The man who biked across Canada

Posted on September 26, 2011 by Yukari

Last week, I had a privilage of meeting Ryo Ambe, Japanese man who cycled across Canada.

I didn’t know anything about his trip until I got an email from Mike Abe, president of Victoria Nikkei Cultural Society, and well respected leader in Japanese-Canadian community in Victoria. Soon after that, I found Ryo on Twitter and made contact with him. And I attended the press conference at the city hall the next day.

There were about 20 people gathered, most of them wearing Support Japan T-shirts. Ryo talked about his trip and showed us some slides from his massive photo collection.

Unfortunately, I was unable to accompany the group of cyclists to Mile Zero, Ryo’s official goal of this trip, but you can see the clip from CTV here.

The next day I took Ryo out to lunch at Daidoco (Best Japanse lunch spot in Victoria in my opinion) and got to chat about his experience.

Ryo used to work at the department store Isetan. But after losing his friend to cancer,who told him to follow his dreams, and after the 311 earthquake and Tsunami, he decided to come to Canada, his favourite country, and bike across it from Halifax to Victoria to thank the people in Canada for their support. He started in May, and arrived in Victoria in late September. That’s 7900Km!

We talked about a lot of different things, my living in Canada, his experience in Canada….we both agreed that this is a very fine country.

He is going back to Japan in October, and hopes to do another quick bike trip in Taiwan, which also helped Japan so much after the disaster, to thank the people there.

He also said he wants to write a book about his ride in Canada. Good luck Ryo!

You can read his blog (mostly in Japanese) here. http://transcontinentaldiary.blogspot.com/

Some days..

Posted on August 27, 2011 by Yukari

Have you ever done Myers-Briggs Personality Test?
According to the test, I am a type ENFJ, meaning I tend to have following qualities – (E)Extrovert, (N)Intuition (F)Feeling (J) Judging.

But as my friend Jamie once told me, I’m an Introverted Extrovert. I like to go out and meet people and be social, but at the same time, some days I hate people.

Past few weeks I have been feeling introverted. I was frustrated and disappointed with few of my friends, acquaintances, and colleagues.
I was watching the film Norwegian Wood, (Hoping to do a blog post on this book as it’s one of the most important books in my life), and there is a scene where Midori asks Toru, the protagonist;

Midori: You enjoy solitude? Travelling alone, eating alone, sitting by yourself in lecture halls…
Toru: Nobody likes being alone that much. I don’t go out of my way to make friends, that’s all. It just leads to disappointment.

.. I couldn’t agree more.

Some days, I get tired of meeting other people’s needs (great post by Chris Brogan on this topic here).
Some days, I feel like nobody cares about my needs.
Nobody cares about your success and happiness. All they care about is their own.
That’s why, you need to be strong, you need to believe in yourself and work hard to make yourself happy.

But then again, some days I feel so fortunate to have many great friends and opportunities.
Last night and this morning were couple of those days.
I’m grateful for these days. They are like a little treasure, like a beautiful sea glass in sand.

What I Wish More People Knew About Me

Posted on July 6, 2011 by Yukari

I just read Amber‘s latest blog post and had to write it myself. If you haven’t yet, I highly recommend you go read it here first.

I met Amber last month at Social Media Camp. I’ve written about my experience at SMCV11 here, but there was definitely something about her that I really liked. When I read her post today I got kind of teary. Something about the post struck a chord with me. Maybe that is why I really like her.I can honestly say I had a really great time with her at SMCV11. I do hope to see her again soon.

So here is my “What I Wish More People Knew About Me” list.

Like Amber, I fear that people might think I’m just so self absorbed to write a post like this. But as I was trying to create the list, I realized, for me, this is more like a confession than just a list of things I wish people knew about me.

You see, I have written many times here about my journey to live wholehearted life and to embrace vulnerability. I am completely “nobody” -I am not a social media rock star or published author or anything. (With due respect to all those people). I am just this Japanese girl who spend way too much time on social media. So why do I have to have a list like this? Because I want to be honest about who I am.

Some are totally random, and some you might already know. But here goes;

-Friendships are one of the most important things in my life.

This is probably not a surprise to many of you, but I am a very emotional person. I make decisions based on my gut feeling. When I make friends, I don’t do that just because the person is nice, but rather because I’m attracted to the person. I do have great friends and every day I am grateful for them, and quite often I cry, thinking about them. No joke.

-I feel that I am never smart enough.

There are so many things I do not understand in this world and I do feel insecure that I’m not smart enough. Not smart enough to be a business owner. Luckily, I am a very optimistic(you might call it something else) person, so usually this does not limit me. But yes, I feel this way all the time.

-Ethics and fairness are important to me.

I cannot stand unfairness. I hate cheating. I’m only human, and sometimes I hate something/somebody so much. But when I attack, I always attack fairly. If you have something to say, say it to my face. I don’t like confrontations, but I loathe backstabbing even more.

I believe in good in people and I am attracted to good people, rather than cool or smart people.

-I love miniature houses and such.

When I grow old, I am SO collecting those miniature Christmas village. When I turn 65, I’ll start accepting them as birthday gifts.

