The Hawaii Slideshow

Here are some fun photos from our trip to Hawaii.

Great Road Trip Scavenger Hunt - Items 10 to 12

The next three items were each: one that would be easy to find, a second that was a head scratcher, and a third that was "what is that?"

The one that would be easy to find was a machine that flattens pennies. Our kids have a very large collection of such pennies from several places in Japan and the U.S. On this trip we documented our find at the Seattle Center in the shadows of the Space Needle. Lianne, Yuki's daughter, joined us for the photo.


The next one was a real head scratcher. A vehicle unique to the region that we would be visiting. We thought, "maybe we need to drive to Pennsylvania so that we could photograph ourselves with Amish driving horse and buggy." The best we could come up with were triple trailers. Triple trailers are illegal in most states. Oregon is the only state on the west coast that allows triple trailers. The other places where triple trailers are allowed are: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Indiana Toll Road, Kansas Turnpike, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio Turnpike, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Utah.

The photo is one that Dorothy took during our drive on the road to Portland, Oregon. I'm in the foreground of the picture because one of the requirements of the hunt was that a member of our traveling party needed to be in each photo. We ended up with this moving photo because for some reason the only place where we could find triple trailers were while we were on the move. At the truck stops where we stopped, we found only single and double trailers. We wondered, "Do they have other stops just for triple trailers?" Fushigi datta (Japanese for "it was a mystery").


This next one was maybe the one for which we did the most research. We only had vague notions about phosphates. The scavenger hunt only said, "An old-fashioned soda shop that serves phosphate."

We did most of our research only after we had reached Seattle. We could not find any soda fountains serving phosphates in the Seattle area. The closest locale that held some promise was a soda fountain in Wenatchee, the apple capitol of the world in central Washington. We thought about driving there, but then we found two possibilities in Oregon.

The first one in Albany was a strike out. It turned out to be a candy shop in Albany called The Velvet Touch. Would we really find a soda shop in a place called The Velvet Touch? Sounded more like an adult entertainment establishment. It turns out they had great ice cream. So there we were at 10 in the morning eating ice cream. It was not a total loss.

The Grants Pass Pharmacy was our last chance. This was not our first visit to Grants Pass. The last time we found statues of dogs dressed up as batman and robin in front of a motel. This time it was all of the bear statues on the downtown street corners. San Jose had their shark statues. Seattle had their pig statues. Santa Rosa, home of Charles Schultz, has the Peanuts character statues. And Grants Pass has their bear statues.


The pharmacy did have a real soda fountain. It was a small soda fountain right in the middle of the pharmacy. And it did serve phosphates! The price was right, too. Twenty five cents. We pulled up to the counter and asked for a phosphate. The soda jerk said, "what flavor?"

"What are the flavors?"

"Anything on the board."

There were something like 20 flavors (coke, diet coke, Dr. Pepper, sarsaparilla, sprite, diet sprite, root beer, orange, grape, cherry, etc.) on the board. We had no idea.

The soda was made by mixing flavored syrup, soda water and what I assumed to be phosphoric acid. We ordered grape. It lasted just like a regular grape soda pop.

Great Road Trip Scavenger Hunt - Item 9

This is the item that prevented us from having a chance to win the scavenger hunt. Of the over 300 hundred entries received by the paper, well over 100 were for entries where all 20 items were found. We found but 19.

We just ran out of time on our trip to Seattle. We needed to return by July 8 to the Bay Area so we departed Seattle on July 7, Friday. We reasoned, since Saturday would be 7-7-07 there would be some wedding in one of the towns that we would be driving through.

Also, we still needed to make it to Grants Pass and the the Grants Pass Pharmacy in the hopes that it would have a soda fountain serving phosphate. The pharmacy was only open until 600pm or so on Saturday.

So here we were driving down I-5 in Oregon on Saturday trying in vain to find a wedding. We even stopped and asked people if they knew of any weddings in their towns. Maybe belief in lucky numbers is not important in small towns. We couldn't figure it out. We thought, "there's got to be one wedding some place."

