Yakudoshi time

When I think of this year's yakudoshi, I think of being in a plane crash, watching my uterus turn to dust, and having bird crap on me all on the same day.

(photo: the most unlucky group of people on the planet. Yakudoshi people waiting in line to be blessed)

It is slowly creeping up on me. It's almost my yakudoshi, aka bad luck year. Yakudoshi is an old Japanese belief that turning "33" will be a year filled with 'calamity and danger' (19 and 33 for girls, boys get their own crappy years, 25 and 42). Some people celebrate their yakudoshi when they turn 32,  some (those in Japan) celebrate when they turn 33, and some celebrate again when they are 34 to mark the end of surviving the yakudoshi. By "celebrate" I mean, "pray" and go to the temples more often. And depending where you are, I also mean "eat" and "be happy".

So why is turning 33 such a bad thing? Well in the old days, before vitamins, internet, a sense of equality, and prescription drugs, people noticed that women around 33 weren't quite what they used to be. Turning "33" is a yakudoshi year for women because it symbolized the last year of appropriate childbearing. Grrrr--reat! A big yakudoshi is traditionally held for the woman turning 33 because it would protect any child born after (because those babies could possibly end up stupid, ugly, and unlucky). Another reason is that Japanese the word "33" itself when pronounced means basically, shit out of luck.


The discrepancy in what age to celebrate lies in two things.   Japanese women in Japan tend to celebrate their yakudoshi when they are 33. Makes sense. However many people outside of Japan feel that when a Japanese person in Japan is 33 years old, she is really only 32 years old. This is because the counting birth years is different in Japan. Old style is that when you are born you are basically at "1" year, not "0". Hence the reasoning behind celebrating your yakudoshi at 32 in the West (by West, I mean Hawaii). 

Another reason why some celebrate their yakudoshi at 32 instead of 33 is the belief that the year before the yakudoshi (the maeyaku year) also tends to be rather shitty. Actually the year after can also be bad too, so that year has a name of it's own, the "atoyaku". Neat, huh? So I'm thinking I'm pretty safe to prepare for two years (at least) of fairly poor luck. So what's a girl supposed to do in order to prepare for her yakudoshi?

If i was in Hawaii I'd go get myself purified by a Shinto priest (excellent folks to be purified by). Living in the East Bay, however has left me with some very few options. I don't even know if it's celebrated here...At most will definitely have to make my way over to the Buddha Gate Monastery and sit with the monks and Abbess there. I like to go there and not tell them anything about myself. I don't know what's wrong with me. Can't they let me sit there and meditate in peace? Actually everyone there is very nice and while it is Chinese Buddhist Monastery, I might find the guts to ask one of the nuns about a superstitious Japanese custom. I believe though, traditionally you would go to temple, surround yourself with your friends and be happy. Everyone in attendance kind of agrees (by being present) that they will carry some of your bad luck for you. Perhaps I can also wrangle up a motley crew of unsuspecting folks and make them drink with me all the while divvying up my potential ill fortune among them.

 I think I'll wait until I turn 33 to "celebrate".

*Some information is from my childhood, some from "Japanese American history: an A-to-Z reference from 1868 to the present  By Brian Niiya, Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles, Calif.)"

Happy Brithday!

Today was Ans' b-day so we celebrated by spending the day at the beach. One of my favorite beaches on Oahu has to be Lanikai beach. The sand is so soft and if you go during the week day its pretty empty. But the fun thing was we swam out to Popoia Island from Kailua beach. Its a little less than half a mile swim to get there. Popoia Island is a bird sanctuary but there were a lot of dead birds scattered all over the island. I don't see a lot of dead birds so i'm not sure that goes first, but the dead birds on Popoia Island were freaky because only their wings were left....there were very few bird bodies left...just wings. Strange right? Besides the plethora of dead birds on the Bird Sanctuary Island I could find large deposits of salt crystals on the island. If you ever go there try to bring reef shoes because the island is very hot and the ground is very sharp in some places from the coral.

We also had dinner at Dick & Balls with Ans' family which ended up being very fun partially due to the amount of alcohol being consumed. The bartender took a liking to my husband and he got over 8 free drinks....and out of sheer luck i managed to hit the jackpot on skeeball. You learn things about people when you go to D &balls...like how high they can jump (or not jump) ...its very enlightening. The night ended with over 5,000 tickets and everyone getting finger shaped nose hair trimmers and farting pens.

