Background is stamped with Versamark Inkadinkado leaves and brayered over with some inks that were horribly bright and 80's looking--not the beautiful fall colors I thought they would be. So then I swiped over the whole thing with my pumpkin ink pad to tone it down so I could like the colors better! it took away the brightness of the magenta and teal and softened the leaves. Then I stamped with gold brilliance swirls (Aud Designs) but they didn't show up as well as I liked so I outlined them with a sepia glaze pen. I thought it needed an edge so I trimmed and mounted on some metallic yellow-gold CS. Gold vellum leaf and gold CS ornaments are punched out and embellished with the same glaze pen for contrast. The photo is of my grandfather in the 20's--I sanded it and used paper glaze to add some dimension (and ended up with a strange halo around my GP!)
The best part about Marukai is the new place in the food-court: Beard Papa's. If you ever go to Tokyo, you will find their delectable cream puffs in the train stations. We got addicted to them there, but had no idea they were coming to America! But it was our lucky day--Beard Papa's had just opened that week and we were the lucky people who got to have some! Yummy yum! They fill the cream puffs right when you order, so they are not soggy or stale. They use fresh, excelent-quality ingredients so they are oh-so-good!
After our snack, we headed to South Coast Plaza, the big side this time. Above is a picture of Manami posing as she walks into the door of Nordstrom's for the first time! South Coast Plaza was one of the main destinations that she wanted to see on her trip. The mall is so famous that many Japanese Salarymen sign up for a special tour to the US to see it. They spend 5 days in the states and see San Francisco, South Coast Plaza and Vegas. SCP is a full day of their trip and we often see buses full of tourists carrying their many purchases from the expensive stores that we don't even walk into because they're so pricey! 
Woo hoo! It's Saturday and a 3-day weekend for me! We had breakfast at Champagne's cafe at South Coast Plaza's Crystal Court and then do a little shopping. Manami especially liked the Illuminations store with all the beautiful candles!
I had to work on Wednesday, but we all met for lunch at the Rainforest Cafe in South Coast Plaza. I just love going to that place to see all the tropical fish and their Disneyland atmosphere is fun too! We met Shaun and Rhett and had such a fun time. I almost always get the Buffalo Chicken Salad and this time was no exception! You can see a picture of Johnny with a huge chimichanga--he's gone 3 years with hardly any Mexican food, can you imagine!? We all split the Volcano for dessert--a huge brownie sundae with a sparkler on top. We all yell Volcano-ooh! as it comes out!
Johnny and Manami land at LAX at around 3:00 in the afternoon, where Matt is there to pick them up. They get home and rest until I get home from work at 6. Then we are off to Huntington Beach Pier. We got to walk around for a minute and then we ate a fabulous dinner at Chimayo's, right on the beach! Afterwards, we had coffee with Nicky (Matt's brother) and went to Matt's sister's house to say "hi".
After we had seen Big Buddha, we walked around the park some and then went over to where there was going to be a special festival that night. It is called "Omizu-tori" which stands for "Water-Drawing Ceremony". I have no clue why they call it anything to do with water, because it is all about fire! (I apologize in advance for my blurry photos--it was the best I could get with my point-and-shoot. If you click on a photo you can see a larger version)
It was so very cold there and it was snowing agin! We got some hot drinks from a vending machine to keep warm. They sell hot coffe and chocolate in cans from the machines there. We bought a couple extra to put in our pockets, too! I was shivering and just about to freeze to death, but we really wanted to see the ceremony so we stayed! 
As soon as it got dark everything started. My giudebook says it's a very solemn occasion, but it really was more of a festival atmosphere. Especially once the fire started, there were so many "oohs!" and "aahs!" that I felt like I was at a Disneyland fireworks show! 
What happens is that a torch is carried up the stairs to the second floor of the temple. Then they run the torch along the balcony so everyone can see. When they get to the end, there is already another torch coming. As they carry it they periodically stop and shake the torch so the embers will fly off.
Now I know you're envisioning a small torch like Indianna Jones would carry, but this thing was huge. Big enough that I probably couldn't hold it! And there were times when baseball and melon-sized fireballs would fall to the ground with the embers. It truly was a spectacle.
Well, when I last left off we were still on day one of our trip to Japan. We were in Nara and I was arguing with the guys about big buddha. I swore the one we were looking at was terribly big and there's no way there would be a bigger buddha! Well was I ever wrong!
As we walked up the path of the complex I could tell it was something special. There were lots more people up there for one thing. And the entry gate was huge! It was guarded by a couple of forebooding wooden statues.
Todai-Ji is the world's largest wooden structure, according to the guidebook.
Big Buddha Himself. Notice the top of everyone's heads--Buddha is about seven feet higher than us. He's a 53-foot bronze Buddha. Daibutsu is the largest Bronze statue in the world and is 1,200 years old. It was really dark inside and it was snowing outside so there wasn't much sun to help with this photo. Sorry it's blurry.
I'm not quite sure what this represents--it is a statue in front of the entrance. If anyone knows--please share!
Thanks to the person who took a photo of the three of us--Matt, Lianna & Johnny!
