We woke up at 2 am and left the house at 2:30 am. I gave my husband a ride to the airport. He has departed to Hawaii for a one-week business trip.

My daughter and I came back home from the airport by 5 am. It was still dark and cold outside. We went back to bed and had some more sleep.

***

When we woke up from our morning nap, it was already past 10:30 am. We must have been tired.

After our nap, I noticed of the size of my calves. They seem to be back normal. Finally I don’t have pain in my calves anymore. As for my daughter, her swollen lips and its rush are completely cleared up.

We are finally back to normal health state. It has taken us for one week to have fully recovered from the fatigue from the trip.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

It has been hot these day. The temperature was raised up to 81 F (27 C). According to the monthly weather reports, we will have close to 90 F (32 C) next week.

Before I departed to the trip to Japan, I hoped our maintenance guy would switch heater to cooler while I was gone. But when I came back to America, I noticed it had not done yet. I was a bit disappointed.

I had to ask our realtor twice about switching to cooler. This morning it was finally done.

Today we had a young maintenance guy. A couple of times before, he used to come with his uncle as his apprentice. He came alone today as his first time to switch all by himself. I like him as he is always polite and cheerful. We all hoped he had done properly as his first job as all by himself.

After a while since he left however, I noticed some dripping sound. The sound came from the garage. It was a water leakage from the faucet that he turned it on during the process of switching to cooler.

Within 30 minutes after our call, the young maintenance guy came back to our house. He first apologized for his mistake, then he fixed it quickly.

In the evening my family and I enjoyed the cool air from the cooler.

Now I am happy that our cooler is back. We are ready for the upcoming hot Arizona summer.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

After school my daughter attended the club activity of craft. There the teacher taught her on how to weave a basket.

It was a nice surprise for me. I was thinking of teaching my daughter on how to weave a basket for a while. My secret wish naturally came true. I am always amazed on the miraculous ways of how our thoughts create the reality.

***

Yesterday I received a LINE message from my mom. As always her message was very short. Too short to understand what she really wanted to say. She wrote in a couple of simple Japanese terms. Kind of meaning of “Aren’t you be back home yet? Talk on the phone?”

Her message made me confused.

First, I sent an email message right after I arrived at home on late at night of Monday night, March 25th. Hasn’t she received my email of the day? Second, I was not sure if she was planning to call me or she wanted me to call her?

I usually call my mom on Friday evening in Arizona time that is Saturday morning in mom’s time. So, I called my mom this evening.

When I called her, she quickly answered the phone. The first response was “I am glad you are safe.”

She said she never received my email of my arrival day. She has been worrying about our safety since then.

Then she asked me when we would visit them again. I thought to myself “Mom, I just came back and I am still recovering from the fatigue from the long flights and jet lag…. Please give me some more time to think about it.”

But all in all, I was happy to hear my mom’s voice. It is always good to have family who think of you.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

Today I had an uncomfortable experience.

It happened in the evening on the way back home from the bus stop.

There are a sibling of three in my neighborhood. The three kids approached me and asked me to let them use my cell phone. I thought to myself, “Not again. Why they always casually ask me?”

It was their third time to ask me the same favor. I didn’t want them to use my phone but I could not say no to them.

Because I was reluctant to let them use my phone, I was hesitantly and slowly taking out my cell phone from the phone case, the teenager girl roughly grabbed my phone from my hand and started using it. She said it was emergency.

The girl was mad at the bus driver and wanted to tell that to her mom. I heard the girl complaining about the bus driver, but it was not an urgent topic that she needed to contact her mom immediately.

After the girl spitted all her anger out to her mom over my cell phone, she returned my phone to me without saying anything. I was stunned at the girl. She is probably an 8th grader; 15 years old or so. She should be old enough to know to say thank you after somebody has done nice thing to her.  

As I mentioned earlier, it was their third time to casually ask me to let them use my cell phone. They always returned my cell phone without thanking me.

This sibling lives in my neighborhood. That is all I know. They are not my friends. I don’t even know their names or grades. They’re never be nice to me. They don’t even greet to me. Not to mention, they are never nice to my daughter.

I don’t feel comfortable about them for casually asking me to let them use my phone. I feel myself being coward and powerless that I cannot say no to them.

***

I asked some other parents if the sibling has ever asked them to let them use their phone. They all said it never happened to them. They also said they would not let any strangers to use their phone, because a cell phone contains lots of private information.