We placed a call to Yuki during the drive. She reported to us how a church in Seattle had been performing weddings every 15 minutes since midnight because of the demand for weddings on 7-7-07. Just our luck. Maybe we should've stayed in Seattle.

Wedding Bash

Tonight wrapped up the Jen and Matt wedding miniseries that started for us with our departure to Honolulu on September 3 to attend their wedding. Jen is Jennifer, Dorothy's niece.

The wedding was a small affair outside of Honolulu at a country club on the Pali Highway. It was attended by about 50 family and close friends, some traveling from as far away as Florida. It was a beautiful setting for a wedding, nestled in amongst the lush hillsides of the windward side of the island. Everything was green, from the groves of trees to the green lawn to even the bride's maid's gown. Naomi was the flower girl, which she thought was really cool. Waking up early to get hair done and dressed up for the wedding made it extra special for Naomi, and her first ride in a stretch limo wasn't too bad either.


Tonight's affair was the traditional Chinese wedding banquet. However, it also served as the main wedding celebration for most since attendance at the wedding was made available only for a small number of people. And it was quite the affair too. One of the largest wedding gatherings that I have ever attended, perhaps over 500 people.

Banquet Video
Video sent by CEmoto

This wedding was special for our kids also. It's probably the first one where they were interested in the cake cutting, the bouquet toss, the garter toss, and the other activities associated with the event. The following are a few of the sights and sounds from the wedding banquet from the point of view of our kids:

The Garter Toss

Dad: Were you able to see what they did?

Ethan: Yeah it was funny. Matt threw the headband and it landed on Bill's [Bill is Jen's younger brother] back. Bill didn't even try to grab it. Someone else took it off his back. It was really funny!

Wedding Favors

Dad: Ryan, why do you have two favors?

Ryan: Someone gave me hers.

Dad: Are you sure it's okay?

Ryan: No, it's okay. It was our other cousin who gave it to me.

[Later during the good-byes.]

Aunt Josie (Dorothy's Aunt): Did you see that I gave Ryan my wedding favor?

Dad: Oh that was you. I didn't know who gave it to him. He told me that it was our other cousin who gave it to him.

Left Over Food

One of the things that's done at Chinese wedding banquets is that the servers pass out take-out boxes for those who want to take home leftovers. The other family seated at the table with us did not want the leftovers so we packed what we wanted. The amount of food that is served is usually for 10 adults per table. Given that our table had one empty seat and three smaller children, we had plenty of leftovers. So we even filled up two boxes to give to Auntie Josie.

Dad: Ethan, can you take these boxes over to Auntie Jo?

Ethan: Okay.

Dad: Do you know which one she is?

Ethan: Yes, Dad. She's the nice lady who came over to see us. The one who has that thing [a cast] on her hand and blond hair. [Auntie Jo is recently retired and has graying hair. I guess to Ethan it looks blond. Maybe it was the lighting in the restaurant.]

So I learned tonight that Jen had a headband on her leg that Matt retrieved with his mouth and that Auntie Jo has blond hair and is really our cousin.

Great Road Trip Scavenger Hunt - Items 5 to 8

The Contra Costa Times showed some photos earlier this year that showed families posing in front of famous trees with bark seeming to show a face. There was one from some place in Indiana. Something tells me there was lots of research done to find some of these items. We did a little too, but not nearly enough to find all of the items prior to our trip.

The picture of the fifth item was taken outside the Charlotte Martin Children's Theater at the Seattle Center. The scavenger hunt did not say that the tree had to be a real one.


The next item was difficult to find at the time of our trip. We were able to find gas for less then $2.75 based on a tip from my brother. The picture was taken near Wood Village, Oregon on the Columbia River Gorge.


This year is the 40th anniversary of the writing of Jack Kerouac's "On the Road." This explained the lack of copies of this book at several libraries. We finally found one at the Burien, Washington library and Stephen the librarian was kind enough to pose with us.


Finding a red caboose was one of the easier items to find. The photo shows a red caboose in downtown Albany, Oregon that had been remodeled into a pet grooming shop. We were actually looking for a soda shop serving phosphates when we came across this caboose.

