Welcome to Mayu's Photo Lobby
NY Trip
We stayed at Will Rogers in Manhattan, and visited two BIG museums, the Cloister and the Met. Omg, I love the Met! Even though it was crowded as hell, we still enjoyed the humongous collections from around the world. Jim was obsessed with Egyptian art and Medieval arms and armors. The cloister was fun too, the area was much quieter and it had some crazy dying unicorn tapestries.. We enjoyed NCB, the Nutcracker and lots of NY pizzas!!- 1/29/07 posted
2nd Christmas in Philly
Jim and I flew back to Philly for Christmas with his family. Of course the first thing we had was the matball sandwitches from Wawa and the tasty cakes! The stay was great, we ran around for christmas shopping, made fire and watched beauty and geeks, and enjoyed cheese, wine + delicious meals with the Beno family. We explored the historic PA a bit too, so I got to see the Liberty bell and Liberty Hall. Oh oh! I got an iPod for one of the presents, I can't believe it!!- 1/29/07 posted
San Francisco Salsa Congress 2006
5th SF Salsa Congres was held in Oakland from Nov 16th to 19th. Again, I had the best congress experience ever in this event! I was in constant shock by the top notch quality of the workshops, bands, performances and the competition! My last Salsamania performance of the season on Sat night went great, even though it was just shine, I felt so good when all the audience stood up at the end and gave us big applause! You don't believe how much positive energy we had in the backstage from every performer. Also the bands, The New Swing Sextet and Sonora Carruseles were AMAZING, I was crying because the music was just so great (maybe a bit influenced by some alcohol)! Cha Cha workshop by Tito Y Tamara and Hacha Y Machate's body movement workshops were hard but such cool classes! I wish I could take them every week. On Sun night, Kayono and Daken won the 2nd place in amateur competition!! They presented a great performance and I was really touched by the piece. Thanks for Toshie and Kimiko for being my fun roommates, it was just so much fun with cool and beautiful girls like you two!!! Everything was so impressive and this is why I love salsa! - 11/20/06posted
HFES 50th Conference 2006
SJSU Student Chapter has been involved in 50th Annual Meetings of Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, which was held in San Francisco this year. Gosh, it took so much work but is now finally over! We had great time at the conference, getting to know other students and their researches, and networking with established professionals. Of course, the most fun was being out in the city at night!! Kudos for us! :D- 10/25/06posted
Jim took me out to a GORGEOUS trip to Big Sur on October 4th, 2006. It was a hidden inn called Post Ranch Inn, I didn't even know it existed! We had super-nice spa treatments, checked in to one of their tree houses (it sways, because it's up in the air!) and went to "infinity" pool which looked over the blue pacific ocean. We kept taking photos of every inch of the place! It was so beautiful! We had delicious 5-course french dinner, and went back to our tree house. That night, Jim proposed to me, and now I have a ring on my left ring finger. Hehe. Next day, we spent time enjoying the property, we hiked around, swam, ate lobster sandwitch:D Now I'm drooling again. See Jim's Photos here. - 10/25/06posted
Yuki, our cousin from Japan visited Bay Area for one week. We went to wine tasting in Livermore. Yuki had the most wine, and she acted so drunk, (see in the photos), and passed out in the car. I have to be careful with those tiny body girls, they get drunk easily. We also met up with Jeff and Jen, Jim's brother and friend from Philly to go to Big Sur. Even though it was foggy, we caught the beautiful sunset at the Nepenthe. - 10/25/06posted
Jim took me to Vegas for a surprise trip:) We had Chinese brunch at the Mirage and checked out the Wynn where I got drunk off of ONE margarita! We enjoyed the venetian pool and spa, it was so heavenly! At night, we had a nice french dinner (with a scary trout with pistacio face) at Bouchon Restaurent and took off to the new Cirque du Soleil show, The Beatles:Love. We gained our code names... Pistachio man and Zebra Love!!- 10/25/06posted