One of the parents mentioned to me like this. I look nice and don’t seem to say no to them. Probably that is why they ask me, not to any other parents. She said until I change the pattern, the kids will ask me over and over again.

She was right. While I was listening to the parent, I felt myself as a little helpless child being picked on by those kids. Today’s incident happened for a reason. I need to do something to change this pattern. I don’t want to end up to be a convenient person whom the stranger kids can ask me any favor.

***

After I came back home, I asked my family spirits and angels on what to do. Should I contact their parents and mention about it? Or should I let it go?

I instantly got their answer by vibration. I don’t need to contact their parents but I do need to improve my energy field so as to protect myself.

I still don’t know exactly what to do for that, but I will work on that.

All in all, every incident happens for a reason and it gives us an opportunity to improve ourselves, right?

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

My daughter and I woke up in the middle of the night. The clock showed 00:14 am. All our efforts to go back to sleep was in vain. We finally could go back to sleep after 4 am.

After we slept only a couple of hours, we forced ourselves out from bed at 6:30 am. We needed to get ready for her school.

I guess we are still suffering from jet lag. Our sleeping habit was messed up.

There are other side effects of the trip to Japan. As for me, my calves are still swollen and they hurt. As for my daughter, her lips were chapped and rushed due to extreme stress and fatigue.

It seems we will still need some more rest to fully recover from those.

***

There was one uplifting event for me today.

My husband told me about the trash day of last week. In our area the trash pickup track collects a resident’s trash on Wednesdays.

On last Wednesday morning, my husband took out our trash bin on the street. When he came back home in the evening after work, he saw our trash bin was put back to our backyard door where we normally keep it. That day was a windy day. He instantly thought of our neighbor man across our house to do such a kind thing for us. Since then, my husband wanted to say thank you to our neighbor man but he didn’t have any opportunities to do so.

When I heard the story from my husband, I hoped to have an opportunity to say thank you to our neighbor in person. This morning my wish naturally came true. When I came back from my morning walk, our neighbor man happened to be in front of his entrance door. It was a good timing for me to talk to him.

I went to him and greeted him. I asked him if he pulled back our trash bin to our original place on last Wednesday. His face brightened up. He said it was him. According to him, the strong wind blew our trash bin all the way to the end of the street. So, he pulled it back to our original place.

I thanked him. I could see he was happy that we noticed his kindness.

We had a chat for a while. He and his wife are our new neighbors. They moved to this area sometime last year. He said he likes this area because it is quiet and surrounded by nice people like us.  

It was good to have nice people in my neighborhood. My neighbor made my morning.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

I woke up at 6:30. It was great to have slept in my own bed. My daughter told me last night, that she would go to school today if she gets up normally. However, she did not wake up from her deep asleep.

At 8 am, I called school and informed them of my daughter’s still being sick. She was too tired to go to school.

At 9 am, my daughter finally woke up. According to her, I was snoring very loud that she could not sleep in the night. I felt sorry for her to disturb her sleep.

I know I don’t snore in normal days. Only when I am exhausted I snore loudly. Last night was one of such nights.

After I fed my daughter breakfast, I started doing my chores.

I washed all the clothes, hanged them in the sun, dusted off the shelves of the house, and vacuumed all the floors.

I unpacked my luggage and three cardboard boxes, organized all the items, and put them into appropriate places.

By the time when I finished bringing in all the dried clothes from the backyard, it was already evening to prepare dinner.

Time went by so quickly. I still feel tired and sleepy. My calves are still swollen from the long flights and Shinkansen rides. I need more rest to fully recover.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

My Day-9 and last day in Japan. It was our departure day to go back to America.

***

I woke up at 5 am naturally. My daughter was still sound asleep, so I waited in bed for a while.

When I went to kitchen, my friend was already there. She was cooking breakfast and lunch for us. I’m always amazed on how efficiently my friend do the house chores. She had already finished cleaning, washing clothes, and the half procedure of all the cooking.

She cooked vegetarian homemade croquette for our lunch box. It was my daughter’s request. Since she cooked them on our last visit, my daughter had missed them a lot. We love my friend’s homemade food a lot.

Out flight was scheduled to depart 5:05 pm at Narita. We were required to be at the airport 3 hours prior to the flight. Thus, we needed to leave my friends’ house around 11:30 am.

