It was nearly 2 years since I last went back to the US to catchup with family and friends. It was wonderful to see everyone, spend late nights talking, great splash fights at the pool and beach with my nephews and nieces (Aug. 23-Sept. 9, 2011).
Here are the highlights:
1. The Horiuchi Family had a spectacular time in Aruba in the Caribbean! We played it smart and stayed in one of the ABCs (Aruba, Barbados and Curacao) which are outside the hurricane corridor so fortunately we weren’t impacted by Hurricane Irene weather-wise. We did, however, have about a 1.5 days of anxiety around rebooking our flights back to NY after they were cancelled (big thank you call out to JetBlue who added an extra flight that meant we were only delayed by one day and to the Marriot Surf Club who let us extend our stay and only charged us a “distressed traveller” fee of $110 for the extra night).
In fact, this leads me to one of the funny moments on this vacation. Before we got on the JetBlue flight we were working with our various travel agents on Plan B. And our Plan B’s were so horribly inconvenient and just awful, that all we could do was joke about which one was worse:
• Tomu, Ellen and the two kids (one is a toddler) fly from Aruba to Miami, change planes for a connecting flight to Detroit, Michigan, spend a night in Detroit then fly to NY’s JFK the next morning.
• Linda departs Aruba for Atlanta, Georgia, changes planes for a connecting flight that lands in Buffalo, NY at 11 p.m., spend the night in Buffalo, NY and then wake up early, rent a car and drive 6-8 hours to NY city.
I really wasn’t looking forward to driving 6-8 hours, but the thought of spending a night in Detroit was even worse!
Random footnote: I met a guy at Sydney Airport on my way to Aruba who was headed to “see the ruins in Detroit”. I said, “what ruins, there’s no Manchu Picchu in Detroit”. To which he responded, “I’m going to see all the demolished, run down buildings in Detroit”. Detroit clearly has an image problem.
Aruba’s definitely one of the “high end” Caribbean islands with taxi cabs that were Lexus and Mercedes SUVs. The ocean was so warm, it literally was just like bath water. And thanks to my brother Tomu for getting us pointed in the right direction when it came to local restaurants to check out. We loved
Chef’s Table (great taster desserts in shot glasses),
Aqua Grill and
Wacky Wahoo’s (great local seafood).
Here's my nephew Kai narrating our dinner at Aqua Grill Restaurant.
Each day followed a similar pattern – the morning was spent at the beach, lunch was at the beach protected from the sun in our “palapa hut” (thanks to Tomu and Papa for waking up early to reserve the huts and the chairs), then Tyler and Kai took a nap and in the afternoon we swam at the hotel pool which had a very relaxing lazy river and enjoyed “happy hour 2 for 1 drinks” and “bucket of beer for $24” (their local beer is Balashi which is pretty good).
Tomu asked me to help his son, my nephew Kai with his front crawl and back crawl with the aim of getting Kai into “Dolphins” at the local YMCA. But we had more splash fights than we did swimming lessons. Tomu, here’s the “Little Nemo” swim drills I prepared for Kai if you’d like to work on them with him next time you’re at the pool:
FREESTYLE
• Freestyle kick with board - chin at waterlevel
• Freestyle kick with board – head in water, breath on side
• Freestyle kick with board – one arm on board, breathing on the side
• Freestyle kick no board- one arm in front, breath on side
• Single arm stroke with board (without board); 3 strokes on each arm
• Arm catchup drill (with and without kick board)
• Zipper arms, chicken wing (aka shark arms, elbow high)
• Kick facing the right, left
• Fist swim
• Fingertip drag
• Long armed dog, underwater recovery (freestyle)
BACKSTROKE
• Push and Glide with kickboard, with arms above head
• Penny on forehead to encourage "still head position" during drills.