Great Road Trip Scavenger Hunt - Item 4

We had to reach for this one. We found that all sheriffs at least along the west coast are County sheriffs. The scavenger hunt specified a town sheriff. We did the best that we could by going to the Tehama County sheriff's office in Red Bluff, California, only to find that the sheriff was not in the office.

However, a very personable public relations officer came to our rescue with trading cards with pictures of the sheriff and other goodies for the kids. We learned that the sheriff was Clay Parker. The back of his trading card says that he is a 5th generation law enforcement officer with 27 years of experience. It also says that he enjoys outdoor sports and is an avid bowler.

This definitely was one stop that we would not have made without the scavenger hunt.

Great Road Trip Scavenger Hunt - Item 3

Did you know that there is a covered bridge association in Oregon? We did not know this. Always pictured covered bridges as an artifact of other parts of the country. Think "Bridges of Madison County."

The one that we found was located in Cottage Grove, Oregon.

Cottage Grove has special meaning for us. We first stopped there in September 2001. Ethan was not even a year old. Naomi was just past two. We were scheduled to fly up to visit Ojiichan and Obaachan, but 9-11 cancelled all flights. So we decided to drive. We stopped to get gas in Cottage Grove and were invited to join a candlelight vigil. We couldn't stay because we were trying to make it to Portland, but the image of streams of people passing through downtown Cottage Grove to a candlelight vigil will be something we will always remember.

Great Road Trip Scavenger Hunt - Item 2

The second item that we were to find was "an unintentionally funny sign." We actually thought the message on the back of the sign from the Eastern Orthodox church sign might be our entry until we realized that we took the picture sans a family member. Oh, well...

So we continued our scavenging. We found several signs that were funny, but they were intentionally funny. Finding an unintentionally funny sign was difficult.

Then we came across the sign below in Albany, Oregon. The picture shows Ryan and me. The other kids were not interested in leaving the car.

Bakery Thrift Store. "Does this mean that they sell used pastries? Are they half eaten?" The kids and I thought that it was funny. Dorothy was not completely in agreement, but went along with the majority. After all, we weren't having much luck finding a sign that fit the bill.

Next stop, the Emoto house in Gresham, Oregon.

Great Road Trip Scavenger Hunt - Item 1

Our road trip north this summer had a new twist. We visited places to find items for a road trip scavenger hunt by the Contra Costa Times, our local paper. There were 20 items that we were suppose to find and include in a photograph with one member of our traveling party.

We just submitted our entries as they are due this Monday. We were able to get pictures to cover 19 of the 20 items on the list, although a couple of our "gets" were questionable. The kids joined in the spirit of the hunt for the most part. There were times when their response was, "Do we have to get out of the car for this one?"

One thing we learned was that people are really very friendly even if you approach them in a library with camera in hand (see future post for Item 7). Here's the first item that we were to find:

Item 1 - A building shaped like something else

We didn't really get too creative with this one. The picture below was taken in Rogue River, Oregon. We were actually driving back from checking out a blue-domed churchy looking building that can be seen from I-5 when we stumbled across this, a drive-thru coffee stand shaped like a red caboose.


We just had to see the blue-domed churchy-looking building that we would see each year on our drive to Seattle. We knew that it was an orthodox church of some kind because of the cross. Well, turns out that it's an Eastern Orthodox church. As we were getting ready to leave the place, we noticed an interesting quote on the back of the sign to the church (see below - it says, "It's later than you think" Perhaps someone with a sense of humor? There was no one home so we did not get a chance to inquire.).

Obaachan, Auntie Yuki & Lianne Visit

Roaster Coasters and Other Fun for Kids

We had a weekend with enough kid-friendly activities to last a whole year. This was due to a visit by our niece Lianne. I think we adults were just along for the ride.

In reality, we probably could've spent the entire weekend in our house and the kids would've been able to create enough activities on their own. There were times when our house did resemble one of those amusement parks that we visited.

Our first stop was Pixieland, which we blogged about in an earlier posting: Moshi Moshi Kame-yo!: Pixieland - A Hidden Gem

Another stop was Children's Fairyland in Oakland. This was courtesy of our friend Celia who had given to Naomi passes as a birthday gift last year. Celia and her husband Joe even joined us for this excursion that had Celia remembering back to her childhood memories of Children's Fairyland (see her comments to our Pixieland post above).

