Living Life to its Fullest

Inspired by a topic where I shared my perspective in an email communication with my friend :), I want to blag about different perspectives on "living life to its fullest".

Many people talk about this "living the life to its fullest" in many different occasions I think. "hey, live your life to its fullest! and you are OK" or "hope you are living your life to its fullest". But what kind of perspective/definition is laid behind this message that people use?

My definition of living the life to its fullest:

If one makes the best out of the given situation/time in our day, appreciating what is given to us, I think one is literally living the life to its fullest. BUT, here is the kick. LOL (just sharing my standard that I have put on myself. lol)

To qualify for declaring myself for living the life to its fullest in my
perspective, I want to be spending even a little time expressing my
passion/personality in every day life on top of meeting above mentioned
needs. I do not take my life for granted, and do not even know when I will
die. I am always attracted to those individuals who are able to freely
express themselves through actions, so I want to have the time to manifest
myself, as it is my way to cerebrate my identity (just like the cherry
bloosom trees blooming as if it is cerebrating the life being the cherry
bloosoms..hehe).

Not so long ago, my definition sticked to the quantity of actions that I took to reach out for the set goal that I had. So I was a strict spartan who had to spend certain actions in a given day to declare my life to be lived fulfillingly. But after learning that the beauty of cherishing the given moment and enjoy feeling the peace around me by doing absolutely NOTHING (perhaps chugging on some green tea and eating senbe made it all better too though..hahaha), my definition has changed. Maybe this is the beginning of my lazy arse kumi-journey to the future. :)

What is your take on this? Any perspectives to be shared with me will be greatly appreciated :) PEACE

Today, I drove the car ALL BY MYSELF to the gym for the first time. Yay! I listened to this CD, "Work Out" by Sumo, which was given to me from my friend, Dawn on the way to and from the gym. F*** happy I was. I can not get enough of this freedom that I gained. I freeeeking LOVE IT.

So although I came home to assure my parents that I am a grown-up and able to travel to places all by myself (LOL), I decided to visit two shops for my beginner driver-adventure: for the sake of practicing parking in a different scenarios. LOL But man, was I in at the summit of Mt. Fuji while driving. I can now understand why guys (maybe only in Japan, but) love taking girls for a drive by the lake and shite...lol It's soo much fun :)

Just Hoping for the Best for my Cousin and her family

I have so much in my mind that I do not even know where to start my entry today. One of my relatives had a sudden family emergency lately. It was one peaceful morning on last sunday after a young couple brought their lovely boys to our house for a quick visit. My grandma who was full of smiles seeing the cute boys a moment ago, came to the living room trembling and in a total shock. I tried to calm her down by having her sit down and take a deep breath before telling us what she had to say. She told us a story, which we could not believe immediately. My dad had to call a relative to confirm what exactly happened and received this story that reminded all of us of this incidence that happened over 25 years ago, which separated the live of my beloved little brother and all of us: my cousin's 10 months old baby boy fell off and hit his head badly that he got in a critical status medically. And the baby has clinically became brain dead last nite. But after almost 24 hours later, his heart is still beating, and apparently, he moves his legs when his mom holds his hand.

What sort of mind set do we (I) need to have dealing with this upsetting situation? Can we all have a hope for a miracle to happen so that the brain will revive its life once again? Or is it better to let him go for the family's hopeful future? But if his heart continues beating, what is it that I can do to cheer my cousin?

I have lived my past 24 years having my parents always encouraging me to live a fulfilling life for myself, but also for my beloved little brother, whom we lost due to a sudden accident at our pond when he was over 1 year of age. I was only 3 years old or so when this accident happened. But I vividly remember how much we all loved him. I remember my father choosing him to take a bath with him. Although I was a little jealous, as I never got to spend much time with my busy parents working all the time for the restaurant, I was a very understanding big sister of my little brother, because I also LOVED him very much. I have this single photo of my brother and myself where my brother is checking up on my knee like a doctor while myself laying down and giggling beside him. That is the only photo of him and myself. Even from the photo, I can tell how much we felt blessed to have him in our family. Then one day, a sudden accident happened. I can still recall how devastatingly we all cried with immense sadness. The pain is still there within all of us. And now that I am at a stage of life where it is not strange to be a parent (based on my age though), it puts me in a deep sadness when I imagine how exactly the accident happened over 25 years ago, and how my parents react to such horrible news.

