The Monterey Japan connection

Ok my loyal readers, all 6 or 8 of you :-)
We are just back from a mini
vacation. Well sort of just back. I just came from Band rehersal...
But anyway, we are resently back from a mini vacation to Monterey/Carmel.


OK, so I figure less writing this time you can get the idea from the pictures

We got to Monterey on Friday for the whale watching. The trip was cancelled due to high winds. bummer...We reserved a spot for Sat.
and got a discount, cool!





After grabbing something to eat we walked along the trail over to the Monterey Aquarium. The weather was great.
Walking was way better than driving, we got to see some cool stuff.















The jelly fish exibits were outstanding. This poor picture
does not do it even the smallest of justice!



















Sat. it was back to the wharf for the whale watching tour.









We got a ride on the biggest of the tour boats. I do nto know if that was good or bad. Perhaps the smaller boat would have been better. Less noise to the whales, easier to move about on the water...

It was good to get out in open water. I was wonder about the motion of the ocean since it has been awhile since I've been out on real ocean waves. Lady Zen did well, I did ok, I would have been better with a real breakfast I think. Maybe not, the diesel fumes, I did not care for, that made me a bit uneasy with the large waves. I did suck on some ginger, but did not get sick ,like a couple of people did, poor things.









We did get to see quite a few whales. Even one with a baby, well more like a teen. They seemed to be closer overall to the smaller boats. Lucky I had my good lens with me. I was hopeing they would come closer to the boat. As a Photograher I would have loved to get that one killer shot. There were about 6 we saw total on the trip...
















Back at the wharf...



We hung out for a while waiting for another couple. We had not met before they were just in from Japan a few weeks. The guy was an acquaintance of mine from the Black Tokyo forums. Never seen him or his wife so did not know what to expect. Lady Zen says , how will we know them. I said they will look like us...




Our first Blasian friends. Hanging out with them for the rest of the day and into the evening turned out to be the high point of our trip. We got great and helpful info on living in Japan.
Also it was fun being tourist together. We all enjoyed being able to relate to each other.




















The ladies hit it off well.
They started talking just like they were old friends.








The ladies in the classic Japanese tourist pose >>










After drinks and snacks at the wharf we went to Carmel beach for awhile an felt the ocean scene ...

Later just walking around the town, galleries, stores, early dinner...

Later we went sake tasting, sushi, chatting, and a late stroll

good times.

A future sail coming...stay tuned.

we'll be back...

So whats next? Well the ASA teaching certification class was postponed , Grrrrr bummer. Not sure when that will be. Lady Zen is off to Japan soon to help Mum, move. I would love to go but ...$$$

I have a Wedding photo shoot up coming. I am closing my Kung Fu Studio space so will need to move stuff SOON. I maybe getting a couple small sails in and just doing some misc boat stuff to prep for our next sail and the approch of winter rains. However nothing really planned for a while until Oct. So it maybe quiet around here for a while...

But you never know what the tide will bring...