South of the Border, West of the Sun

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South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami
South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami

Just a couple of weeks into the new year, and I have finished reading my first book! South of the Border, West of the Sun
by Haruki Murakami has been sitting on my shelf for a long time now (the receipt I found in the book showed that I bought it at Borders 14 years ago!). Actually I sort of forgot about it, but when I started reading it I couldn’t put it down! That happens often when I read a book by Murakami.

I won’t go into the plot of the story, but the one thing that I kept thinking as I was reading it is that I really miss Japan. This is normal a normal reaction with all his books. But I always can picture the scenes, especially the ones in the city and I can remember when I stood in the same locations as his characters. At least the same neighborhoods.

Like most of Murakami’s works, there are many details that get left unsaid and unexplained. It’s fascinating to read about everyone’s theories about these loose ends. There’s a nice thread on Reddit if you’d like to read them.

I enjoyed South of the Border, West of the Sun quite a bit. I’m now ready to move on to his latest work, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage: A novel which I found at my local library’s digital catalog.

65th Kouhaku Uta Gassen

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Miwa Performing at Kouhaku
Miwa Performing at Kouhaku

This year’s annual Kouhaku was sorta ho-hum. I liked that Yoshitaka Yuriko led the red team, but am a little tired of Arashi leading the white team (five straight times!). They are pretty good (and their musical performance was great) but I would like to see more variety! Another disappointment was that Aiko is no longer on the red team. I always enjoyed her performances.

This year my favorites were Miwa, Perfume, and Kyary Pamyu Pamyu. I like to see bands performers playing instruments and Miwa always plays guitar (even if it might not be live). I even like Tokio since they play instruments! Here’s a video of Miwa performing Faith”. She’s pretty great.

Perfume Performing at Kouhaku
Perfume Performing at Kouhaku

Perfume is another favorite of mine. Their performance of Cling Cling was cool. The dancing was Bollywood style! I regret not seeing them in Los Angeles in November but it would have been difficult to pull off.

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu Performing at Kouhaku
Kyary Pamyu Pamyu Performing at Kouhaku

Lastly, Kyary Pamyu Pamyu is just plain fun and crazy. Always interesting! Would have loved to see her show in Hawai’i last year!

Skateboarding on Vacation

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On the Strand
On the Strand

After getting our new skateboards last summer, Bay and I decided that we should take our boards when we travel and go skateboarding on vacation. So for our Christmas trip to visit my family in Los Angeles, we packed up the boards and brought them. Actually, I only brought over my trucks and wheels since I had an old deck at my parents’ house, while Bay brought over his whole skateboard.

The first day we were there, we rode to the park and skated around there. My old deck is a real ’90s style, with a squared off tail (and tail guard!) and front of the board goes a bit wider. It is such a comfortable cruiser shape! I loved riding it again!

On Christmas Eve day, we all went to the Strand. Most of the group was on bikes, but my oldest brother, myself, and Bay rode our skateboards. I also borrowed some rope from my dad because I was anticipating being towed by one of the bike riders. And as you can see from the photo above, we made good use of the ropes! Riding on the Strand brought back so many memories. It was なつかしい！(nostalgic)

The only thing I would change is that instead of bringing my Bones wheels, I’d bring the OJ’s instead. The softer and quieter OJ’s would have been more comfortable and easier on the ears than the hard Bones.

When the vacation came to a close, I was going to bring my old deck back to Texas but decided to just bring the trucks/wheels home. I’ll leave the deck in California for the next visit!