***

When parting from them at the airport, I did all my best on not to cry in front of them. It was not that hard for me because they are planning to visit us in this summer. We will spend more time together in 4 months. My daughter though, started crying right after we parted from them. She cried a lot while we were waiting for the flight. She cried even while we were in the long flight, missing and thinking of her dear friend.

***

I was surprised at the TSA security in Japan. All the workers were very polite and kind. My daughter and I were treated with their respect all the time.   

***

The return flight from Japan back to America was much easier for us to take than the outbound flight. It was a 9.5-hour flight; that was 3 hours shorter than the outbound one. It was a bigger airplane than the outbound one. The seating layout of economy class were 3, 4, 3 seats respectively. Our seats were at the last row, which had only two seats. It was great for us on not having any stranger next to us. As a matter of fact, the flight had many vacant seats. I could see most of the middle seats were vacant. The middle area was the same. Most passengers seemed to have two seats each, as most of the middle seats were remain acant. 

***

We arrived at Los Angeles airport. There we needed to do the custom procedure. Before we got to the custom counter, we needed to wait in a very long waiting line. The procedure itself was simple.

At the turn table to pick our luggage, I met one female worker. I naturally smiled at her and she greeted me politely. She asked me how many luggage I had. I said four. She seemed to be a supervisor at the area. She called on male worker and asked him to support us for the luggage. The male worker turned back to me with a friendly smile and told me “sure, with my pleasure!”

From there, everything happened like a miracle.

The male worker introduced himself as Charlie. He was Filipino. His Asian appearance made me feel relaxed. He was a tall and skinny young man, wearing a round pair of eye glasses.

Charlie grabbed a cart and brought it to us. Every time when I pointed my luggage and 3 boxes on the turn table, he quickly went there and grabbed it for me. Soon, our cart was filled with all 4 of my luggage and boxes.

He held the handle of our cart and asked me “shall we go?” From there, he escorted us all the way to the entrance of next terminal.

Everywhere before we passed by any other workers, Charlie cheerfully greeted them and told them he was escorting his important customers. Recognizing him as their coworker with Charlie’s airport uniform, all the workers greeted back to us nicely. They treated our luggage nicely too.

After we picked up our luggage, the next area was the luggage inspection area. The workers were checking all the luggage for all the passengers through an X-ray machine.

I was feeling nervous. Charlie noticed my nervousness and whispered to me “No worry! Everything goes well.”  He gave me a warm smile while he was putting my luggage on the turn table one by one.

Charlie was right. All my luggage went through without catching any workers’ attention. Again Charlie picked up my luggage from the turn table and put them back to the cart.

After the inspection, we now proceeded to another turn table. This turn table was to transfer our luggage to our next flight. Again Charlie did all the work for me.  

After the procedure of the inspection and transferring our luggage to the next flight, we now needed to go through the security check to enter to another terminal. Charlie went through the security check with us.

Right after we entered to another terminal, Charlie took a printed paper out from his pocket. It was a passenger’s name list of our flight. He pointed our names in the list and asked if he was right. When I answered yes, he now pulled out his cell phone and searched for the information of our next flight. He showed me the numbers of the gate and terminal of our next flight on his cell phone. Then, he gave me the instruction on how we could get there.

At parting, he gave my daughter and me a friendly smile and best luck on everything.

***

We saw Charlie off walking back to his original workplace. My daughter and I looked at each other’s face for a while in awe. We both agreed he was an earth angel sent by our family spirits and angels.

I thought to myself. Wow!! I am well-protected and loved by my family spirits and angels. I really appreciate for their surprise gift.

The great thing about my family spirits and angels is that I don’t need to do anything to get their love. I don’t need to decorate myself, put a make up on my face, nor wear a luxurious clothes to be loved by them. I don’t need any of them to make myself pretty because they don’t care of my physical appearance. They see me in a spirit. All matters to them is to stay being myself. That is awesome.  

***

We finally arrived at our local airport. There my husband was waiting for us, with a big smile on his face. From there, he took care of our four luggage and drove us back to our sweet home.

We were so happy to be back home. Our own house is the best place to relax, right? We enjoyed taking a bath and having a sound sleep in our own house.

***

It was a great trip. We appreciate my parents and friends in Japan for their warm hospitality.

I appreciate that we could come back home safely after spending awesome days with my dear people in Japan.