Disney Sea-Summer 2006
On my last day in Japan, I went to Tokyo Disney Sea with my mom and sister. It was stupidly hot and steamy day and it was packed full. Craziness! I was dragged around my sister all day, who is a big disney fan. It was fun, but I was so tired by the end of the day. I guess I'm getting older. - 10/25/06posted
I had a blast in Japan, I got to see Tomomi again and we had great girls night out and pajama party! Again, we ate so much.. I also got to see some friends from elementary and junior high school friends, it's always fun to see your old friends who you grew up with. I had only 1 week in Tokyo, so I didn't get to hang out with my mom as muh as I wanted :( Hopefully a longer visit next time! - 10/25/06posted
Ise, Japan-Summer 2006
My sister, Eri, and I met up in Nagoya, and visited our grandparents who live in Ise, south west from Tokyo. Again it was another short stay, we got to spend time with them:) We did some BBQs, went to Karaoke, harvested all kinds of melons, tomatoes, eggplants, etc. Oh, and we saw the monkeys! (Japanese macacas) They were coming down to the farms from the mountains. My grandpa set up fake snakes on the veggie vines and around the farm to repell the evil monkeys. - 10/25/06posted
Taipei, Taiwan-Summer 2006
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"God, it's been so long... 2 years. Nothing seems changed but everything looks different. It's hard to describe, I wanna go eat something gooood!"- my comment from tw. I had good time in Taiwan, I got to smell the stinky roads, swet in the humid air and stffed with the delicious taiwanese cuisines. I went to a wedding of my relatives', also it was so great to see Emily, Kenji and Miki again in TW! - 10/25/06posted
Jim and I planned absolutely NOTHING for the long weekend, but it was full of spontaneous events and randomness. On Saturday, we drove HWY1 from Santa Cruz to Half Moon Bay. We stopped by at the natural bridege, some random beaches and a light house, which was very pretty. Sunday, next morning, we met with Jose and Cassy, and crossed the Golden Gate to Marin county for the fair. We saw sheep shearing and cow milking at the barn. After the fair, we drove up the Mt. Tam to catch the Sun set. It felt really good to be up there, nice breeze and nice view. Monday, the de Young museum in the GG park was closed :'( so we walked through the Japanese Tea Garden next door and went to the union square for some shopping. That night we came back to SJ. On Tuesday, we invited Jose, Jamie and Cassy for a small BBQ at Jim's. - 7/5/06posted
Vanessa's Graduation 2006
I rode down to LA with my aunt to attend my cousin, Vanessa's graduation at UCLA. It was packed with full of people, but still nice to see people accomplish their goals. I had a bit of time to hang out with my cousins, which I don't get to do that often, so it was fun:) Definitely looking forward to do it again! LA isn't that far after all. Congrats Vanessa!- 6/21/06posted
Eri's Visit 2006
My sister, Eri(pronounce like Ellie), visited me for 2 weeks. It's been fun, we played with her Nintendo DS A LOT. Such a waste of time, but it's so addicting! We went to see 3 junior colleges around here, and she decided to go to the Foothill college for their theater technology degree, starting this fall. We drove up to the city a couple of times, dinner at Kan Zaman and belly dance, Cassy's house party, family day with grandpa and a cousin. It's non-stop eating.. We also went for shopping, pigged out some more at the Sunnyvale art and wine festival, as well as the Santa Cruz mountain art guild. My sister won a raffle for a big elk photo which she thought was a funny faced bear! Ah, miss Nintendo DS- 6/13/06posted
Half Moon Bay 2006
Sean came back to the Bay for the weekend, so the old roommies, Mike, Sean and I drove to the Half Moon Bay on last saturday by Mike's brand-new civic! It is ALWAYS fun and relaxing to hang out with these guys and make me feel like I'm still 21 years old college student. The beach was so blue, the sky and the ocean. We found some fried fish and crabs, rolled a log into the waves, drew our names on the sands..just being the same old dorky us:) We had a yummmmmmy Indian food for dinner in San Mateo. We thought we'd finish all teh food, but Mike stopped being cooperative:P- 5/16/06posted
