• Dec. 30 I took my mother, aunt, and cousin for an excurstion to Lancaster to find the location of my grandparents' farm from before World War II. Hardly anything left there, but we did find it, below Avenue D on D-8, between 70 and 80.
• Dec. 27 I went back to Placerita Canyon and hiked it in the reverse direction that I'd done it with the Hacpackers a few years ago. This time started with the steep section.
• Dec. 15 I went to see a performance of Wakana Hanayagi's graduating dance class at the JACCC.
• Dec. 8 went for a hike in Sycamore Canyon near Pt. Mugu.
• Dec 7 made it to the China Expo
• Nov 30 made it to the Japan Expo at the LA Convention Center. Got to see the koto recital by Yoko Awaya Kai, tea ceremony by Urasenke, noh demonstration by Noh-Mai, the Japanese American awards which included Keiko Matsui playing the piano, and the piano recital by Missa Johnouchi with a guest appearance by Karen Han on erhu.
• Nov. 29 I climbed up to Mission Point between the 118 Fwy. and Interstate 5. The guidebooks and maps all have different names to the trailhead, but it's at Meadowlark and Sesnon. The area is called O'Melveny Park, but no street signs say that. The local signs call it Overlook Park and Thomas Bros. calls it Bee Canyon Park.
• November 17 I finally got out on a hike to Simi Peak in Cheeseboro Park (or whatever it's called.) I was having such a good time that I forgot that the park closes at sunset, the sun sets early in winter, and I'm a recently sick old fart who doesn't move that quickly. I was running down the last hills to make it out of there.
• In November I went to the Descanso Gardens Japanese Festival. Also, I put together some miscellaneous photos from festivals around LA plus some random photos of Little Tokyo. The festivals included the Thai Festival from which I have a few more photos. I also made it ot the Gigantor debut.
• At the beginning of October I made a trip again to Lancaster to see Animagic and got a little closer to figuring out where the farm of my mother's family was located: 12 miles Northwest of Lancaster. I did find the memorial to the Japanese American families in the Antelope Valley.
• For Labor Day I hiked up to above the Hollywood sign on Mt. Lee and across from there to Mt. Cahuenga as well as the one on the other side (Mt. Chapel?). Later I took a hike from the Griffths Park side and stopped at the Bat Cave. At another time I also took a walk up the Arroyo to Pasadena and took a look at the bridges from the bottom side. I also took a bike ride to Rancho Alamitos in Long Beach
• Odori at Nisei Week 2002
• Cosplay, Taiko, and the Tofu Festival during Nisei Week
• Comicon 2002 Got to see Ray Bradbury speak!
• Right after Anime Expo I took off for England, Germany, and Switzerland
  • In England I visited the aviation museums at:
    • Duxford
    • Hendon
    • Cosford
  • In Germany I visited Aachen to see Charlemagne's tomb
  • In Switzerland I stayed with my friends at Murren to hike and watch the rain, and went on side trips to Basel and Montreux.
  • On the way home I stopped in Baltimore and Washington DC where I saw the Egyptian exhibit at the National Gallery.
  • I also made a stop at Otakon again in Baltimore. Got to see the first 2 episodes of Princess Knight.
  • I revisited the National Air & Space Museum as well as the air museum at College Park
• Anime Expo July 4-7, 2002 They had some real organizational problems this year. After waiting in lines to get the tickets and again for the doors to open, the Music Video program was postponed till the next morning. The Dealers' Room was almost impossible to get into this year.
• To check out my photo gear before my European vacation, I visited the air museum in Santa Monica
• Fanime 2002
• Monterey Park Cherry Blossom Festival 2002
• Family Festival at the JACCC
• May 11 I visited the Van Nuys Japanese Gardens
• Another and final trip to Mammoth for the seaon.
• April I wound up the cross country skiing season
• March 30 I saw a koto recital of Awaya-Kai at El Camino college
• March 24 I finally saw the Watts Towers. The day before I was invited to Raytheon to see their hosting of the JROTC drill competition and display of military hardware. Got to talk to the pilots and Navy Seals. Big helicopter and light armor display.
• March 16 I did the Tour de Sewer again
• March 3 Went cross country skiing in Sequoia.
• Feb 23 went to Mammoth with the Asian Ski Club. Went cross country skiing and finally made it up the San Joaquin ridge. What a view. I also broke down and bought a lift ticket and used my telemark skis for the first time in years. It was pretty embarassing.
• Feb 16 I attended the Day of Remembrance at the JANM
• A fusion Japanese New Years 2002 (Shogatsu) celebration at the Japanese American Cultural Community Center, combining western opera, Zen, and God knows what else.
• One of the last events of 2001 was attending the Japan Expo at the Convention Center in LA. I had to brave the rain and a Staples Center game to make it there.
• Right before the New Year 2002 I visited the Chino Planes of Fame Air Museum. A little earlier in the year I visited the Castle Air Museum near the 99 below Turlock.
• I finally made it out backpacking to Hockett Lake. My friend Gene and I had tried to find that lake and we got a little lost. After he passed away in October, I decided that I'd better finish that hike at last.
• Ani-Magic 2001 After that I returned to the Ani-Magic con in Lancaster, where I also looked for the high school my mother attended and her family's farm. I couldn't find the latter, but I did see the general area. Amazing they ever raised alfalfa in a place that looks like Luke Skywalker's home planet. I also came across a semi-open museum of flight called Milestones of Flight, and a PY4Y-2 of all things at a Forestry water bomber base.
• Inekari and Moon Festival After Peru, I attended the Rice Festival in at the JACCC in Little Tokyo and the Moon

