crystal's capers

The BEST FRIGGIN' CHRISTMAS EVER!!!

My dear sister, Rebecca, had been planning for months to usurp any Christmas festivities previous to this; she handcrafted all her gifts (including burnt DVDs with hand-drawn labels, marshmallows, Christmas cards, gift bags, cajun spice, salsa, fudge, scarfs, etc. etc. etc.) as well as %*#&loads of food.

After my aforementioned night of debauchery, I was again whisked off to Victoria at 8:15am. At this point I was clocking approximately 4 hours of sleep over the previous 50. We arrived at my sister's at about 4:30pm on Saturday Dec. 24th and initiated alcohol consumption almost immediately. Mike, Rebecca's live-in boyfriend, and a family friend, Adam arrived shortly thereafter... bringing with them a plethora of cheeses and 6 bottles of wine.

Saturday night we enjoyed a fondue, consisting mainly of meat, meat and meat, that was quite fantastic. Of course this meal was not without its requisit inappropriateness; for example, my father telling lengthy jokes about vibrators-come-son-in-laws (uh Dad, what exactly are you implying?) Proving that he has a way to go before he can truly become a Hambrook, Mike barely finished his last bite of dinner before he staggered off to his room to pass out for the night (Haha!)

My Mom, Kelsey and I chanllenged the formidable "Team Win" to a game of '90's Trivial Pursuit where we proceeded to wipe the floor with them, thus bruising their over-inflated egos. And "Team Win" is no more.

Because this Christmas was the first outside my parents' house, all rules were subject to change; for the first time we declared Santy need not verify we kiddies were snug in our beds before extricating his ass from the fireplace, and put all the presents out ourselves on Christmas eve. As such, my mom was third to bite the dust (after Dad, who gave a valiant effort of staying up past his usual 8:30pm bedtime).

At some point, after consuming 8 bottles of wine between 3 or 4 of us, we realized it was 5:30am and were just about to head to bed when my Dad got up... of course this meant that it was time to OPEN PRESENTS!!! So, I was dragged from the sheets before I had time to even warm them, and the house was awoken (is that a word?)

We started with Mike's birthday presents, as the 25th is a 2-in-1 for him, poor fella; however, Christmas and birthday combined, this guy scored big-time. I cannot complain either, being the spoiled brat that I am; my loot included:

A web-cam, battery pack for camera, $150 GC for the cutting lounge, couple pairs of earrings, some clothes, about a million DVDs (burned copies from Mike and Rebecca), the SIMS 8-in-1 expansion pack, some music mixes, a whole bunch of homemade shit from Rebecca, just to name a few.

Adam and I went downstairs after present-opening to watch some of my new family-guy DVDs where I immediately conked out. Unfortunately I am sporting a wicked cold (as if that's an excuse!), and actually snored the poor guy out of his own bed!! Oops, sorry! Everyone spent nearly the whole of Christmas day sleeping, waking only for brunch: eggs benedict... MmmmMMmmm...

Christmas dinner was nothing short of fantastic, my sister truly is Martha Stewart... and you thought I was bad!! We watched no less than 4 movies throughout the day, including the mandatory Christmas flicks: Elf, 8 Crazy Nights, and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, as well as Kicking and Screaming, a newish G-rated Will Ferrel classic. We enjoyed birthday ice-cream cake, and had an early night.

Monday we got up in time to drive my sister to work, and then headed for the ferries. In Vancouver I dropped almost exactly $300 on clothes, not even denting my list of things-to-buy while I'm in Canada. Then, because we hadn't stuffed ourselves silly enough, we tried what turned out to be a terrific Western/Asian/Indian buffet. I rode home with something of a stomach ache.

Thanks Rebecca and Mike, for hosting an absolutely fabulous Christmas!! See you next year!

Home Welcome

After 22 hours of travel, I arrived home in Kamloops at about 5:00pm, Pacific time, on Friday Dec. 23rd. Three short hours later I was whisked away to a hotel downtown to commence my welcome celebration.

My night started out very slowly... I was crashing from my 36 hours without sleep. Solution? Tequila shots immediately upon entering the bar, followed by several Jagerbombs of the cocktail variety (which I later got in shit for from my parents... because I'm twelve). Turned out to be a crazy free-for-all type night.

CONGRATULATIONS!