The Lindsay Wildlife Museum was another hit for the kids. Seeing local wild animals up close at this museum is always an adventure for the kids.

The kids also got a chance to burn off some energy at Matteo's Playground, an accessible playground in Concord. Much of the construction was conducted by local volunteers. It was a hot day so we didn't stay for a long time, just long enough for the kids to build up an appetite.

The weekend also had the 51st Annual Japanese Summer Festival at the Diablo Japanese American Cultural Center. We took in some great food (my mom: the food selection here is even better than at the Obon Festival in Seattle!), Bon Odori dancing, kids' games, and taiko drumming.




The one nearly daylong outing that we made was to Gilroy Gardens, touted as California's only horticultural theme park. It is an unusual theme park with rides and attractions built around a horticultural theme featuring what they refer to as circus trees. The park is definitely geared to a younger crowd. Buying tickets on-line will save you $12 on a regular adult ticket and $2 on a kid's ticket. Maybe it was because we visited on a Monday, but the parking lot was only about a third full and many of the rides did not have a wait.

On the way back home, we stopped for dinner at Tobie Tyler's. This is a Japanese restaurant in a Ramada Inn close to my work place. Dorothy's always wanted to check it out since she hears me talking about eating lunch there on a work day.

So what is this about roaster coasters? Well, that is what Ryan calls roller coasters. Ryan was even able to go on the one at Pixieland with me. As he told all of us, "you have to scream when you're on a roaster coaster."

He wanted to go on the ones at Gilroy Gardens but he was not tall enough. Maybe next year.

Neighbors 1

As was stated in the previous posting, this week was Spirit Week for the swim team. The final event was last night. It was the pasta feed. Almost every type of pasta one could imagine was on display. It was a potluck with all of the dishes lined up on a long series of tables as if they were being prepared for a parade. Of course, this is bound to happen with a potluck by a swim team of over 160 kids and their families.

Anyway, let's get to the story about neighbors...

I walked to the club after work so we wouldn't have two cars to take to our home which is no more than about 10 minutes away by foot. Ryan, threw a wrench into our plans to drive home together when he took up my not too serious comment to walk home by saying, "Yes, Dad, I want to walk home. Let's go."

So we were on our way to walk home, when we heard squeak, squeak. Squeak, squeak behind us. It was Naomi. She wanted to walk home too. A few minutes later mom and Ethan rolled by when we were trying to cross the street. We continued on our way.

An older man appeared about 100 yards down the street. He was wearing a red 49ers cap. He waved to us when we were nearer. We said the obligatory "hellos" as we started to pass, but this time I decided to say, "Hey, kids, say hello to the nice man. Look, Ryan, I think he wants to give you a high five." They proceeded to low five one another.

This started the following conversation:

Me: We're just returning from a pasta feed at the swim club.

Man: What, did you say that you were down at the field.

Me: No, we were at a pasta feed. You know, down at the swim club.

Man: Oh, the swim club. That's a great place. A great place for kids. You know, we grew up in the club too.

Man: Did you see all the cars down the street last weekend? I think they had the big meet at Woodlands (the swim club on the Walnut Creek side of Citrus Avenue).

Me: That was the Woodlands Invitational.

Man: We swam in that too. Woodlands was not in our league though. Or should I say that we were not in their league. They were very good. Much more competitive. This was over 40 years ago.

Me: It's still the same. Woodlands is still much more competitive, but now we're in the same league.

Man: We've lived in the same place now for 43 years. I'm 84 years old.

Me: Maybe if I'm lucky one of these I'll make it to 84.

Man: We live right down this street at XXXX San Gabriel. Things have changed quite a bit around here. Back then, they only let certain people live here. It was quite different.

Man: My wife is not doing too well. She almost had renal failure. She's suppose to be going in for an operation. My daughters will be here to help out. Can you believe that she might not be able to get a new kidney because she is too old? I think that this might be it for her. She has diabetes too.

Me: I'm sorry for that.

Man: How long have you lived here?

Me: We've lived here now for almost seven years.

