Vancouver, the Enlightened Pacific Northwest
Taro is such a cool person. His kids are fantastic! Mariko is 16, and beautiful, intelligent, sassy, and confident. Kenji is 14, and a gifted athlete (baseball, basketball, dance), smart, creative, mindful. I loved hanging out with these guys. I felt like part of the family.
We spent most of the weekend just hanging out and talking, and then eating when we got hungry (which is the best time to eat, in my opinion). Friday night, I got in, and amazingly, we just fell into a groove. After much deliberation, we decided upon Indian food, and then went on a hunt for restaurants. We ended up downtown on Robson street, at this little Middle Eastern whole in the wall, which had amazing chicken shawarma and okay hummus. Mariko has a thing for hummus, so I promised her that I would show here how to make it the next day. While driving around, Taro played an mp3 CD with about 100+ songs on it, which the kids knew practically the whole thing by heart. Kenji has a wonderful singing voice, and Taro, harkening back to his San Francisco musician days, tapped out the drumlines on the steering wheel.
In the morning, Taro made omelettes, and I offered to make biscuits. He didn’t have buttermilk (can you get that in BC?), but I managed without it. I also had to bust out and make some homefries at the last minute. It was a great breakfast. the kids cleaned up, and then we sat around and talked about stuff while waiting for the hot water to come back after Kenji’s shower. It was a very relaxed morning that flowed into the afternoon — we didn’t leave the house until about 3:30pm.
We drove to Stanley Park, and checked out the Vancouver skyline from there. My favorite instance is this one: it is dusk, and we’ve driven through part of downtown. We enter the park, and on the stereo, Earth Wind and Fire’s song “Fantasy” comes on — the live version. Taro and the kids are totally into the song, and Tar0 relays the story of taking Kenji to see them in concert and then having a press pass, which not only allowed him to take great photos of the band while they were performing, but to also take Kenji backstage to meet them afterwards. The song comes on, and everyone: Taro, Kenji, Mariko, and myself sing along with the music while Taro beats out the drums. Ahead of us, the road is lit by the headlights of the car, and we travel through a dark tunnel of overhanging trees. On the right, the view opens up to the water and on the other side of it, the bright multi-colored lights of downtown Vancouver. All around in the car are our voices, and the music, and then Philip Bailey’s amazing 4 octave improv. It was so cool.
After a little walk on Robson, we got some groceries so that Taro could make a japanese chicken curry, and I got fixins for hummus. They all really liked it — the kids kept saying “this is really good hummus!”. So that was a triumph.
On Sunday, after breakfast, Taro helped my plan some of the legs of my trip, and gave me tips on which bypasses to take to save time. Mariko kept saying “you’re never going to make it that far today! I think you should stay until tomorrow. I don’t want you to leave yet.” What a love, she is! But, I had to press on, and not lose momentum, so at about 3:00 in the afternoon, I headed out.
