From "Awkward" to "Twins"

I am coming to the end of my time here in Austin and it has gone too fast.

I have decided that Austin is a pretty cool place to visit but I'm not too sure if it's my place to live. . .at least not right now. It's funny how much I know I am suppose to and want to be in Portland, Oregon right now. Or in that general area. It was almost instant when I came here. I love a lot of things in Austin like; Family, MEM, HEB, weather, and more. But I still can't wait to get back to Oregon and start life there. Life is so exciting/ scary right now.

Anyways. . . .enough about that but I have two really funny stories to share.

So my great friend, Meg, has relocated to Austin to start her photography business. Well, last night we ended up meeting up and going downtown to do some shopping, bat watching, and margarita drinking. We ended up at this cool/ hip bar where they had a stage downstairs for a band but the upstairs was well insulated or something because you couldn't hear anything below.

We were drinking our margaritas and catching up. It was nice because we were in the corner, a bit secluded, and no one was bother us. AKA weirdo men trying to hit on us. Ironically as we were talking about men a . . .man, I use this term in the loosest sense of "man", came up who looked like a mix between Will Farrell and Napoleon Dynamite. He actually introduced himself as "I'm awkward". . . well, he didn't introduce himself as that but he said that enough times that neither of us remembered his name at the end of the night. He had 3 other guy friends who were standing a table away. "Awkward man" had issues with even finishing a statement. . .I mean you could see the strain to get his thought out in some type of coherant sentence. For example, "Hi, yeah, so. . . me and my friends. . .yeah, those guys. . .heehe. . . see them. .oh, yeah that guy. .. NO! THAT GUY! Well, we were trying to figure out how to come over here and . .uh. talk to you . . and you were sitting. . well , yeah. . . oh, and I had food. . well, leftovers. Hold on. Just a sec. " and then he left to go and get the left over food. He then offered it to us. Weird. . . I'd go on with the weirdness. . . the man calling me bitchy because I corrected him for calling me "Melanie". ..how he used "dush bag" in front of us. . .YUCK!

In the end I shooed him off by this convo;

"Hey, MelOoooodeeeee are you still mad at me?" he said as he sat down next to me.

"No, but he's more interesting." (one of this friends who majored in photography, works for ebay, is not insane. He was sitting next to Meg and we were all having a good convo. Nothing flirty or stupid)

"I'm interesting" he said confidently

"No, you're weird" I said hoping he'd catch on to the, "I don't want to talk to you/ you offend me mostly," type of voice.

"Weird's interesting," he says in his overly confident way that makes my skin crawl.

"No, not really." I say as I turn looking for normalcy in a group of crazy.

We ended up leaving early because I had a shoot the next day. . . THANK GOD!

My second story is better. . .

Today, I had the photo shoot in the morning and then in the afternoon my family met up with another family that Natalie does home school activities with. We all went to the pool to relaxed and Meg ended up meeting up with us too.

After pool time Meg and I went to the mall and then to "Chewy's" for some yummy Mexican food. (spelling of "Chewy's". . .not sure)

There was a pretty long line so we went to get our chips (as we waited) and sat at the bar and had some daiquiris. While we were sitting there a waitress, Gracie, came up to us and said that she was suppose to come and meet her "twin". . .aka . . . me?

Apparently someone. . .or someones said that we looked a like. Well, please. . .tell me what you think. . .

Personally, I think Gracie got the bum deal :) But really. . . we don't look like twins at all. . .

maybe fraternal twins who. . . come from two different fathers. One father was white and the other was asian.

I really don't see it.

Gulf of Mexico

Last week we went to the Gulf of Mexico and it couldn't have been better weather!!!

I saw dolphins, cool looking seagulls that have red beaks, and. . . . pelicans (yes, Nana!!! Pelicans)

The doggies came with us and they sure had a lot of fun :)

We all were set with a movie starting and headed to the beach.

Natalie and I on the pier looking at dolphins.

The water was FABUOLUS!

Me and my Lili

The seagulls were really crazy.

Scott as our cabana boy.

Sophie and Lili making sandcastles.

Lili's hair after the beach

Okonomiyaki

When we came back from Shinagawa we headed to Kamakura where there is a famous Buddha (my pictures of the Buddha are on a different camera and card so that will come later.). After going to the Daibitsu (means large Buddha) we had dinner in Kamakura too. My family had never had Okonomiyaki before so we decided to try some that night.

Okonomiyaki is like a "pancake" type meal but soooo different at the same time. It isn't sweet like pancakes but has cabbage, meat, and other veggies and you mix it together and cook it on a hot plate. Afterwords you put a sauce on top . . .it's special Okonomiyaki sauce, then you also put cut up seaweed on top of that and then mayo. We didn't put mayo because my family didn't want it but then in the end they sucummed. hee hee hee. Okonomiyaki isn't Okonomiyaki without mayo. I'm not a big mayo advocate but I do like it on Okonomiyaki.

My Nieces

I've decided that my nieces are amazingly talented. Here is a little "broadway" show that they put on for me. Sooooo funny.

Austin Texas

I am currently in Austin, Texas visiting my brother Scott's family and some friends who have moved here too after school. Texas may not be my favorite state in the world but Austin's pretty cool. The downtown is pretty cool with all the live music everywhere and hip bars to visit. The weather has to be my favorite thing about Austin. It's not too hot or too cold (minuse the aircon) or too humid. Also they have some of my favorite things: my family, H.E.B (here everything is better), and Sonic (drink happy hour).

Here are some pics of my time here.

We had a lot of fun playing in the backyard in the sprinklers.

城川ご／ Shirogawago

Our second day in 岐阜 Gifu we went to 城川ご Shirogawago which is a remote mountain village that has some

of the oldest farm houses in Japan.

These houses were all thatched roofing too.

Here is Grandma in front of one of the thatched roofed house.

Me and G-ma being funny.

Someone's little cave. Not exactly sure what it's for though.

A little water mill.

A beautiful view.

A nice little river.

Nana and Papa's love shack

Need a drink or wash your hands G-ma?

Mom and Dad eating lunch. おにぎり/ Rice balls.

It was really beautiful.

The view of the valley.

Mom, eating Macha Ice cream.

Re-thatching the roof.

A cool bridge

This is my おべんと lunchbox and when I pulled the string it steamed it and made it warm. It was pretty cool.

Gifu was probably one of the most beautiful places in Japan I've been to.

高山/ Takayama Part 2

Here is part 2 of the 高山 images.  Photobucket is a pain. . . I'm thinking of changing to Flicker.  We'll see. . . Anyways, here are the pictures. 

Here is Papa eating the 肉まん again.  

A cute little boy looking at wood work.  Very enthusiastic.

A man making. . .something ;)

だんご

The market

In one of the shops these women were hand stitching all of the cloth designs.  It was really amazing the stuff they made.

Here are fish on sticks.  Mmmmm. . . . Papa really wanted to eat them but . . . decided not to :)

Here are those floats again with the marionettes.

Here is a cool sign in many different languages.

While we were in the restaurant eating lunch (dad had soba and the rest of us had rice with pork) a parade past by us outside.  It was pretty cool though because the dancers actually ended up rushing into our restaurant too.  

More parade

That big old house we went to.

Well, that is our time in Takayama part 2. :)