• Single arm backstroke, 3 strokes each arm
• Backstroke – Single arm pull
• Double arm pulling and leg kick
Background:
• Zipper arms/chicken wing: Maintain contact between your [extended] thumb and your body up to your armpit throughout the recovery. When your thumb reaches your armpit reach forward and enter the hand in the water. Keep stroke extended; watch entry. MUST Rotate!! Purpose:- Encourages forward momentum in entry that characterizes efficient arm recovery. Also relaxed recovery, and length of stroke.
• Long-Armed Dog/ Underwater Recovery Swim Freestyle making your arm recovery completely under the water. Essentially combining a long-armed dog paddle with the head position and side breathing of Freestyle. Reach long on each side and focus on making a good catch; then rotate your body past the arm as you focus on lengthening your stroke. NOTE!! Should only be <= 4 strokes of your Stroke Count! Purpose:- Lengthen stroke, focus on catch and pull through, rotation.
• Push and glide The most obvious practice to start with is the push-and-glide. This is exactly what it suggests you push and then glide. Face the pool wall and hold onto the side. Put both feet against the wall with bent legs. You should be in a ready to spring position. You will then push hard against the pool wall with both arms to your side. With your head back stomach up you will then glide for about 4-5 meters. This is a good backstroke drill/ practice to help to gain good body position in the water when swimming backstroke. You can use some variations of this for example you can link your hands together holding the side. Then as you push off the side you then throw your arms over your head keeping your arms straight and together. You could then use the push and glide to begin your backstroke maintaining good body position throughout. Make sure that you push off the wall nice and hard to achieve good momentum then begin the arm action as soon as your legs straighten.
• Backstroke – Single arm pull Another way you can use one arm at a time when practicing your backstroke arms is to swim with on arm resting and then change over and each different position for the resting arm has different benefits for the backstroke swimmer. So now we will go through each one and look at each benefit. A single arm pull with one resting on your thigh, this is very good for improving your technique by allowing greater roll to increase the amount of propulsion. It also encourages more shoulder lift for recovery of the arm. A single arm pull with one arm resting extended above the head in the water, this refines your technique epically the entry to the catch. It also lengthens the stroke.
• Backstroke drills/ Double arm pulling and leg kick Try swimming with both arms at the same time it develops the bent arm action as well as a shallow push through to your hips. Your aim is to reduce the number of strokes across the pool.
Papa and Ellen did a fantastic job project managing the building of a very feng shui sandcastle that had water, movement and tall towers from multiple directions. Aruba’s very easy going, relaxing and like their license plate says “one happy island”.
On our last night, as Kai had been so patient as we rebooked our flights to New York we treated him to “game night” in the arcade room. Here’s a FlipVideo of the arcade game Kai enjoyed the most – he went several rounds!
2. Scuba diving in Aruba was rather disappointing. Other than seeing the wrecks, there weren’t many spectacular fish or coral.
And my brother had just gotten me an underwater camera (Canon G12) for my belated birthday/Christmas so I was really hoping to capture some photos of vibrant colored fish and sharks to show Kai.
I’d researched JADS Dive Shop on TripAdvisor and comments said they were well known for small groups, friendly staff and well taken care of gear. While the staff were very friendly, it was a very tight fit on the boat with many people and the biggest complaint is that the tanks were not topped up/full. They said they’d been having some trouble with vandalism and hopefully they’ll get that fixed soon as when I switched over to a new tank for the second dive it only had 1800 PSI in the tank (my tank was switched to one that had 2800 PSI which was clearly better but not the same as 3000PSI).
Dive #128 on Aug. 26, 2011 with JADS Dive Shop
Location: Airplanes
Max depth: 80ft
Bottom time: 33 minutes
Dive #129
Location: Harbour Reef
Max depth: 18 meters
Bottom time: 56 minutes
Can you see the green moray eel here?
While their colors are complimentary, I thought it quite poignant that in every other way they're different yet here they are - this oddest pairing of fish - swimming around the ocean like best friends.