Flying Low

• Found out the day before leaving for Canada that my Seattle to Vancouver flight had be cancelled and I was rescheduled; resecheduled to arrive two hours after my next connection.
• Spent at least 3 hours on the phone with various airlines trying to get a better flight, at international phone rates. Thoroughly given the run-around by various telephone agents who had no idea what they were talking about, and/or their own opinion about how the situation should be handled; received far too many, "Good luck"s than should have been the case.
  
• Was booked on flight that, if on time, would leave me 45 minutes to connect; going through customs and re-checking luggage myself included; later, was re-booked on a minimum of four other flights, all equally inconvenient/impossible.
  
• Check-in at Narita. Nice check-in-girl spends 40 minutes trying to coordinate my flights to give more connection time. Finds nothing, sends me into the air in total uncertainty about whether I was going to be calling SEA-TAC 'home' for Christmas.
• Am seated beside this strange girl who says not one word to me the entire 8-hour flight, even when I attempt cordiality. In fact, this girl will not even speak to the flight attendants: "chicken or beef entree?" **grunt** "chicken or beef entree?" **grunt** um, okay... Not sure if she was slow, or what, but definitely bitchy.
  
• Turbulence is so extreme that breakfast and all drinking service is cancelled.
• Do not sleep a wink on the plane.
  
• Flight attendants move me to first class for last half-hour of flight so that I can be first off the plane to try to make a 40-minute connecting flight; girl beside me actually rolls her eyes when asked to get out of her seat (first time in whole flight) to allow me to pass. Flight attendants assure me that I will have enough time to connect, we are running slightly early.
  
• Chat up a business man in first class. Bust-ass through customs only to arrive at baggage claim and have to wait for luggage with everyone else. Miss my connection even before I've picked up my bags.
• Finally get to an airline employee to whom I can explain my situation only to find that their computer system is down... after some time they are up-and-running again, and we proceed to take an HOUR to figure out the situation and find a solution; apparently airlines are not all too happy about vouchering their passengers to other airlines. End up with a rather perfect connection from Seattle to Vancouver on Horizon Air.
• Find the lone Horizon flight attendant to be quite entertaining; she sang no less than 5 songs (many incorporating the flight safety instructions, etc.) to us during our 55 minute affair.
• Connect to my hometown, Kamloops, BC, without difficulty, totalling my use of different airlines in one day to three: United, Horizon/Alaska Air, and Air Canada (who caused all this difficulty in the first place). Miraculously arrive in Kamloops, on schedule, after 22 hours of travel time, no sleep.
• Declared that I HATE FLYING and that I'm NEVER doing it again immediately upon being reunited with my family only to be reminded that I get to do it all again in two weeks: what was I thinking!?!?!
  

T-minus 45 Hours!

Birthdays

Friday night I hosted a surprise birthday party for my good friend Jody. Turned out that she surprised us, walking into the apartment unannounced and shouting: "There's a freakin' party in here!!" Actually, she was surprised too, and only started suspecting that we weren't off for a night of kareoke when she pulled up to find my street lined with cars (despite my courteous reminders that guests park AWAY from the house). Since there were so many other vehicles Jody had to park a bit far and as such no one saw her walking up to the house. Oops.

About 20 people were in attendance for our Semi-Formal Potluck Appetizer Surprise Birthday/Christmas Party. Several great dishes were brought, and many people resorted to offerings of the alcoholic variety; Jody ended up with about 4 bottles of birthday champagne, 2 bottles of birthday wine and 1 bottle of birthday rum... not to mention the 4 litre bottle of Sho Chu I provided for us to drink!

Turns out that it was Yuka's birthday on the 11th... so we celebrated her birthday as well. She was in fightin' form since Hideki, her husband, forgot her special day (he couldn't attend the party because of work, or so I was told). With Mie's help, Yuka got into the birthday spirit, and the two were the life of the party, as usual. The girls and Hideki actually had to leave early because Yuka was chuckin' cookies.

We had a small gift exchange: Mie gave Tress, Jody and I sandals, inscense and ceramic elephants from her and Hidenori's Thailand honeymoon, and Tressa and I gave them their over-due wedding gift (12 CDs of Western music and an album with pics of all our mutual outings). Notice Mie's new and gorgeous haircut!!