• Right after the trip, I went on a Heartwalk which for the Boeing team was also in memory of our employees who died in the plane that was crashed into the Pentagon. At the walk I did meet Barbie

  

• Finally went on my trip to Peru, returning to the US on Sept. 10, of all times. Picture galleries at:

  • Cusco and vicinity, including the Sacred Valley
  • Amazon Basin on the Tambopata River
  • The Inca Trail in the Andes
  • Machu Picchu photos taken within Machu Picchu itself, plus the Inca Bridge Festival the same day in the Downtown Chinatown.
• Baltimore & DC including a return to the Garber. Before Peru I went to to the Anime convention in Baltimore, visited my cousin, made a return trip to the Garber Facility of the Smithsonian, and the National Cryptologic Museum.
• San Diego 2001 Comicon and a trip to the Marine Corps Depot. July 19-22 I attended Comicon in San Diego. Thursday night I saw a performance of "Twelfth Night" at the Old Globe in Balboa Park and the next day I finally visited the Marine Corps Depot museum. On the way back on Sunday I went to Pt. Lomas and saw the Cabrillo Monument.
• Somehow I squeezed in time to see the Nisei Week Parade
• I attended Anime Expo in LB July 5-8. Boy, you had to do a lot of walking there. I guess my hiking experience was continuing. No blisters in Mineral King, but I got one in Long Beach. The Ruroni Kenshin movie was incredible. Going out to LB on the evening of July 4 to pick up my registration was a real experience. It turns into a real zoo down by the convention center.
• The weekend before July 4 I drove my Impreza out to King's Canyon on June 30 and made my annual (when I can remember to do it) hike up to Paradise Valley on Saturday. I can still make It up there and I even caught a little trout, which I of course let go. Kind of dry up there compared to some previous years. On Monday I made an overnight backpacking trip up to Crystal Lake in Mineral King. It was my first time ever in Mineral King and it is indeed beautiful up there. The lake has a concrete dam from 1911 for some reason and limited access, but it is big and has a lot of fish. The cliff hanger campsite gave me a wonderful grandstand seat from which I could watch the beautiful canyon below. I did experience an incredible 90 minute thunderstorm that made my ears ring and set a tree on fire down by Cobalt Lake. I weathered the storm in my Kelty Clark tent with a little leakage. On the way back to LA I visited my cousins in Bakersfield again.
• Somewhere in April or May I took a trip to the LA Arboretum. Included in the gallery are photos from a Union Church Festival.
• April 23 I visited the Cherry Blossom Festival in Monterey Park. This year I missed the Japanese Animation day at the Comic Book Convention at the Shrine Convention Center.
• During the week on April 12 I was privileged to be a VIP guest at the wonderful Lotus Steps dance recital of the UCLA Chinese Cultural Dance Club.
• I've been getting back into hiking with the Hacpackers. On Feb. 25 we braved the nasty weather to make an unsuccessful attempt on Mendenhall Peak. On April 8 we started from Millard Camp and went up the Brown Mountain Trail to the water tank.

