Sorry...Blogging for the whole month didnt work.

Hi everyone, I am sorry that I haven't been keeping up with my daily blogs. I had a bad month of February, due to my dental health. Been in so much pain since my birthday. From a Dental extraction the Saturday after my birthday til 2 root canals today. The pain was so bad, felt like I was going to die from it, either that or over dosing on pain meds. I am fine now.

For my day today, spent about a little over an hour at the Hollywood Forrest Lawn cemetery, trying to find my Great Grand parents graves, had the directions but couldn't find them. I guess I will go back another day with my wife and try searching again. I did find a family friend though, who was a oil painter and a friend to one of my great Aunts. Later today, My friend Jj and I went to the Alexandria II Bookstore in Pasadena and I found an old friend of mine who is a Buddhist Monk, there looking at the books. I haven't seen him since my Temple's O'bon festival years ago.
Well, this is it for now. Need to get my rest.

Little Tokyo Mall...R.I.P My old Friend

One of my favorite restaurants in Little Tokyo, I was told that they will not be closing down.

This past Sunday, the day after Valentine's Day. My wife, my mom and I made a depressing trip to Little Tokyo for Lunch. This Time I decided to go check out for myself about what happened at the Little Tokyo Mall. Once known to all as Yaohan Plaza. It was a sad site to see, all my favorite stores are now closed and empty with for Lease signs up. I was upset when I heard that some Korean Business men have bought the mall and that they are kicking all the Japanese Merchants out to be replaced with Korean shops instead. My favorite Japanese market was replaced by a Korean one. Normally I have no problem with Koreans, but I wished they would stay in there own neighborhood, Since they have their own Korea Town.

You noticed in one of my earlier posts about how Little Tokyo has changed, with all the new high cost condos going up, and stores like Office Depot, Johnny Rockets, Quiznos, and Starbucks . Plus I see more Korean Barbeque's and Boba places popping up too.

I am also pissed off about the lack of parking in the area too, this is mainly the fault of the new condos going up. I remember the days of old when they used to have the Nisei Week carnival in the lot across from JACCC, late into the night. I also miss the annual Spring Festival that JANM used to have before the new building was built. I know that things change and about impermanence...but our J-Towns are disappearing, we need to save what we have left for our future generations.

Below are some pictures of what used to be Yaohan Plaza in Little Tokyo.

Above was the Japanese Bookstore, where one can buy books in Japanese, as well as Manga and Magazines. Below are various pictures of the emptiness. The first picture shows the Clock tower gone. Pics of what used to be the bowling alley, and of empty store fronts.





This one I think is staying too.

Memories of Benjamin Franklin High School

Above, Dan Auiler : Franklin Press Advisor and Teacher circa 1989'

Today's blog is about High School memories, of Friends who are not forgotten. It's been 17 years since I graduated from Franklin. Class of 1991', The Illuminati. Ever since I joined facebook, I have been trying to gather all the friends I knew into one place. Found friends that I haven't heard from or seen in years, outside my little group of friends. I just posted a bunch of pictures, I took out of my yearbooks, too bad the ones i wanted to post came out too blurry from my small digital camera. At times like this I wished I still had a scanner.

Out of all my friends I have found, I am glad that I am still friends with my Highschool Journalism teacher/mentor and friend, Dan Auiler. If it wasn't for his incouragement during those years at Franklin, I would have never started writing. I have been trying to get my poetry published ever since, but with all my rejection notices in the past, I pretty much left them on the back burner until the time is right.

I wished I had more pictures of myself from those years and the years I worked as a Volunteer at JANM....I have more pictures that I have taken then I do of myself. If anyone has any pics of me, from Highschool on, please post them to facebook or send me copies...

Some of my favorite things...Photo Blog

Some of my favorite things in Life...This will be a photo blog.

My Love, my wife Phuong...

My Buddhist Temple Higashi Honganji..Photo taken from online.

My best friends from High school. John, Diane, Alex and Cynthia...

My Temple Family..in pic Ted Hamachi...

My East West Players Volunteer friends...Community Activist Years

Long time friends in pic, Mark Jue and Billy Wing.