Five or six people crashed at my house; most of whom spent a large part of Saturday hanging out here. My tiny apartment was the worst disaster I have EVER seen the next day... so bad that I actually had to take pictures. Took me over 2 hours to clean up!

As well as being mildly hungover, I was feeling rather rundown Saturday and decided to take it easy. Tressa left early to pick her mom up from the airport: yeah! After Jody and I went to dinner her pals from Ami (who bailed on Friday's party at the last minute) came down and wisked her away to kareoke. I went to sleep early.

Sunday I felt like death warmed over. I had been battling a cold all week last week, and I suppose it finally caught up with me. I postponed my afternoon lesson with Yoshiko to Tuesday and stayed in bed almost all day. Sleeping, sleeping, sleeping. I need to get well before I leave for Canada; 4 days to go!!

Christmas in Japan

My mother, aka The Carepackage Queen, sent Christmas goodies from Canada intended for me to cook a Christmas feast for my friends here. She sent cheesecake mix, turkey gravy mix, cheese sauce mix, stuffing-in-a-box, and mashed potatoes-in-a-bag (because she either thought Japan is potatoless, or that I am unable to peel a potato???).

So cook a feast I did. Jody, Tressa, Trav and Daichi came for baked chicken (they actually don't have turkey here; it's considered a "dirty" animal), carrots and broccoli, warm buttered rolls, and the aforementioned dishes. Let me tell you, with one tiny toaster oven (I borrowed Tressa's too, for the occassion) and only two burners on my stove it was quite the fiasco trying to get everything done at the same time. Miraculously, everything was plated while it was still steamy. More miraculously, even this instant Christmas dinner tasted like heaven; we all unbuttoned our pants to pack in every bit of the #&$%load of food that I made.

After dinner we trimmed the tree. You'd think they'd be able to make a plastic tree look a little less Charlie Brown, but it definitely put us in the spirit. As we downed three bottles of red wine and various other beverages we had a gift exchange. I was SOOO excited for Jody to see her gifts; as today is her birthday, hers were extra-special: TV and DVD player (from both Tressa and me)... she's gone 9 months without either, and lives in the toolies... no wonder she's a little kurakurapa (crazy). Tressa loved her new DVD player also, but was exstatic about the electric heater (both gifts from Jod and me together); it's like living in a refrigerator here at night.

Aaaaaand... guess what the ladies got me?!?!? A freakin' microwave!!!! OMG! I seriously cannot understand how I lived without one for 9 months! Thank you so much girls!!! We are all very spoiled.

To top off the night, the ladies and I resorted to good ole Family Guy, the Christmas episode; the only TV series I've seen in 9 months.

OHMYGOD-SO-CUTE!!!!!

One Big-ass Buddha

On Sunday the ladies and I pulled ourselves together (this involved getting out of bed by 1:30pm, eating some McDonald's, and taking some Tylenol) and drove a short way to visit the world's largest Buddha, in Ushiku. Actually, the Buddha is now recorded as being the largest statue in the world; three times larger than the Statue of Liberty! Quite Impressive.



The grounds would have been picturesque had we not visited in December, as such we have pledged to return next spring. The four floors inside the Buddha were filled with gift shops, and a museum which discussed the building of the Buddha (about 15 years ago), the heritage of Buddha and the religion of Buddhism. Very cool.

If we were so inclined, we could have purchased a shrine inside the Buddha on which our name would be placed... or, better yet, we could have purchased a burial plot within the grounds!! I'm guessing both of these expenditures would have been quite expensive.

Although I would like to take credit for this shot, my skills of flight are currently disabled; I stole this picture of a picture of an aerial view.

Newly awarded certification from Guinness that the Buddha is, in fact, the world's largest statue.

Here is a smaller replica of the Buddha's head. They had one of his toe too, which was actual size and about 20X the size of me!!

Proof that this is one big-ass Buddha!

Here Jody and Tressa are partaking in the pre-prayer cleansing ritual. More of this ritual involves dousing oneself in the smoke from insense and ringing the gong.

We all wished it was just a little warmer and a little sunnier, but overall our Buddha experience was a good one. A must-see!

BLT

Our hosts, the Butters, started out Black Tie but ended up dishevled and lingerie-clad.

Me, the result of a lengthy keitai photo-shoot.

Thank You!

