Hong Kong - October 2010
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The Washington Hilton
The National Archives
I like words and stuff. The side of The National Archives reads:
"This building holds in trust the records of our national life and symbolizes our faith in the permanence of our national institutions."
Awesome.
The Smithsonian Institution Building - "The Castle"
The Capitol Building looking East from the Washington Monument
The Washington Monument looking East from the WWII Memorial
The WWII Memorial looking West toward the Lincoln Memorial in the background
The WWII Memorial looking East toward the Washington Memorial in the background
The Lincoln Memorial
The Ulysses S Grant Memorial looking East toward The Capitol in the background
The Capitol and some dude taking a picture of me taking a picture
Thanks Bennion for taking my token tourist picture in front of The Capitol
The Smithsonian Museum of Natural History
"Fetch!"
Saw this on a sign outside of a church in Chinatown DC. Every knows that Jesus didn't drive ...duh.
We stayed at the same hotel where president Reagan was shot in 1981
Video
Map of the routes we walked in 2 days, just over 9 miles.
View Washington DC 9/18/2010 in a larger map
As I made the map above, I was looking for historical references to some of the sites. I stumbled upon all sorts of conspiracy theory about the layout of the DC streets. Very interesting but I'm pretty sure I could draw pictures like this in any town.
View DC Street Layout Symbolism in a larger map
We had a great BBQ at my Auntie and Uncle's property in Marion. The boys had fun shooting the guns. The most fun was shooting Kurt's AR-15
The annual Obon festival was last weekend at the Salt Lake Buddhist Temple. We try to go every year as a tradition. It's always fun to see all of the colorful kimonos and watch the dancing the we used to do when we were younger.
I'm trying to post these from my phone while I lay here sick in bed. Forgive me if the formatting is off, I'll fix it later.
Obon always starts with the Ogden Taiko Drum group doing their awesome demonstration. This video does no justice since you have to be there to feel the drums as they build momentum in the pieces.
After the drums, it's on to the dancing. Reverend Hirano leads the group into the circle to the Obon no Uta song. this year they had to do it three times because there were so many dancers. I might be wrong but I think they also made circle bigger this year extending further down 200 South St.
The last three songs are open for audience participation, which we always do. I have these songs and their dances memorized. It makes me happy to stand out there next to my Mom, my sister, my boys, and neices and nephews and pass down the Obon tradition to another generation.
And then, Obon ends just as it began with the whole crowd dancing to the same Obon no Uta song.
Some of my favorite pics from the Cache Valley Cruise-In car show
in Logan, UT this weekend
This was the view from my room at the Tokyo Hilton
Waiting for the train at Shinjuku station. The trains are very busy in the morning
There's no "blending in" for us at Hase Station in Kanagawa
All the little kids saying "hello" to us as they pass by
The Giant Buddha at Kōtoku-in temple in Kamakura
Inside the buddha
The famous gardens the Hasedera temple in Kamakura
Sushi bar
Ginza Street at night
I have no idea what this sign says but the guy in the middle is obviously using his cell phone for evil purposes
On the subway back to Shinjuku from Ginza
Pork katsu lunch on the last day
Narita Express train to from Shinjuku to the airport
Chillax before boarding at the airport
Lucky flight home
Click here to see the rest of the pictures on Flickr
And here is all of the videos all together at YouTube
Trey and I went up to Strawberry Reservoir for the first trip of the year today.
Arrived just after 6am, in the water by sunrise.
Caught a 22.5" cutthroat at 9:10am using worm and marshmallow on the bottom up.
I was lucky enough to get tickets to watch the Jazz play the Lakers in the playoffs tonight.
I took my grandmother and my 2 boys. We had a great time.
As long as I can remember my Bachan (grandmother) has loved the Utah Jazz. All of her sisters live in Los Angeles and its always a big deal when the two teams play, especially in the playoffs.
I watched as she cheered for all of her favorite players, especially Andrei 'Klinko' as she calls him. The best line of the night was when she told me how stupid she felt because she kept catching herself watching the game on the jumbotron TV. "I'm so stupid that I keep forgetting that I don't have to watch the TV because I'm actually here tonight!" That made me feel great.
We lost by one point at a nail-biter finish. Between the two boys and me we took 329 pictures and 36 videos with 4 different cameras (wow). Too much to go through all of them tonight and probably a lot of junk. I browsed through em really quick and posted the best.