My Brother Joe...

My Native American Heritage, Photo is from the Gathering of Nations Pow Wow, 2007.

My best friend, Ching Chikara Wong...

Ghost Hunting with my friend Jeff Lam: Co-Founder of the JL & Associates Paranormal Investigations group..

Another pic of Jeff Lam

Temple hopping with my wife...

Well, I just wanted to show some of my pics from my life so far..things I like to do, and who I like to spend time with...Can't beat good friends...

My Birthday

This will be short tonight, since I am not feeling too good. I got a free 2fer yesterday at Disneyland. It rained most of the day and went on a few rides. Didn't get what I wanted for a Birthday present, I wanted a new Hooded Disney jacket but they didn't have any good ones like my old one that broke. Here are 2 pics from yesterday. I had emailed myself a pic from the Buzz light year ride, but unfortunately I erased it by mistake this morning.

Notice the hat Phuong had me wear all day, it says Happy Birthday, with my name on the back.

Phuong

Feb 7th...and Today

Sorry for not writing yesterday, I had a really bad toothache and went to bed early...Today I spent all day at Disneyland for my 37th Birthday, so I will be back to writing my blogs regulery tomorrow.

Rain Rain Go Away...Come back after my Birthday..

Tonight's blog is going to be short. It's been raining the past 2 days. Been pouring down, making me sick again. I normally love the rain, because we need it. I love walking in the rain and singing in the rain...well not really since I cant sing..lol I miss all the rain we used to get when I was little. This year I can get into Disneyland free on my birthday. I know that I am turning 37 but I am still a kid at heart. Was planning on riding the haunted mansion ride over and over again, but cant now since its closed for major refurbishment, Just hope they don't screw it up too badly. So rain today, rain tomorrow, dry Sunday they say, and rain all next week. Lets hope the Gods are in my favor and let me have a dry Birthday at the Happiest place on earth. I will leave you with a pic from a few years ago from at Disneyland.





Me at Disneyland 2 years ago...

The past 20 Years...Where am I now?

Looking back at the last twenty years, I came a long way. But where am I now? Back in 1988, I was in the 9 th grade and 17 years old. My mom and I started going to the Higashi Honganji Buddhist Temple and around that time we some how signed up to be volunteers with the Japanese American National Museum, when they had a small exhibit upstairs in the Japanese village plaza, upstairs up above where the frozen yogurt place is now. When that happened, it was a start to my community activist years. I had made dozens of new friends along the way. It really cemented my interests into the Japanese culture. Some of my Japanese American friends tell me that I am more Japanese then they are. Even though I grew up around Asians, and Native Americans, I became pretty much what I am today.

With JANM in the beginning, I still remember working on the Spark Matsunaga exhibit, Since I had written an article for the museum newsletter. I had alot of memories volunteering at the museum, all the life long friends I still know today, and recently found again on facebook. Then in 1992 the year after I graduated from Franklin High, my Temple YABA group sent me to Japan for the Dobo Convention. One of the older members from West Covina Buddhist Temple, became my father figure since then, because my father died when I was 7. His name is Ted Hamachi, we became really close. We used to go out to eat lunch alot after that but lately since he is up there in his years, we only see each other during our Annual O'bon festival. I was 20 when I went to Japan, Now this coming Sunday I will be 37. So that's a full 20 years since all this started.

So where am I now? I will get to this a little bit later on in this blog. From that time I went to Japan, I was also apart of a few other non profit organizations in Little Tokyo, through the years this is what I have done: Volunteered with A3m, AISAREMA/Disorient, JACCC, JACL-APAN, Higashi Honganji YABA, Zenshuji Zazenkai, and JANM. Outside of Little Tokyo, I worked with the Los Angeles Friends of Tibet, and the Pasadena Friends of Tibet. To my clubs at Pasadena City College, Started out in the Chinese Student Association, was on the staff of the Asian Student Coalition, then to me founding the PCC Buddhist Association.

