it here in her honor...It reads, "This is our cry. This is our prayer. For building peace in this world"
There were documents the bomb and its aftermath, complete with scale models of "before" and "after", melted children's tricycles and recreation of a Hiroshima street after the blast. The first floor describes the events leading up to the bomb and attempts to give a sense of what Hiroshima was like before the war. The second floor contains a number of displays and artifacts related to the day of the bombing. Some of these are extremely graphic and disturbing. There was a step from a building where just the shadow outline incinerated into the pavement is the only remaining trace of the person after the bomb exploded.

Letter from Albert Einstein to the President

There were also tons of letters back and forth within our government in English (so that we could sit there and read them even though the Japanese people couldn’t, which is probably a good thing) saying: 1. We should drop the Bomb on Japan instead of Germany because they are less likely to come back as strong. 2. Because of all the prior bombing, they were disappointed because then they wouldn’t be able to accurately measure the true potential destruction that the A-bomb would do. 3. When they dropped it on Japan, they should drop it in the water so that if there is a problem and it fails to go off then they wouldn’t be able to retrieve it to acquire the technology. 4. the American people were getting really pissed by this time because they had put in so much tax money into the research of the bomb and the war, they wanted to use the A-bomb to “give the people what they paid for” and shut them up basically that their money wasn’t going to waste. But then again, it IS all about MONEY… it was disgusting. I was really pissed though when I read a LETTER from Albert Einstein to the President. I don’t know about you, but when we were growing up, we learned that Albert Einstein was all about peace and didn’t invent the technology for bomb purposes...blah blah blah. “This new phenomenon would also lead to the construction of bombs and it is conceivable – though much less certain- that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may then be constructed. A single bomb, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory. However, such bombs might very well prove to be too heavy for the transportation by air.”

So 1 SECOND after the bomb went off the temp was 5,000degrees Celsius…people’s skin was literally melting off of their bodies.

The rest of the museum describes the post-war struggles of the hibakusha (bomb survivors) and the state of nuclear weapons in the world today.
This is the wall of “letter of protests” Every time a country test nuclear weapons, the mayor of Hiroshima writes a letter and it gets put on the wall in hopes that nuclear testing will be ended all together. There was an entire section written to the Bush administration as well as Korea…grouped together…Interesting eh?

Miyajima (宮島)

is a small island near Hiroshima, Japan. Famed for Itsukushima Shrine and its floating torii, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and officially one of Japan's Top 3 Views

Itsukushima Shrine (厳島神社), Miyajima's main sight, the shrine is a large, red-lacquered complex of halls and pathways on stilts, originally so built that commoners could visit without defiling the island with their footprints.

The floating torii gate of the shrine, standing in the bay in front of the shrine, is Miyajima's best known symbol. But since we didn’t plan to get there at high tide the “floating” tori was merely mired in mud.

Saw the World's Largest Rice Spoon (well over 5m long), showcased along the main shopping street.

Cool looking guy waiting for his next customer.

Originally commoners were not allowed to step foot on the island for fear that they would spoil it. Now we know why…

May5
Universal Studios Japan where we waited in line for 2 hours (supposed to be 3) for Spiderman the ride…FUNNNNN times though..

In light of Mother's Day.. it's got me thinking...

We all know it:
...so sing it loud and sing it proud..

FIRST comes Love

THEN comes MARRIAGE

THEN...comes the baby in the baby carriage.

I'm not passing judgement on anybody else's lifestyle or choices..but as for me, I refuse to have a baby's daddy... I have a bigger overall plan for my life. So all jokes aside, I am happy to be excluded from this one holiday if it means keeping my body stretch mark free, my nights still full of uninterrupted sleep and my life free of an insignificant other that I was forced to settle for because I got knocked up.. Don't get me wrong, I cannot WAIT to have a child with my husband who I love (and have yet to have met)..and when that day comes I will be the proudest/happiest MOM EVER...call me old fashion, but I'm all for mantaining the order of the rhyme...for all of you who DON'T fit into the whole ignoring our little nursery rhyme that has been drilled into our heads since hopscotch days... and having the baby before the marriage, or even love for that matter...I'm raising my glass to you in: CONGRADULATIONS...

Happy Mother's Day!

May1

Even though it was raining we ventured out. We had a tour of the Imperial Palace reserved before hand and decided we’d better not miss it. Our “English” speaking tour spoke the weirdest English I have ever heard, making sure to pause a whole second before the last word of each sentence and starting each sentence in a really high squeaky voice and ending it really low sounding like a man. It was really pretty despite the rain…but I wasn’t very impressed considering it was the Imperial Palace, it was really boring and kinda plain. The grounds were REALLY pretty though and made up for the lack of BLING (as Ros would put it) of the Palace itself.