New Development: Fear of Elevators

My Old Boyfriend

I've apparently given him up to Jody, my dear Brad... but what can I say?? It must be quarter-life crisis, this trading in for a younger model business (ah Harry, where would I be without

My New Boyfriend

ABACUS

...was the word of the day for the rocky start to our Tokyo weekend. Why? Well, we (Tressa, Jody and I) departed from the station closest to my house (about 5 minute walk; unfortunately it's on NO major train lines) called Otago Station. Apparently no skills are necessary if one is looking to acquire a position at Otago station, as the "Station Master" (must be said in a rough, low voice with one fist punching upward into the air) was completely inept. I felt like we had time-warped when she pulled out her ABACUS to calculate our change! Proving that abacuses are OBSOLETE, she short changed us by over $50!! Ahhhhh!

The girls popped open their Chu-hi's (like a cooler, in a can) as soon as we stepped onto our little one-car train; I waited a while... still in recovery from the night previous. The weather was wonderful: crisp and clear. We got close to Tokyo around 4pm, just as the sun was setting. It was the perfect vantage point to see Fuji-San (Mr. Fuji; Mount Fuji) in the pink horizon; beautiful!

Understand that I painstakingly planned this trip down to the transfer times for trains and everything... well, the one thing I forgot was the address/phone number to the club we wanted to go to. I assumed that this club was going to be like the one we visited in Roppongi; basically we stepped off the train there and were handed a brochure for that club (having decided beforehand it was where we were going) by a tout; the club itself was 1 minute walk from the station... not the case this time.

Not only was the club a great deal smaller, but it was neither touted nor immediately visible when walking up the correct street... no cabbies knew where it was, and people giving directions tended to point us opposite ways!! After Tressa flirted with/asked for directions from a hot street Koban (cop; apparently giving directions is the main responsibility in this position) and I raced into an internet cafe to find a better online map to the club, we ended our 2-hour wander through Shibuya. Actually, it was a good opportunity to see some of this ward, and as it turned out, the club was just starting to get busy when we arrived, so it worked out well.

The club was a lot smaller than we assumed it would be, but we were determined to make the most of it. Cover charge was 2500 yen, or $25 CN, but included all-you-can-drink, which is ever-interpreted to drink-all-you-can, in my case. We could drink anything we wanted; I drank Moscow mules all night, which are basically the Japanese version of Vodka-Sevens. Many of the bartenders (all HOT) were from Canada.

we were approached by a group of ENORMOUS men. Turned out they are all on a professional Rugby team here in Japan; from Fiji and New Zealand mostly; built like trucks. The music played was great (all hip-hop) and the ballers could dance, so we spent the entire night shakin' our booties. Actually, we didn't close the bar down (miraculously) but left around 3am. Sadly, I didn't bring my camera to the bar.

Cab back to our hotel cost around $60 (trains stop running just after midnight in Tokyo). Got

We dragged our still-drunk asses back to the station and climbed aboard a Gap-sponsored train (CRAZY!) to Harajuku. Harajuku station was much smaller than I thought it would be, but the area lived up to it's promise of flocks of strangely-attired Harajuku people. I saw more goth types (think Marilyn Manson x100) than Alice-in-wonderland types, but they were all very cool, and many were extremely creepy. We visited a street famous for selling the outfits that these people don, as well as other crazy knick-knacks and doo-dads.

Squeezin' my Grapefruits

Friday I met nine friends (including Tress, Daichi, Sagi-San, Nori, Yoko, Peter, Mike and Koji) for dinner in Yuki. An Indian restaurant opened there about a month ago and I was DYING to try it. Turned out to be fantastic and I'm likely to take up residence INSIDE the restaurant. Love Indian food!

Daichi raved about Koji's minivan; apparently it's supernice. I've learned that swank minivans are not only a socially acceptable vehicle for single young men, but actually a status symbol as well!! Perhaps the equivalent of an Escalade or Porche in North America?? Weird.

Mike took his leave and the rest of us met up with Trav at SHIDAX for kareoke. Good times. In his first outing with my friends, Koji faired very well. They all had good comments about him (made to me the SECOND Koji left for the bathroom!) and he felt at ease, singing and dancing with everyone... even though he wasn't drinking. I think Koji won the respect of certain friends when he sang Basket Case by Green Day. I was drinking (surprise, surprise) and was overjoyed that Koji gallantly sqeezed my grapefruits for my sho-chus all night. Awwww!