HALLOWEEN!! 👻

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HAPPY HALLOWEEN, EVERYONE!!

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(Illustration: Free Web Designer)

My first pumpkin carving! 🎃

My first pumpkin carving!! 🎃🎃🎃

My friends said that my pumpkin totally looks like a character from one of those Japanese animation. Really!? What do you guys think?

Happy Halloween!! 👻

My stuff finally arrived.

My stuff that I sent from Boston arrived today finally. The movers promised me to deliver it in 7 days but might take 21 days for the worst case of the scenario, but to end up with, it took 33 days. Oh well, I have had a bad feeling since they came to pick up my stuff to my apartment in Boston 10 hours late. Even today, the movers came to deliver 8 hours late, but that neither surprised me nor disappeared me anymore. I should feel happy that all of my instruments are unharmed. That is the most important factor.

I realized that I have much smaller room now and there is no way all my stuff is going to fit in in my room. Mmm, as a (ex-)master of Tetris, I should be able to make this impossible task possible. But how? Mmmmmm.....

Well, I need to relax before organizing the plan very carefully, so I'm having an ice cream! 🍦 Bon appetite! 😆👍

New Apartment!

Moved into the new apartment! I have no furniture, no food, nothing, so I'll go get them one by one. First, I need to get toilet papers!

My worst nightmare...

OMG, this is what I've been afraid of that would happen someday. This IS the worst case of scenario...

I'm moving to my new apartment tomorrow and just found out my favorite Japanese beef bowl place, Yoshinoya, is literally right around corner. When I was a teenager, I was heavily hooked to their beef bowl along with lots of my buddies. It happened before, it can happen again. The beef bowl has full of carbs which means, if I get hooked again, I'll have to kiss my diet goodbye and the fat Ippei, who looks like Humpty Dumpty, will come back after two years of absence.

That cannot be happening. I am going to do my best to stay off of it.

Griffith Observatory!

Enjoying the touristy stuff at Griffith Observatory! All foggy LA landscape is just amazing!

It looks like the last scene of James Dean's Rebel Without A Cause was shot in here. Sorry, I haven't watched that movie classic. I'll watch it soon. I've watched and read The East of Eden though.

The observatory is located on the top of the hill and you can go up with a car or walk up on hiking trails. I'm not good at going down on trails because I totally look like a heavy set old man walking clumsily.

Japanese anime/manga shops in Little Tokyo!

I went to the very special part of Little Tokyo today. In the center of Little Tokyo, there is an area where geeky nerdy shops are concentrated. The area is really like Akiba. Akiba is a town in Tokyo. It started as a black market after the war and now is the nerd capital of the world. Imagine the nerdiest place on the planet and multiply by 10, that’s Akiba.

I love Japanese manga, animation, video games and what not, and I cannot think of a better place to see how popular those Japanese media culture got in the U.S.

Video clip from the gig yesterday!

The bandleader/singer yesterday put a short eighteen-second pre-show footage on Facebook!

Malibu video clip

My first gig in LA!!

The first gig in Los Angeles!! YAAAAY!!

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To be exact, it was a nice beach town called Malibu which is one hour away from LA, but I’d say it’s still LA area! 😁 I’m so glad I got this first gig earlier than I thought. What a beautiful beach and sky! Aaahh, this Californian blue sky cleansed my heart and mind. I was looking to the horizon over the ocean, and Rocky’s theme started playing in my head automatically! I’ll keep pushing forward! From this moment on, my battlefield is the world! 🌎

I almost had to decline this gig because my stuff and instruments are still on the way from Boston so I have no equipments, but the kindest fellow musicians rented me their bass and amp and gave my a ride to the gig! I feel so really lucky to have them. Thank youuuu!!! 😄😄😄

Book Off in LA!

I went to Gardena which is South of LA and there is pretty big Japanese community in there. I went there for the Japanese used book store and to look for used cars.

In Japan, there is the largest used book store chain called Book Off and they have a shop in New York City. Since there is only one shop in the biggest city in the States, I naturally thought there were no other Book Off’s in anywhere inside of the States and I thought I wouldn’t be able to buy cheap used books like I could in NYC. This is why I was getting 50+ books every time I went to NYC to bring a bulk of Japanese books to LA. After I moved to LA, I found out that there are a lot more Japanese or Japanese-American people living in LA than NYC, so there are actually not one but three Book Off’s in here! Aaaaargh!! I had been sweating so much to bring those heavy 50+ books as well as my big bass from NYC to Boston so many times! Oh well, putting aside the fact that all my efforts were totally meaningless and went right down the toilet, I am glad that I can get cheap Japanese used books in LA any time. I got 26 books today for the start. I’m sure I’m going back there in a few weeks.

Japanese things in LA!

Los Angeles is Japan.

OMG, I can pretty much find anything which I can only get in Japan in here. Sushi and ramen are very good quality and also I can get my favorite Japanese curry and pastries as well. I even found Daiso which is a big one-dollar shop chain in Japan.

The best thing I found was the LA Public Library Little Tokyo Brunch! Oh God. I thought I was going to die in joy. The place just have so many Japanese books including lots of manga! I can easily spend rest of my life in here!