I've been busy with my Japanese class at UCLA and work. I did make it up to San Jose to catch the Sunday part of Fanime 2001 and I visited the Chinese and Japanese gardens in San Jose. Sorry, only one cosplay photo. By Monday I realized that I'd forgotten to reset my watch so I'd been out of synch with the world by an hour. No wonder the con ended an hour early! I also made my annual wine run through Paso Robles and then traversed over to Bakersfield to visit my cousins. While I was there I also visited the heritage museum. On the way home I stopped at the Simeon Wiesenthal Museum where they were showing an important Japanese made film on the atrocities committed by Unit 731 during World War II. I had my picture taken with Kondo-sama, the brave journalist who made the film. After the showing he described the difficulties he had making the film and getting it accepted in Japan. I asked him about threats and he said he is constantly receiving phone threats from the far right in Japan.

On March 18 I saw the LA performance of the Kikunokai folk dance troupe from Japan. I was able to take pictures of the cast after the performance. Before that I'd attended two of the wonderful and free Japanese classical dance recitals in the Doizaki Gallery of the JACCC in LA. One of the performances also included a tea ceremony.

On March 17 I went on a hike starting from Ocean Trails Golf Course on the south side of the Palos Verdes Peninsula. There is an incredible view there and we had a beautiful day.

To start off 2001 a short gallery of oshogatsu events around LA including the JANM, Weller Court, and the JACCC.

Here's wrap-up gallery from the end of the year, including Japan Expo,(separate gallery) my bike ride to Solana Beach, and so on.

One more thing I did before the end of the year was a trip to the Norton Simon art museum in Pasadena.

On the way to Animagic in Lancaster I finally got into Edwards AFB

The Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena has special events each month. One I attended was about the culture of Mynamar.

I've been to three obon festivals, Comicon in San Diego (also saw Henry V at the Old Globe and the Topkapi exhibit at the SD Museum of Art), and an APPA picnic.Nisei Week wraps up the Obon season in LA.

The beginning of July I went to Anime Expo 2000 at the Disneyland Hotel. I kind of went crazy with my camera gear and here are over 100 photos organized into three galleries. It was a little on the crowded side, but the Cosplayers were definitely out in force. [After buying a new scanner, I decided to reduce the number of photos and concentrate on a few with higher quality]:

• Anime Expo 2000 Gallery

Check here for some photos from around LA and a business trip to San Jose, a walk through Elysian Park, a trip to the downtown LA Library, and what's on some of my shelves at home!

March 12 I went to see the Forbidden City Exhibit at the Bowers Museum. The day before I went to LACMA to see the prints from the Price Collection in the Japanese Pavilion.

The last weekend in April I attended the LA Festival of Books, a recital by soprano Keiko Takeshita in Torrance, and a performance of "Uncle Gunjiro's Girlfriend" at the Japan America Theater. I also went to Tokyo Night to see what Japanese college students look like. They're just like the ones in the Japanese soap operas on TV!

April I attended a salon concert by soprano Hiroko Ide at the JACCC and during intermission I went downstairs to see the Hanamatsuri exhibit and take some pictures in the plaza. Yoshizawa sensei was kind enough to pose for a photo.

In April I also went to see the Monterey Park Cherry Blossom Festival 2000 and I saw the Pacific Film Currents (Patty Kinaga) film on breast cancer and APs.

Early April I took a bicycle ride on my Super V up to Montecito Heights and down to Heritage Square to scout out an urban hike I'm doing for the Hiking Club.

I finally did the Tour de Sewer one more time on the Super V. My fork shock went out right before the beginning of the ride, but I took it back to Helen's after the ride and they fixed it under warranty.

Feb 25 I went up to Fanime 2K in Santa Clarita and did some wine tasting in Paso Robles afterwards.

Feb. 2 I took a trip on my Impreza up to the , San Francisco and then over to Angel Island off Tiburon. At Alameda I took a tour of the carrier Hornet after attending the APE independent comic book show and I visited San Simeon on the way home.

I finally made it to the LA Car Show. Nothing too much interesting there. My Impreza still looks the same.

I've been sick with the flu or bronchitis since Thanksgiving, but I did get to the Japan Expo and the the New Year celebrations in Little Tokyo, LA. The links take you to my photos.