summer snapshots
... all from my cell phone, because I am lazy that way. This summer was spent in LA, the East Bay and Seattle - though mostly LA, where I worked odd jobs and hung out with my dad. Though it was a bit sad being away from Iain for so long, I was never lonely for long with all my family and friends around:
The grandparents...
...my best best friend Lauren...
...even Teiko was in town!
There are many things to love about being in California, but the food is definitely high on the list.
above: Maggie and Dad vie for the last of the salad.
Weekends were spent waitressing at a Vietnamese restaurant. Free pho + getting to talk about Vietnamese food all day long = awesome.
Also I love Venice Beach :)
In mid-August, I went up to Seattle to meet up with my mom and see most of the extended Tokuda family.
Manhole covers like the ones in Japan!
Cleaning out my grandmother's basement yielded some strange finds. Big League Liniment! No medicine cabinet is complete without it.
And then Iain finally arrived! Not on a giant slide, as this photo might lead you to believe, but heroically nonetheless on an airplane. Hooray for Iain!
After Iain got here, we spent a whirlwind few days in LA saying hello and goodbye to family before flying up to the Bay Area...
You have to love a city where Howard Zinn is painted on the walls.
Graffiti in the S.F. Mission district.
In San Francisco, we rang in my sister's birthday with a sophisticated and contemplative night of pizza, beer, and Deep Blue Sea. That's Samuel L. Jackson getting eaten, above, obviously. (Happy birthday, Maggie!)
All in all, it was a great summer (especially since, thanks to Hanoi's weather, it felt like it started ages ago, back in April!) I loved getting to spend so much time with my family and reconnecting with life in California while getting excited and gearing up for this:
Which - finally - brings this very belated blog back into real time, because we leave for Peru on Wednesday. We'll be volunteering for just short of three months at an NGO in the Andes, so the next update will hopefully be from South America.