Man: You're an old timer now, aren't you (laughing)?

Me: No, you're the real old timer (laughing).

Man: Yes, in more ways than one (laughing).

Me: We live around the corner on Joshua Woods.

Ryan: Can we go now, Dad?

Me: What's your name, anyway?

Man: My name's Gene. Gene XXXXXXXX. What's yours?

Me: Casey. Casey Emoto.

Gene: Casey? What's that Moto?

Me: Emoto.

Gene: What's your name (gesturing to Ryan)?

Ryan: My name's Ryan.

Gene: What was that?

Me: His name is Ryan.

Gene: That's a great name. Give me a high five (they proceed to give one another a low five). What's your name (gesturing to Naomi)?

Naomi: My name's Naomi.

Gene: That's a beautiful name.

Ryan: Let's go Dad (tugging on my arm).

Me: Okay, okay. Okay, Gene, nice talking with you. Hopefully we'll see you around.

Gene: Yes, take care.

Contra Costa Valley Swim Conference

Our swim team, the Ygnacio Wood Seahorses, is one of seven teams in the Contra Costa Valley Swim Conference. There is one other team from Concord, 2 teams from Walnut Creek, and single teams from Pinole, Antioch, and Brentwood. The league season concludes with the championships held at Los Medanos College.

The week leading up the championships is called Spirit Week for the Seahorses. Last night was movie night at the swim club. Kids are encouraged to bring sleeping bags and their own munchies. Although movie watching is a main activity for the night, so too is painting nails and hair blue (the team color). Our Ryan even got into the act, painting blue the nails on his left hand. Here's a picture of Ryan with Coach Russell Mikuni.


This year Naomi and Ethan are each swimming freestyle and backstroke at the league championships. Good luck to all!

Conversations with Kids - Part IX

Dad: Hey, Mom look at us. We're trying to swat flies.

Ryan: Yeah, look at us. Oh, look! Fly! Fly!

Dad: Where is it? I can't see it.

Mom: He has quite a keen eye.

Dad: I think that he can see the fly better because he is lower to the ground and can see it buzzing around above his head. [so I kneel to get down to his level]

Ryan: Yeah, let me get down to see better too. [as he proceeds to kneel down next to me]

This may not seem funny, but seeing him kneeling just like me with an impish grin on his face had both Dorothy and me keeling over in laughter.

Six Degrees of Separation from Kevin Bacon

During a recent commute home, the subject of six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon made it into the carpool conversation. The premise of the play "Six Degrees of Separation" that generated the Kevin Bacon game was that everyone in the world can be linked to anyone else in a chain of no more than six people. The Kevin Bacon game posits that any actor can be linked to any other actor through a chain of no more than six actors.

I told our carpool that I could link everyone in our carpool to Kevin Bacon by a chain of no more than six people:

Carpoolers ==> Casey ==> Kiyo Ushino (principal planner at VTA) ==> Gary Ushino (Kiyo's brother who is a cameraman in Hollywood who worked on the film "Old School") ==> Luke Wilson (who starred in "Old School" and "My Dog Skip") ==> Kevin Bacon (who also starred in "My Dog Skip")

I guess this is what is known as mindless trivia.

Naomi's 8th Birthday

Naomi has what's considered a good swim birthday. The cut-off for the swimming age groupings is June 15. This means that next year even though she will be 9 before the end of the season Naomi will still swim with the 7 and 8 year olds.

However, having a summer birthday when many families are setting off on their final vacation before school starts is no piece of cake. Further complicating matters for swimming families such as ours are the twice a week swim meets. This will be the second year in a row that Naomi's birthday party with friends will take place well into August.

This evening after a swimming team event at the swim club we bought pizza and a cake to have a small family celebration at home. Earlier in the day we went to the newly renamed Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. This was part of our birthday gift for Naomi along with the first two Harry Potter books. Yes, we're one of those families who had not yet been bitten by the HP bug.

