phew! eric’s wedding was on saturday and was a lot of fun. the weather was perfect and the ceremony and reception were beautiful. the ceremony was at the wayfarer’s chapel in palos verdes and when i got home i felt compelled to watch “the oc” season finale for season 1: the ties that bind and the finale for season 2: the beloved, both which featured the same church for julie and caleb’s wedding and then caleb’s funeral respectively. (i might just have to upload those clips)

i ended up getting pretty drunk at the reception, but my wife kept me in line and prevented me from making too much of a fool of myself. there was speeches and dancing and all the typical wedding fanfare.

congratulations eric and tina!

here are a couple pics from my camera:

http://ishigooka.com/photos/campdoras_wedding/

and if you want the actual images, you can grab them here:

http://ishigooka.com/photos/campdoras_wedding/images

you’d think, having gotten married this year, that the busiest day of my year would have already happened. i knew that there was gonna be a lot to do yesterday, but i didn’t realize quite how much. i woke up at around 7a to take takako to the dmv to take the written driving test (she has an international license, but has to go through the whole process to get a california one). so we get to the dmv a bit after 8a and do the usual dmv waiting (even though we had appointments, grr). i decided since i was already gonna have to wait at the dmv, that i’d take a motorcycle test at the same time.

well, first off, i failed the damn motorcycle test. there were some stupid questions with diagrams that didn’t make sense and i thought most of the questions would be a bit more intuitive. the scary part is that i had to take the driving test again too, since i was technically renewing my license. luckily i passed that one. i wonder if my license would’ve been revoked if i hadn’t? taka passed her test, but they wouldn’t issue her a permit since she didn’t have a ssn yet… grr.

early that morning, taka got a call about a job interview, and i figured since i was already that late to work, that i could take her there right then. so i drop her off at this place in torrance, and then drove up to redondo beach to have lunch with eric and his family. an hour later, i drive back down to torrance to pick her up and then drive to the social security office in torrance. stupid government places with their hour long waits… anyway, she got an ssn and can now do just about anything a citizen can, so things’ll get a bit easier from here out.

by now it’s like 3pm and i just give up on going to work. i had these coupons for harbor freight that expires this weekend, so i went to their lakewood store and bought: a pipe cutter, a grommet set, a hole-saw set, a 7×9′ tarp, 12 pairs of gloves, a scraper, 4 wire brushes, and screw driver set for $16.05, score! we then do weekly grocery shopping at ralphs and i drop taka off at the apartment and head to my mom’s, where costin picks me up to go to eric’s wedding rehearsal.

we go pick up our tux’s, and then head to the church is palos verdes. as we’re coming around a blind corner in super-dark palos verdes, we see a truck flipped on its side, blocking the #2 lane. a couple of cars have already stopped, but since we’re an suv of 5 young dudes, we pull over to help out. a couple of guys went over to the car to see if the guy was ok, which he apparently was, but stuck… we called 911, and i and some other dude were trying to flag cars down before the blind turn. there were tons of close of calls since the car that flipped had come up the embankment and kicked up lots of lose gravel. after about 10 minutes, the cops came and parked their crusier across both lanes with their lights flashing, but the next car to come around the corner was an mta bus that just barely avoided hitting the police car. the poor bus driver was pumping the brakes like crazy, and stopped about a foot away. anyway, the fire department came soon afterwards and cut the guy outta his car and he appeared to ok. he was stumbling around, but i have no idea if he was drunk or just woozy from the accident.

the rest of the wedding party was a bit late to the rehearsal since that obviously snarled traffic pretty bad for everyone that was behind it. afterwards we had dinner at pf changs in redondo beach and i finally got home at about 12.

damn, it makes me tired just thinking about it and i’m retaking that retarded motorcycle test on monday :)

on saturday taka and i hit the gym. she got a 2 week pass to the ballys near our apartment to check it out and we had a surprisingly strong workout. we did a chest workout together and then she did legs while i did tri’s. we spent about an hour on weights and then we ran a 8 minute mile together. she’s become really good at spotting me and knowing how much to help, and she’s stronger and is more athletic than i imagined. i still need to be a bit careful because if i fail completely, she prolly wouldn’t be able to prevent my death, but i’m pretty sore today, so the workout was good.

there were a lot more on there than i had realized, so i went ahead and upped them to ishigooka.com.

check them out here.

well, while all of my friends took hundreds of great photos, they didn’t snap off too many at the wedding itself. luckily there was a professional photographer and there’ll be hundreds of them to come. until then, here’s taka and i in some of our crazy costumes:

here’s the receiving line, right after the ceremony. the lady’s actually takako’s servant. not sure where my butler was… maybe he was taking the picture.

a few minutes after the reception started, takako changed into a pink kimono, and took off the egg. it’s interesting, because that kimono was actually under the white one, so they could do a quick stage-change:

half way through the ceremony, we both changed into american wedding clothes. (from left to right) taka’s mom, dad, taka, me, my dad, mom and sis:

and the homies (mike, i only see your left eyebrow):

this japan trip was a fucking blast. we all got along really well, and the wedding and associated experiences were amazing. i’ll let the pictures do the talking once we get all of them. at the wedding alone, there were probably about 5000 pictures taken. there wasn’t a moment when camera flashes weren’t going off. takako looked amazing in all 3 of her dresses, and of course all my friends looked sharp as hell. thanks to those of you that flew the 5000 miles to be there, and everyone for their continued support. *lots* of pictures and funny ass stories coming soon…

here’s one of the few pics that were on my camera. if you look close you can see that i’m actually wearing a wedding band!

from weddingbee.com

There has been a flurry of people getting married in countries like Korea and China who follow the lunar calendar. Why?

Our current lunar year is considered to be a particularly auspicious year to get married, because it has two lunar springs (spring is a lucky time for starting a family). Adjacent years to 2006 called “widow years,” are also considered to be particularly unlucky years because they do not have any lunar springs. And 2006, the year of the dog, is a good year for marriage while 2007, the year of the pig, is considered to be a lucky year for having children.

It sounds like it doesn’t really get much luckier than this lunar year.
Chris Chen of Dynasty Weddings in New York, which caters to the area’s Chinese community, says that his business has doubled from last year. (wsj) Kang Pan-seok, vice-director of the Korean Fortune Tellers’ Association, says that the double spring phenomenon has only occurred 12 times since 221 B.C. (cnn) This has engaged couples rushing to marry this lunar year, while mothers are scrambling to try to find mates for their single children.

and in case any of you guys are getting married soon:

^ i love how the astrologers are warning people not to take it too seriously, because there’s also zodiac signs and feng shui to worry about =p