Thank you, Thank you, and Thank you a million times to my parents and friends.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

My Day-8 in Japan.

***

I woke up at 6:30. Even though I had a good sleep, I woke up with dull headache. I also had pain in back of my eyes. My friend thought it might be due to hay fever.

***

My headache and pain in my eyes got worse and worse as time went by. I remember everybody whom I met in this trip in Japan was wearing a mask. I regretted for not protecting myself from pollen.

We were planning to leave for mountain area. Before our departure, my friend gave me a quick massage on my shoulders and legs to deal with my headache. She also gave me some homeopathy remedies as well as a cup of Ume-Sho-Bancha; one of Yakuzen.

Around 9:30 am, we departed. My friend’s husband stopped by at a pharmacy for me. I bought some medicine for hay fever and took the pill.  

According to them, it took more than one hour to get to our destination. I don’t remember about our driving journey at all, because I was sleeping. I woke up from time to time with my own snorting. I got embarrassed and apologized to them for my snoring.

We had lunch at a nice organic restaurant. They serve organic vegetables and fresh grains. I was too sick to eat anything. My daughter enjoyed their food and finished it all. We were all surprised as we knew my daughter normally does not eat much.   

***

Then we went to the workshop place. The customers can enjoy a various artworks of their preference. They offer the necessary tools and materials for pottery making, painting a woodwork, and glass etching, etc. Our daughters decided to paint a woodwork.

While they were enjoying painting and designing their artwork, I spent in a bathroom alone for a while. After I vomited several times, I started feeling better. By the time they finished their artwork, I finally regained my normal health condition.

In the evening they took us to a hot spring. It was so relaxing.

The only one wish for me was that we could enter to a hot spring with a swimsuit. I never felt comfortable entering to a bath all naked with strangers, even while I was living in Japan. On the other hand, here in America, since we enter to hot springs with wearing a swimsuit, everybody; men and women, can enjoy entering together. I miss America for the point.

Besides, there were so many rules in a Japanese bath house. After I had lived in America for 11 years, I almost forgot about them. People looked at me in a mean look for my accidentally not following their rules. I was told that the rules were the “common-sense-public-rule-as-a-Japanese”. I felt myself as an alien in my own birth country.

***

After the bath, we had dinner at a Japanese soba noodle restaurant. I enjoyed their soba very much. I enjoyed especially the soup with tororo-imo (Japanese mountain yam) as they are not available in America.

***

After we came back to my friends’ house, I completed the online checked-in procedure for our return flights to America. We were leaving back home tomorrow. After I finished the online check-in, it was already past 10 pm.

***

I wish I never got sick today. On my second thought though, I appreciate that I didn’t get sick for the rest of my days while in Japan. And, I appreciate my friend and her family to take good care of my daughter while I was sick.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪

My Day-7 in Japan.

***

I woke up at 6:30 am. It was raining in the morning. My friend and her family took us to several stores for our final shopping.

***

In the afternoon we went to an ice skating link. I have experienced ice-skating before, but it was very first time for my daughter.

My friend’s husband taught my daughter on what to do. He stayed with her most of the time.

A couple of times I asked my daughter on which person she wanted to be her teacher; either my friend’s husband or me. She always chose him instead of me. I was a bit surprised of her choice. My daughter is shy and does not easily go to other people except for me. Her choosing my friend’s husband gave me a complex feeling; relaxed feeling that she fully trusted him and a bit loneliness that she didn’t choose me. All in all though, I was happy for my daughter to have a great time together with my friend’s husband. My daughter likes him very much. I appreciate him for his kindness to my daughter.

There was one thing that I was surprised. At the ice skating link, there was no coin locker. The customers left their shoes unattended in the changing room. Also they left their belongings in the bench unattended. Nobody seemed to worry about it, because they all know nobody would steal. After spending 11 years in America, the scenery was surprising to me. Here in America, people steal, so we’ve got to secure our belongings in a paid coin locker.

***   

For dinner we had sashimi; raw fish. I enjoyed sashimi very much, as I cannot have such a fresh fish at my current area in America.

***

In the night after our daughters went to bed, my friend offered me her homemade plum wine. While we were drinking the wine and chatting, we noticed it was already close to midnight. Same as other days in Japan, time went by so quickly. I had a good exercise in ice skating. I slept very well through the night. It was another great day.

♬ Any feedback? (^^♪