How I Spent my Birthday

By now most people have heard that Hawaii had a significant earthquake on Sunday ("at 7:07, a 6.6 in the 808", as they are saying here). Yes it was a big earthquake and it was very long. The cat tried to kill himself by trying to jump out of the bedroom window. Luckily he was stopped by the glass and the screen. I also heard reports that people's pet fish also attempted jumping out of their fish tanks. All I remember was thinking at like, 7:06:56 (yes, I knew exactly what second it was) "Why am I up?" and then it hit. Then I remember saying, "I'm scared" to my hubby to which he replied, "Go back to bed". Almost right after he told me to go back to bed a second earthquake hit, much faster and shorter than the previous one. Okay, that's when I freaked out.

Once the shaking and rumbling stopped I ran downstairs to see about everyone else in the house (all in-laws, by the way) and to my embarrassment my mother in law kept saying she thought that I and her son were having "sexy sexy" and "crazies" up above her (our bedroom is right above hers). Meanwhile we are all verifying that we felt it and no one is hurt.

I think very short term, meaning, I really don't think. Everyone almost immediately said to go call my parents on the Big Island to check if they're okay. Oh, crap. There IS a volcano on that island. So I ran upstairs and called my mom and dad and they were laughing. My Dad said he thought that it was the end. That that's how they were going to "go", death by volcanic eruption. After I got off the phone, the power went off. A few minutes later I called my parents back to see if they were still okay. They told me that the mayor of Hilo had already said on the radio it was a 6.5 earthquake. I called my sister on the Mainland and she told me it was a 4.5 earthquake that they were reporting. I've been through enough earthquakes to know the difference between a 4 and 6...This was definitely not a 4. Strange how the information was behind and yet ahead. At least in California they were reporting something. But because they said it was a 4.5 my sister thought it was "nothing" even though I tried to tell her it was a "big one".

The worst thing about the whole situation is that it took Civil Defense in Honolulu took a full 30-40min to communicate via radio to the public what exactly had happened. It may not seem like a long time, but when you don't know what exactly is going on and you know we live in the 21st (? is that right? Aren't we supposed to be in flying cars by now?) century you think we could hurry things up a bit during an emergency. Maybe that's just me. Anyways, luckily I had called my parents and they could inform us that no tsunami was generated, which was the main concern. But for everyone else there was no news. And actually, the initial reports in Honolulu were not given by any officials, and it for the first 4 to 5 hours no specific information about the power situation could be given. Maybe they kept us in the dark to dampen any rioting. I don't know. I do know that only a handful of supermarkets where open hours after the quake and they were escorting people into the store one by one by flashlight. You could only buy things with cash and you had to wait outside until it was your turn. The mall near my house was actually pretty organized and within 2 hours at least, we noticed they had sealed off the entire mall and had security patrolling like crazy. I find it hard to believe that HECO could not even comment or suggest that the power would be out for so long.

But since it was my birthday, my family had previously made arrangements for dinner at The Kahala
(was the Kahala Mandarin hotel). This is the hotel where presidents from all over the world stay at when they have a lay over or they are visiting the islands and it's only like 5 min. away from us. When we got to the hotel we found that they were turning away their own hotel guests at the restaurant and were only taking people with reservations. They opened up another room in the hotel and made makeshift tables for the overflow. It was really strange because there really was no overflow since they were rejecting everyone. I guess because they had put in the effort to make a second dining area they put some people in there, like us. The makeshift dining area was very stuffy and you had to carry your buffet food across the patio from the restaurant to your seat. It was awkward because they would have angry people yelling at the front of the restaurant about how they should be served and that this was an emergency and then you'd have to walk by them with a plate full of food. I believe the hotel told everyone without reservations that the earliest they could take people would be 9pm. I heard a lot of people take the 9pm slot...Dinner was $300+ for 6 people.

All in all it was a peaceful day. Very relaxing and the weather was cool. Lately it has been very hot here, but on Sunday it was breezy and cloudy. Thanks to everyone who checked in on us! My phone was dying and it was very difficult during the whole day to get calls through. Texting worked great though, something to remember next time. A fourth earthquake hit this morning on the Big Island but it was much smaller. I belive we've had something over 68 aftershocked since Sunday. My mother in law is planning on selling her second car now and investing in a generator and emergency supplies. We were poorly prepared for Sunday's events but better off than many other people. It would have been a difference situation if the power was out longer or if we didn't have running water. I think we were really lucky.

Martinis on me!

Because today Allcarbon listed me as a "cool blog". I feel pretty special. and when i figure out how to put Allcarbon on my blog as a link (under the profile) i will most certainly do so. seriously, how do you make your blog look so hip (read "hot" but someone told me not to say "hot" as in "your blog is so hot" because it makes people uncomfortable...).


this is a statue of old naked people- the word "hot" does not come to mind in any way. are they tucking?

will post more later- it is A's 28th b-day today! he is somewhere over the pacific ocean _right_ now...