-I am a big fan of Haruki Murakami.

I read all of his books. I read Norwegian Wood when I was 13 and I still re-read them. Such beautiful, and sad story. I am very very excited to see the movie. My first born son’s Japanese name is Haruki. This was back in 1997 and Internet wasn’t that crazy yet, so I got to email him directly and told him that I named my son after him. I did receive a reply, and he said “Congratulations, your son will be a very healthy, and forgetful boy”.

-I’m kind of a loner.

I don’t mind being alone. Recently I took the Myers-Briggs test and I am ENFJ- meaning I am an extrovert. But my friend Jamie called me “Introverted Extrovert”, which is so true! I love going out on the town and have fabulous time, but at the same time I’m happy sitting at home alone in front of the computer, or read.

-I love Sex and the City.

Duh. My TV taste is very boring….no Glee or True Blood or Game of Thrones…I’m perfectly happy watching SATC reruns. I know it’s a chick show, but their writing is SO good, and so much truths in the show….on life, relationships, friendship and more.

-I can be kind of a snob.

I just talked about this on the latest Getting Engaged episode, but I hate making small talks with people. When I’m out and about, I have to admit, I am a bit of a snob. I don’t talk to cab drivers, cashiers and servers. It’s not that I look down on them. Far from it. I am always polite, but I just rather be left alone sometimes. I find, maybe because I’m a bit different (meaning Japanese living in Canada? I really don’t know) people seem to ask me a lot of questions and sometimes I get tired of it.

This sort of leads into the next one…

-I LOVE words.

I love reading, and although I don’t think I’m particularly good at it, I enjoy writing. I love getting any form of messages in writing- letters, emails, text messages. I love good quotes(I’m guilty of those quote tweets) and write many down to memorize. Words are so important to me, and I love words of affirmation. (That is my love language if you know the book)

This is all I could think of for now. I’d love to see your list too. Please comment or email me.

Going Bare for Cancer

Posted on August 27, 2010 by Yukari

I’ve written in my last post how this fall is going to be a busy one. This post is about one of my projects this fall.

Yesterday I did a nude photo shoot for Babes Go Bare for Cancer 2011 Calendar.
Last year, Trish, this amazing young and courageous woman organized Babes Go Bare and 12 women posed for the calendar AND they shaved their heads afterwords. I sponsored the calendar and also bought several copies to donate as door prizes for an event.

The fundraiser was so successful Trish decided to do it again this year- but this time, it’s co-ed.
I volunteered to be in the calendar this year, just for the fun of it at first, but soon I found out my dad had a pancreas cancer(He had Hodgkin’s disease before as well), it all became very relevant to me.
Only thing I wasn’t sure about was head shaving part….I just can’t do it. I have talked to Trish, and almost bowed out, since this project is about posing bare AND shaving head…..but Trish said I could be in the calendar if I could find 3 people as my proxies. And it looks like I did find 3. Thank you, @GDGeek, @MMI_Heather, and @Unclespeedo!!! I am eternally grateful.

And I am honored to share a month with Eshu Martin, a Zen monk. Yes, Eshu and I were both completely naked when we did the shoot! Isn’t that hilarious?
It all stated when the photographer of the calendar, very talented and beautiful Veronique da Silva posted on her Facebook wall about Babes Go Bare project. Lots of people commented on it, and I believe one of them was by Eshu. I sent Eshu a message suggesting that he should also pose for the calendar. He replied to me, “Ha ha, the day I am considered a “babe” is the day I’ll pose.” I told him that this year it’s going to be co-ed and that he should totally apply!
I mentioned this to Trish and she loved the idea. Only problem was, there were so many people wanting to be in this year’s calendar, some of the months had to be shared by more than one person. Trish asked me if I minded sharing with Eshu.. what can I say, if I choose one guy to be naked with, that had to be a monk, right?

I met Eshu just over 2 years ago, when I was still pregnant with my younger son (he just turned 2.) At the time, I literally felt lost in my life, and a friend told me about his Zen open house at Uvic’s Interfaith Chapel. Now, I am not a religious person, but being Japanese, and having practiced Cha-do(Japanese tea ceremony), the idea of Zen came quite naturally to me.
I showed up one day, all by myself and pregnant, and met Eshu, he gave us all first-timers some tips on how to sit and meditate, and…the rest is history.
He is one of those guys who is impossible not to like. After the sitting, we all sat around and introduced ourselves….and I still remember the feeling I had listening to other people’s story there, it was almost life changing. I was recently re-telling this story to a friend, and it still brought me to tears thinking about that night. (It’s a too long a story to tell here, ask me in person if you are interested.)
Soon after that I gave birth to my son, and I lost all the free time I had, and I haven’t been back to the sitting. But we kept in touch through Facebook and Twitter.

When I showed up at the studio, I was quite nervous, especially when I saw the Check TV crews for the interview(!). But eventually they left, my hair&makeup done, and I took everything off.

The shoot was a blast. It was full of laughs, and at the same time very peaceful. I am very happy with the shot Eshu and I did, and I cannot wait for the calendar to be ready-supposedly in October-I will make sure to post here when it’s ready.