So 20 years later, now married, I am still active at Higashi Honganji. My wife and I helped out at East West Players a few times. I would like to start to be active again in Little Tokyo, before the town I grew up in disappears. Parts of Little Tokyo are changing, and I don't think its for the better. Yaohan plaza, became the Little Tokyo mall and now is turning into a Korean Mall, My favorite stores and restaurants are closing down. The old look of Little Tokyo, in my opinion changed when new stores like Office Depot, 2 Starbucks, Quiznos and new condos popping up. The small J-town feel is almost gone. I am going to be 37, and hope what we have left will still be there when I turn 80. Ending here on a sad note....I miss it

So where am I now? I am back to where I have started, back in J-Town...Little Tokyo, the place I have always called Home.

Me and Ted

Higashi Honganji O'bon 2007

Some of my favorite Haunted Places.

Grave site in Old Town San Diego, CA
What do you see in the center of the pic?

Jeff Lane and Jeff Lam on
Suicide Bridge in Pasadena, CA

Jeff Lam in front of

The Cobb Estate in Altadena, CA

Ghost's of the past...

Ghost's of the past, Tonight's topic is about my interests in ghost hunting, history and peoples lives of the past. I recently started my own ghost hunting group that I helped founded with my best friend. JL & Associates Paranormal Investigations.

It all started 20 years ago when I first started volunteering with the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles. I got interested in people's life stories when I worked the Internment camp computer in the legacy center. Hearing the painful stories of life in camp. I would like to go back to Manzanar, and look for the ghosts of our past. Ghosts of those who never made it out. The dead can tell us a lot about their stories. I would like to do a photo journal of the ghosts of manzanar, that's if anyone would allow me to do it.

I want to learn more about the history of the people who went before us, want to find proof of the afterlife and why those who decide to forgo the pure land and cling to the earthly plane. Are they staying around to teach us their stories, so we will never forget the atrocities of war. Has anyone ever thought about the ones who were left behind, the ones who never got the chance to passover? Has anyone ever thought about the ghosts of Manzanar? This will be one of my goals in the months or years to come, to get their stories told. Would anyone be interested in joining my group and helping me with this?

I will write more about this later on...

My Life Without Tivo

I wish I had a Tivo box, so I can watch my shows and not worry about missing an episode. Just got a HD TV converter box last month, so far I am ready for the switch from analog to digital. Unlike most people, I still don't have cable. Been watching my favorite shows online, like Ghost Hunters, Ghost Hunters International and Paranormal State. But unfortunately They don't put new episodes up, only one or two every few weeks. What am I to do?

Lately, I have been addicted to Korean dramas on channel 44, and recently got my wife hooked on to it too. This one series is on every Mon through Friday at 8:30pm, and its only on for a half hour. I don't know why I like these dramas so much, my friends think I am crazy because I cant live with missing an episode. I always watched Japanese dramas on KSCI ch 18, since I was in Jr. High and it was a way for me to practice understanding Japanese. I think this is the reason why I understand the language then I do with speaking it. Now with the Korean Drama, I really want to learn Korean now.

I'm sorry these postings seem to be short, but when I get the hang of this, I will write longer postings...To a point where you wont be able to shut me up...lol

My Unemployment and our hard struck economy..

It all started in December, When I called my regular Seasonal job at Sees Candies, to See when I was to start for the Xmas season. They told me that they didn't need me this season, because they were also so hard hit with this bad economy. Said that they are going to train the cashiers to do stock instead of a separate stock person. I was devastated, This job I had for over 6 years as the seasonal stock clerk. I always looked forward to working, and for my discount on the candy. Can't beat $10.00 an hour.

You know, how hard it is too find a job, when all the places are either closing down or having huge layoffs? I was finally able to get unemployment, after a few months of dire poverty. Had trouble applying due to some identity problems with the EDD. They didn't think I was who I was saying I am. Oh well, In order to keep getting my unemployment I have to be actively looking for work, but I have been trying, Problem is no one is calling me back. Its a good thing my wife is working full time, if not we wouldn't be serviving. Well, this is it for today. Tomorrow is a new day, see you all then. Peace

I am hoping on the Dream that President Obama still has, I will give it a year to see if the economy picks up. I am praying that it does, hopefully soon.
Peace