We've been to Discovery Kingdom now on two consecutive weekends and have probably only seen about a third of the place. This is mainly because we've gotten late starts for both visits. The good thing is that it's only about 30 minutes away and we do have season passes so we'll likely be going back. They do have a new attraction featuring Thomas the Tank Engine. We (including Naomi) were slightly disappointed with Thomas Town. Maybe we were expecting too much, but it seemed to be geared to the under first grade crowd and was smaller than what we expected.

Taiko Drumming

Ryan says that he wants someone to teach him how to taiko drum after seeing video clips such as the following.

Weekday Evening in Golden Gate Park

Very seldom do we get a chance to spend time in Golden Gate Park on a weekday evening, but such was the case this past week when Dorothy attended a close friend's father's wake.

The first stop that we made was at Spreckles Lake as we entered the park on 25th Avenue from the Richmond District side. The evening was cool enough to warrant jackets. Ryan insisted on being pushed in his stroller. There was a flock of over 100 pigeons fussing over their evening meal. The kids could not resist the temptation to chase the pigeons who were more worried about not getting their share of the meal.

We came upon two groups of older men huddled for entertainment. "Look dominoes! They're playing chicken foot!"

It was dominoes, but not Chicken Foot, the variation of dominoes that our kids learned from the Portland Emotos. No, these men were playing for money. We didn't stay for too long. "Dad, let's go, I don't like the smoke."

So we continued our short walk around the lake, passing the same older couples that we had seen earlier who were walking counter-clockwise to our clockwise round trip. There was an occasional bicyclist, but mostly it was older couples, bundled, walking or resting on benches, speaking in Cantonese. Some would point to the kids and smile or wave, but I don't think the kids noticed.

The next stop was the buffalo paddock. We found the area with construction underway to install new fencing so the buffalo were all herded into a small area near the roadway. Ethan and Naomi were satisfied with seeing the large animals from the minivan, but Ryan wanted to get out so the two of us went out for a closer look. We counted seven buffaloes, a much lower number than what I expected. My recollection was a larger herd roaming the open field. There were some tourists who were also at the fence. They were speaking in German so I didn't know what they were saying, but I couldn't help wonder if they knew that what they were viewing was not the usual view of the buffalo.

We continued our journey down to Ocean Beach. I knew that Dorothy would be calling us soon so we didn't get out, but the kids were happy just to see the ocean and the waves rolling onto the beach.

We drove toward Geary Boulevard. The phone rang. It was Dorothy. The wake was over and she was ready to leave. Ryan reminded me that he wanted to see the shiny house. What he was referring to was the gold-domed Russian Orthodox church on Geary Boulevard. "Look, there it is!" exclaimed Ryan as we drove past the church.

Dorothy was in front of the mortuary chatting with old friends. We drove off trying to figure out where to eat dinner.

The Pink My Little Pony Backpack

We attended a Seattle Mariners game during our vacation. I think it was before the game started when we saw three or four of the bullpen pitchers making their way across the outfield to the bullpen. My sister tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Take a look at that." Strung across the shoulder of one of the pitchers was a pink backpack. We all chuckled. I think someone even said, "It must be a gift from his daughter."

A recent article in SI explains the pink backpack. It is actually a symbol of the older pitchers "schooling" the younger pitchers on the ins and outs of MLB pitching. J.J. Putz, the Mariners' closer, and another "older" (J.J. is only 30) pitcher on a trip to Oakland enlisted a clubhouse attendant to find a pinker roller bag for the younger pitchers responsible for carting around the requisite munchies (e.g., chewing gum, sunflower seeds, PowerBars, and I'm sure other assorted snacks) for the bullpen. The attendant came back with the My Little Pony bag, which perfectly fit the bill.

So now the bag is passed between Brandon Morrow (former Cal pitcher) and two other rooks, depending on who is on a hot streak. So if you happen to catch a Mariners game and see a pitcher with a pink backpack, you'll now know that it's more than just a pink backpack. Who knows, if you ask for a PowerBar out of the bag, maybe they'll toss you one.

Math Magic

I remember seeing something like this in a Japanese math exercise book that our parents got for us when we were kids. I didn't totally understand it because the book was all in Japanese. It looked kind of interesting, but I wondered if it was really faster to do multiplication this way as compared to the traditional approach taught in school. Now here is a video that shows the entire method.