Now that a similar accident, which I desire NO ONE in the whole world to experience is happening to my own cousin, I really do not know what to say to her, and feel very powerless, unable to bring a sense of comfort or hope that she needs. Deep inside, I want to cry out very hard. Cry out for the sadness that my relatives are experiencing. Cry out for the accident that happened to my parents over 25 years ago. and Cry out for all the sadness that we may experience even from now, because of an accidence like this happening in our lives. But here I am emotionally feeling handicapped and unable to let go of my emotions, because I feel that the sadness that my cousin or my parents experienced must be something that is unexplanable to a person who have not become a parent yet. My cousin and her family must be going through the most difficult situation right now. They must be hanging on in this given struggle. I want to hold my tears until I can unite with my cousin, although the meeting with her may not be the most happy consequence to this story. I hope that my cousin and her family will find a way to feel positive about their lives, no matter how difficult this situation must be for them. Ganbatte!!!!!!

Happy Mother's Day!

For the mother's day cerebration, I prepared tonite's dinner for my family. Due to a family emergency of my relatives, my grandma had to leave the house this afternoon, so it was only my parents and myself who had the dinner together, but it was a great experience to have the mother's day with my mom here in Japan:)

Everetything turned out great that I was a happy daughter at the end of the nite :) So here, let me show yous how tasty the supper was:

Chive-Three Cheese Spread & Olive with Walnut Spread

Avocado and Mango Salad with Passion Fruit Vinegarette

Marinated Mushroom

Crab Lasagna with Tomato-Basil Coulis

Acidulated Apple Crumble and Vanilla Ice cream

How did you/are you going to cerebrate the mother's day yourself??

Hope it was/will be a great one!!!

Getting My Driver's License!

That's right. I passed the written test this morning that I got my driver's license today!! In the past few days, I spent my days helping my parents at the restaurnt as well as catching up on some sleep, so I did not study for the test until last nite until 9pm. LOL But the last minute study and power memorization skill of myself seemed helpful afterall :) So after getting my license at 2pm, I came home and showed off my parents with my golden license and thanked them for all the help that they gave for me to get this freedom to explore my life much more :) So I hereby also want to express my appreciation to my family. Thank you VERY MUCH!!! But you all need to be aware that this means my gang life on the road has just officially began and I am on my scooters with my crew to come get ya keeping 30 km/hr like a dork :) Well, in reality, I am more of like driving a petite honda car with the first year driver mark at both front and back of the vehicle. LOL ANYWAY..

During my work out, I wondered what it would be like to live my life in my way. What makes me feel like me?... This same answer came into my mind: I want to live my life passionately, just like how I get all these crazy energy go thru inside of me when a great music moves me in a way I do and dance. But how can I apply my passion for life in my career??!! This has been a question stuck in my mind now that the departure day back to Canada is getting closer day by day. A part of me want to use my creativity to express my vision thru art (such as cooking or making accessories). A part of me want to get involved with those passionate souls manifesting whatever the message that they may have. But another of me just want to modestly contribute myself for those in great needs without thinking too much of my own life philosophy. However I want to live my life, I want to keep much fulfilling moments in my life full of good energy, smiles, laughters and love for everything that is given to me and around me :) Thank you for all and much more :)

Having Tatsu visting us at Fuji Part 2

On the next day, my dad took Tatsu for a car ride on his SR. Then we had a breakfast and chilled a bit before leaving for Tatsu's bus back to Tokyo. But in the last minute, my mom suggested he try wearing a kimono. Tatsu's skin tone and the color of kimono matched very well that he looked brilliant. My grandma even made a comment seeing him , "ah, ii otoko da!! (what a hottie he is)" LOL So here is a photo of him and myself:

Then we had a good family friend visiting us to inform us of great news (expecting a forth child)!! So that was cool. All of a sudden a couple customers dropped in and it was a time to catch the highway bus, so my dad took us to the bus stop. I waited until the bus arrival, and said good bye to Tatsu, wishing him for a safe and great journey to the southeast. It was very cool having him around. Very unique experience having a bilingual and bi-cultural non-Japanese around. Having no need to explain everything but engage in a conversation mindlessly always bring me a sense of comfort and unity. Maybe that's why I appreciate non-Japanese friends who have a great interest in my Japanese culture (and/or other cultures other than their own) as well as Japanese friends who have a great awareness towards outside of Japan. I hope to unite with many other youth/lively souls in our planent, earth though :)

P.S. I made a few more earrings after finishin my driving school, so if you were interested, pleaset take a look :) thanks!