Tony's House 2006
Tony, one of the core faculties of our program, invited the host committee chairs for the HFES 50th Conference to his new property in Gilroy last Sunday. It was a beautiful day, and we enjoyed BBQing and hiking on the trails (even though my corn on a cob didn't have a chance to be grilled). The house was gorgeous(nothing I've ever seen), the nature was beautiful, Tony's kids were so so so cute, and his animals were growing! Wish to go back there!- 5/1/06posted
Easter Egghunt 2006
Even tho weather has been so bad, we managed to have our Easter Egghut and BBQ yesterday. We enjoyed dying eggs, hiding and hunting eggs, eating yummy BBQs, smoking some Hookah :D We came to realize mothers had to do so much for entertaining their kids and for photo opps! It was so much fun, we'll do it again. Oh, Amanda's cupcakes were so delicious!- 4/21/06posted
Makiko and Mayumi's visit
The 3Ms was here! Mayumi and Makiko visited me from Japan for 4 days. We know each other since we are little kids.. like 6 years old. Unfortunately the weather has been awful, but we still had LOTS of fun. We did lots of shopping, eating and some sight seeing here and there. I've waited them to visit me for 6 years and it was unbelievable to see the great view of SF city at dusk from the Twin Peaks with them.- 3/20/06posted
Seattle 2006
Fortunately, weather has been wonderful in Seattle for the last 2 days. Jim,I, Tomomi and Phillip went up Space needle (no starbucks upstairs.... ok, VERY disappointing, somebody told me false information), had a house party which had a really good local band, had a day trip to Olympic peninsula by ferry and driving. Tomomi and I had a bit of time to chat last night when she took us to see night scene of Seattle Downtown.- 3/20/06posted
Monterey 2006
SInce Tomomi's parents are in town from Japan, and because they rented a nice red, new convertible mustang, all 4 of us drove down to Monterey, Carmel and to Big sur on Tuesday. The weather couldn't be any better, we had the top of the car down, and blown by teh nice breeze the whole day!- 3/20/06posted
Coldplay Concert 2006
It was really cool, we were on the first floor, 29th row at HP Pavillion, so people on the stage weren't like grains of rice. The huge HP Pavillion was totally filled all the way up to the top with different types of audience. I swore I saw older people dressing more like they were going to clubs (ex. holter neck tops and tiny tanks) than younger people who were wearing t-shirts and long sleeves.- 3/20/06posted
Mom's Visit 2006
My mother and grandmother were in town for family tragedy. We were so busy and exhausted from eberything, and one day decided to take a day off and drove down to Monterey. I tagged Tomomi along with us. It was nice, we drove through the 17 Miles Drive and had YUMMY clam chowders in Monterey. My mom visited Carmel and Monterey before, and she wished to have a summer house in Carmel. Maybe someday I can make her wish come true!?- 3/20/06posted
Marlerna's 2006
On last Saturday, Tomomi, Yasuyo and I went to a bar where they had a show by transvestized shemales. It was so much fun! They were so into it, and the whole club was filled with gay or lesbian ppl. We were like the only weird straight girls, who were cheering on the performers. We took some nice photos with them too, everybody was so nice!- 3/20/06posted
PA and NJ 2005andNY and PA 2006
East Coast-Philadelphia, New Jersey, New York:I didn't update much about the trip to Philadelphia with Jim. It was a fun trip, it was great to meet the whole Beno family and stay in such a warm environment full of laughters. It made me feel, it was the best of life, to have a loving family. We stayed mostly in PA, where we enjoyed Tasty cakes and Philadelphia cheesesteaks! Hmmmm, yummmm (drooool) Wrapping lots of christmas gifts in 2am with racoons outside, driving to New Jersey for shores and casinos in Atlantic city in Jim's dad's favorite cute van, freezing on the water taxi to Statue of Liberty, watching great Alvin Ailey American Ballet and dirtiest commedian David Attel, pigging out on cheap hot dogs at 3am in NY city, ahhh it was all fun!- 3/20/06posted