Home Summer Vacation

It used to be our annual vacation getaway to travel to Hawaii to escape from the chilliness and monotonous life of the Bay Area. The new home in Los Angeles has made our life so much more bearable in the lockdown situation this year but as the pandemic continues, it's getting harder not being able to travel to your favorite destinations and home countries to see our families. We won't be able to go anywhere far this year so we decided to take a week off in July to relieve some of our stresses that have been accumulated over the past months.

We continued to spend our weekends renovating our home. The best thing we did this year was probably our backyard renovation. When we moved in, it was wild and inaccessible. Our hill side was unimaginably sloped, and if you dare, you could almost slide from the top to bottom.

Nicolai is not just a tech expert but also quite a builder at home. He built two sets of long stairs leading to the middle of our backyard slope. They have given us easier access to the flatter land at the base.

We spent quite some time thinking what to plant, how to bring down good soil, and carry down all the stuff we needed. We packed soil in a bunch of small bags and threw them off the top. After we cultivated the land, we planted a pluot tree, peach tree, cara cara orange tree, lime tree, and lastly a lemon tree. It took some time for the trees to root into the ground. Some are doing great and and some have struggled to settle in.

After the fruit trees being planted, I suddenly wanted to grow cut flowers on my own. Flowers are expensive to buy. So, why don't we grow them on our own? We planted Zinnia and Dahlia from the seeds.

While we waited for our garden to mature and grow, we made a special house party just for ourselves. Ideally it would be wonderful to invite friends and neighbors but sadly it wasn't going to happen this year. Maybe a distancing coffee time can be okay but sharing food seemed a bit challenging. As you can see, we made a Hawaiian party, one of the places we miss visiting. Our families and friends compliment us on our enthusiasm for always pursuing authenticity of things, especially when it comes to food. We try our best to do research and make it as real as possible. We cooked Kalua pork using banana leaves, octopus poke, papaya salad, and chocolate mochi cake for dessert.

I bought a Hawaiian decoration set and Leis for all of us to wear. Uni got a little one too. Surprisingly she didn't mind wearing it at all for the entire evening. It rather made her more quiet and less barky.

A month later, we got one flower ready for pruning. Our hill side is very sandy and dry most of the time so it was challenging for the flowers to grow fast. Luckily one took off and made the beautiful purple flower. And it looks like there are more to come.

It's fun to see on Instagram and other social medias, how people creatively spend their pandemic time at home. Camping in the backyard, an outdoor movie night, growing veggies and fruits, baking and cooking..... I'm thinking how we can be more imaginative and live with Corona the next coming months.

Greetings in Japanese

皆さんパンデミックはどうお過ごしでしょうか。最初のロックダウンが３月に行われて早６ヶ月が過ぎました。そろそろ、実家が恋しくなり、遠いいところまで旅でたい欲求が強くなってきたこの頃です。

今までクリエイティブに過ごしてきた来た日々もマンネリ化しつつあり、ストレスも溜まってきた７月。私達は、一週間有給を取って自由に時間を過ごすことに決めました。

週末に少しずつやってきたガーデニングプロジェクトも一気に進め、近場のパサデナへ出かけたり、お家で自分たちだけでハワイアンパーティーをするなど、なかなか充実した日々は過ごせたかなと思います。先は長そうですが、これからやってくるハロウィン、サンクスギビング、クリスマスをどう楽しく過ごせるか模索中です。