Having Tatsu visting us at Fuji

My friend, Tatsu decided to make a visit to the Fuji visiting my family and myself before hitting on the road to the east. That's right. He will be departing Japan in a couple of weeks for his journey to the south east asia after 7 years of great work experience here in Japan. How exciting does it sound? I am quite envious that he is capable of doing this, as I have a great interest in doing a volunteer work somewhere in east asia. But I guess there is timing and opportunity for everything that happens in life, you know? Although I think I won't be hitting on the road myself sometime soon, I have a faith that it will turn into a reality within mein near future. :)

Anyway, my mom drove me to the highway bus stop, and the bus just arrived, so we were able to meet up with him right away. He looked great with his funky curry hair-do, and looked fresh with his white shirt anda dark brownish jeans. My mom's tensionall of a sudden hit the cloud in the sky, and got super energetic. LOL It's cool to see her all happy to have a guest like this though. We came back to my house,and I showed him around. Then my dad took

us to the kitaguchi hongu fuji sengen jinja, an ancient shrine and the starting point for the
Mt. Fuji pilgrimage. We walked thru an entrance path lined with mossy stone lanterns and reached to the jinja area. Here is a few of photos that I took there:

This is the entrance of the fuji kitaguchi hondo (northern path to the top of mt. fuji).
Tatsu made a quick trip all the way to the top with a cane and all only in his mind. LOL

Thenmy dad took us to the lake yamanakako, which is one of five great lakes at the foot of mt. fuji. Around this time, the weather got a little chilly that we did not get to see the face of mt. fuji. But my dad took us to a hotel at the top of a mountain to see if we could take a quick view of the lake and fuji. Although wecould not see the fuji due to foggy weather, it was still nice to have a smell and sound of peaceful nature there. We came back to my house, and chilled in the living room wathing a partial of my favorite, "Napoleon Dynamite" LOL Tatsu was going to leave for Tokyo at 8pm, so my parents kindly parepared our supper and we ate in one of the guest rooms of the restaurant. We had a draftbeer for kanpai.

During the meal, Tatsu was convinced to stay a nite over thanks to the ongoing dishes made by my folks (LOL), so we later joined my parents in the living to continue our meal in much relaxing manner.

There, we had more alcohol to drink and more food to eat. My dad showed his treasure boxes to Tatsu and both parents joyfully shared a conversation with him. The highlight of the nite was
when my mom brought a shamisen (traditional Japanese three-string instrument, which
maybe remembered as one of the instruments played by the geisha). All of them tried playing it and had a fun time. Nite did not appear to end as my mom brought a bottle of desert wine and pieces of cake at around 11pm. LOL But after a binge of good food, alcohol and loads of laughters, we decided to have a rest of the nite. My mom at this point was quite drunk that
she would engage in a conversation/telling a story to Tatsu with no special reason (her tendency whenever she gets super drunk). LOL So it was a little hard to take her away from the room where Tatsu was resting. LOL But we successfully all went to bed by around 1:30am.

3 years anniversary of my grandma's death

3 years ago today, my grandma on my mom's side passed away suddenly. Thankfully, I was here for a job assignment in Tokyo that I was able to attend the funeral (none of my other sisters were able to do so). The memory of this beautiful face of her and loads of Casa Blanca lilies placed carefully around her face on her coffin and how I told her how much I loved her and kissed her on her cheek came back to me as I attended her Buddhist sermon at the temple. Very strangely, this same energy that I felt at her funeral 3 years ago surrounded me when the monk started reciting a sutra. I felt very emotional and was about to cry. I felt as if my grandma was somewhere around us. I prayed for her peaceful after-life and promised her to live a fulfilling life myself. After the sermon, the monk commented on our frequent visits to the temple to see the grandma's ashes and told us how impressed he was. He proceeded and told us that although making a frequent visit to the temple help the deceased one to attain the buddhahood (buddhist belief), living a fulfilling life when not visiting the temple is much ideal, so he encouraged us to treat our life preciously and try our best to fulfill it. After that, we all came back to my parent's restaurant where we were to have a lunch together cherishing the memories of my grandma. I, of course, helped my parents for preparing the meals until we deliver all the dishes, then sit with the guests and enjoyed the meal. It was great get together we had, and hope that all of us continue to live much fulfilling lives.