A little soggy, we kept trudging on. Next stop was Kinkaku-ji or The Golden Pavilion in English. It was originally built in 1397 to serve as a retirement villa for Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, as part of his area estate then known as Kitayama. It was his son who converted the building into a Zen temple of the Rinzai school. The temple was burned down several times during the Ōnin War. The entire pavilion except the basement floor is covered with pure gold leaf. On the roof of the pavilion is a golden fenghuang or "Chinese phoenix".

The Golden Pavilion has a Japanese garden right outside of it. There are many islands and stones on the pond that represent the Buddhist creation story…I guess it was alright but just looked like a bunch of raked rocks to me… guess I’m hard to impress.

In 1950, the temple was burned down by a mentally disturbed monk; a fictionalized version of the events is at the center of Yukio Mishima's 1956 book The Temple of the Golden Pavilion. The present structure dates from 1955. I think this was my favorite temple of the billion that we saw…

May 2

My favorite place on the trip! KOBE! It was beautiful, nice weather, and right on the beach. Crossed off an item on my list of things to do before I left Japan… finally got to eat KOBE BEEF and even better it was in Kobe. It was the best steak I have ever had in my life, just like its reputation, it really does melt in your mouth.

our "band shot" --we got the picture, now all we need is the talent :)

We also went to the Earthquake Memorial down by the harbor where I met a little boy who spoke perfect English and totally blew me away with his painting of the harbor.

Kobe also has a Chinatown that we explored for a little bit... by far the cleanest Chinatown I have ever seen in my life ... it was so crowded though that we just browsed a little bit and decided to make moves to our next destination, Hiroshima.Pam and our NikuPan hedgehog dinner

Golden Week Road Trip
April 17-May 5

April 28- OSAKA Dotombori bridge..you can see the whole city alongAn English Menu @ a Bar in Osaka that resembled Easter Island

Amerika-mura (アメリカ村, often shortened to "Amemura") or "American Village" area is where I found a dress that I fell in love with only to quickly fall OUT of love with it when I saw the price! Ameremura is said to be the source of most youth fashion trends in Japan…but we saw more fashions DON’Ts than do’s.

We also went to Pure which is a hip hop club in Downtown Osaka. After walking forever in heels aimlessly and asking locals who weren’t any help at all probably due to the fact that it’s a strip club during the week and only a night club on Saturdays…we finally found it! Good music, a lot of foreigners and free drinks… Definitely a good night ;) …met two new people we nicknamed Fuzzy Top and Shovels…made for an interesting night

Pam the party animal...daydreaming of the events to follow

April 29- NARA

Traveled about ½ hour to Nara to see the World’s biggest wooden structure. Tōdai-ji (東大寺) is home to the Daibutsu (大仏), the largest Buddha statue in Japan and one of the largest in the world supposedly even though I thought it was less than impressive.The Daibutsu-den, which houses it, is said to be the largest wooden building in the world. It's listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The giant front gate, Nandai-mon, is guarded by two fierce protectors with beady eyes that glared down at you as you entered the temple. (It's also swarmed by deer, who know this is the best place to come looking for a hand-out.)



After the Daibutsu, is a wooden column with a small hole carved through the bottom. Enlightenment is reportedly promised to anyone who can squeeze through this hole. I guess a whole lotta kids found enlightenment this day because they were the only ones skinny enough to fit through the tiny hole. We didn’t even attempt to climb through, not because we were afraid to get stuck but because the line was too long…


To the right of the entrance to the Daibutsu-den is a statue of the Yakushi Nyorai. Weird looking, it's actually a Buddha of medicine and healing. Touching a part of the Yakushi Nyorai and then the corresponding part of your own body is said to heal any ailments you have there.
According to legend, the god of the Kasuga Taisha came riding a white deer in the old days, so the deer enjoy protected status as envoys of the gods but now they are there purely for looks, making the entire place smell like deer crap and boosting the economy by making tourists buy cracker for 300yen a pop.This is Kyoto Train Station...it's amazing! We are about 11 stories up when I took this picture

on top of Kyoto Station... Me and my Happy Face on Happy Terrace

We went to a whole bunch of other shrines but I have no clue which ones or what they meant. They were really pretty and we walked pretty much all day. After today, I was shrine-d out for the entire rest of the trip and seriously, they all started looking the same after the first dozen or so.

ha ha ha...my attempt at being artsy!

Geisha's doing what Geishas do...scurrying to their next appt.

The view from one of the shrines overlooking Kyoto.. It was soo pretty and the Cherry Blossoms are still in bloom

The hike up to one of the shrines

You know it's gotta be Golden Week... look how crowded it is...It was so hard to take pictures without having a billion people in the backgrounds

That night we went to an Irish Bar and I had an Irish Rump roast for the first time EVER...

..whelp thats Saturday, Sunday and Monday.. I'll write about the rest tomorrow!