3. On my way to Aruba, I had a day in LA to hang out with my best friend since 5th gradea – Ana and her husband Scott. We went for breakfast for a badly needed latte and then we bicycled around Santa Monica beach which was fantastic because after an 14 hour flight being in the fresh air and getting some exercise was just what I needed! We walked around the shops and Ana got us this great card game called “Set” that we played in Aruba which takes a while to get the hang of but once you understand the concept is quite fun.
Then we went for Mexican food – one of the cuisines I miss most here in Australia. While we were having lunch, the funny coincidence is that I received an email from Mom that back in Hoffman Estates she’d run into Ana’s mom Carmen at the swimming pool.
We walked around this Venice-like neighborhood nearby which had some amazing homes.
Then it was on to LA Japantown for manju snack, some more browsing of shops before we heading out for sushi dinner!
Thank you Ana and Scott – it was wonderful to spend the day with you and catching up! I can’t wait to host you here in Sydney some day!
4.Bachan remembered my name!
My Grandmother has Alzheimer’s and everyone told me she probably won’t remember my name. I was absolutely thrilled when she did! I saw her all 4 mornings I was in New Jersey and she remembered my name each day! Here's Kalea narrating my visit with Bachan:
Bachan’s doing incredibly well, particularly considering she’s 93 years old. She’s very articulate and has clear memories of when she was in 6th grade and when she was raising the family, but she’s a bit unclear on more recent happenings.
My fondest memories of our visits were of watching Bachan do her daily workout to “Who let the dogs out” and “Macarena”, re-reading my letters together with her, watching her enjoy time with her great grand children and reminiscing about our family with Mom. Here are three-generations - Bachan, Mom and me.
5. Nieces and Nephews Galore! My nephews Kai Kenichi and Tyler are outnumbered by all the nieces Kalea, Keilani, Aila and Soriya.
I had a ball playing chess with Kai and Kalea, watching Kalea’s dance recitals DVDs and Kai and I cooked lamingtons and he continued the tradition of licking the bowl after everything was baked, coated with chocolate and sprinkled with coconut.
And the cousins got to hang out as well ! Yas and Cindy joined us for dinner at the Italian restaurant along with Auntie Eiko. Just today heard from Mieko that Tom’s Mom has been discharged from the hospital so thrilled to hear that all our best wishes for a speedy recovery came true!
And on my way home to Sydney, I stopped off in San Francisco to catchup with Tetsuya and Chamnan and was happy to join Soriya for her “swim class” at the local pool. She loves the water and did this balancing on the foam board thing really well so I predict she has a future in surfing ☺
Auntie Vivian and Uncle Yori joined us for Thai dinner in one of Westfield’s oldest dinner cars with Buburry napkins (quite the anomaly). One thing I learned is that it’s tough to get a liquor license in New Jersey so many restaurants are BYO beer and wine. For Amanda and Uncle Yori, here are the wines we enjoyed (mostly Californian as it reminded me of home): Rombauer Zinfandel, Sterling Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc, Bogle Old Vine Zinfandel and Stag’s Leap Riesling.
6. Congratulations to Ryu and Amanda who are engaged to be married next year! We went to an outstanding restaurant called
Culin Ariane in New Jersey which is owned by
Ariane Duarte who was on Bravo TV’s Top Chef TV Show.
Amazingly, during my vacation I even ran a 5k race thanks to Ryu and his coordinating this early morning run around Verona, New Jersey.
7. With the aim of helping my nephew to understand responsibility and that when you do what you've agreed to in your employment contract, you'll receive your payment. Just after this was signed, Verizon's union workers went on strike over renewal of their employment contract and Tomu was able to use it as an example to explain to Kai why his Mom was holding a sign and walking the picket line.
#7 prompted a discussion between Tomu and I that revealed that Papa's habit from when we were growing up of always making sure there was enough TP has become a habit with both of us and now Kai - we had a good laugh. Thank you Mom and Papa for a wonderful and memorable vacation in Aruba! I love you very much and can't wait for our Explore Asia vacation!
