Well, the BWA (Fujinkai) Conferences are sort of the same...well, at least this year....it all started with driving to Sacramento with Grace, Karen and Jeff's mom, having lunch at Mel's...and then realizing I left my wallet in my gym bag. Jeff drove up that night and brought my wallet.
After dropping Karen off at the hotel, Grace, Mom and I went to Arden Fair Macy's for some shopping...before heading back to the hotel for the Representative Meeting. Grace and I were "Official Delegates"....whoo hoo...
After the meeting, the Northern California District had goodies in the hospitality room. Unlike those WYBL days, I was able to visit the room and partake in the food and "beverages"...there was also an Udon "bar" that lasted about a foot into my hotel room. Jordan answered the door with a "is that for me?"....Jeff and the boys stayed at the hotel and then spent the day visiting the sites and having dinner with Obachan (Jeff's paternal grandmother), aunts, uncle and cousins. Neil even took a dip in the pool before we left on Sunday.This is Grace's plate....like I said, my noodles were gone in less time than it took me to walk back to my room...btw: Jordan said they were quite yummy...
Karen, Joyce (who drove up with Jeff and the boys), and Mom waiting to hear the keynote speaker. Rev Diane Jishin Johnson-Van Parijs, was ordained in Kyoto and with her husband founded the Myokoin Temple and White Lotus Center for Shin Buddhism in Anchorage Alaska. She spoke about her life and how she discovered Shin Buddhism when she was working in a hospice.
Mom, Karen, Joyce and some ladies from the Palo Alto temple at lunch. We had a wonderful salad with chicken, bleu cheese, nuts, cranberries, raisens and yummy poppyseed dressing.
Rev and Mrs Matsubayashi at lunch. Rev Matsubayashi was at SACBC (Union City) when I first moved to the Bay Area. Their sons are good friends, and two of their granddaughters are in the area and participate in both Dharma School and other church activities.
Three of the ladies from Japan with Grace. Our district has a "sister district" exchange with the Hopo-Fukuoka district in Japan. This year four ladies were able to make the trip and participate in the conference. Our chapter was responsible for them during the conference. One lady was not feeling well, and actually had to go to Kaiser for an IV and other tests. She was released later in the afternoon and actually made it to the banquet later that night. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to join us on a special outing....remember I mentioned sneaking out to go shopping? Well, we left the banquet entertainment program a little early in order to go to Red Hawk Casino. The lady on the second from the right, Chigusa, took me by the arm and told me that I was her "teacher"....Teacher taught her well....she won $70...$45 from a penny machine....it was so fun! And, she took home a "player's card" with her name on it for a souvenier.
As always, Daisy, my mother's cousin, was at the conference with the Oakland chapter. It's always so nice to see her at these events.
Here is Chigusa again. She is in for another treat. I heard that the ladies from Oakland were going to take them to River Rock for "lunch"...they didn't think that they would want to gamble...NOT! I hope Chigusa goes home with some winnings....
For some reason, both Jeff's Mom and me were put into the "Make and Take, Asian Card" workshop, twice! But, that's okay...I was able to make one set and then keep the other set for measurements. The workshop presenter turned out to be Garret Murai's mother. Garrett is a member of SACBC, our temple. Unfortunately, this prompted a trip to Michael's today...sigh....
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