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  • Miracles do happen

    Today 4/1/2025, I went to the UPS store to send my snowboard to Whitespace. I won a raffle for this snowboard but its size was too small (144 cm) for me so I contact Whitespace and they told me to send them back for an exchange to my right size (152 cm.)

    While I was waiting for the staff to conduct the procedure, a lady noticed the snowboard. She told me that she was going to donate her snowboard rack to a next door store but she asked me whether I wanted it. I said sure.

    We both were a bit surprised at this event. What is the chance of her meeting a snowboarder at UPS store when she was about to donate the snowboard rack!

    Things like this make me think that a higher power put a piece of puzzles together. This reminded me of my experience in Europe trips.

    When I studied at University of Hawaii, I liked a girl who registered for a study abroad program to France. That made me wanted to study in France too. After one month in France, my friend who was not in the study abroad program came to see me in France. We decided to go around Europe. I was at Annecy, France which was one hour away from Geneve, Switzerland by train. We first went to Geneve. My friend wanted to go to Spain. So we got on a night train to Spain but it was jam packed and there was no seat. No way we wanted to spend more than 6 hours not having a seat in a train. We canceled our plan. We decided to go to Italy instead. Then my friend wanted to visit Athens, Greece so we took a ship there.

    In Athens, we went to visit Acropolis. On the way back, I saw a back of the girl sitting. That looked so familiar. When I approached her, she was one of the University of Hawaii students who was in our group! She went to Russia, Turkey, and here in Athens, Greece! We took totally different route but met at the same spot!

    After Greece, we went to Rome. I went to buy my train ticket back to Paris but the staff was not at the ticket window after one o’clock. Workers were supposed to come back after siesta. Several Italians were angry, shouted, and banged the window. A worker next to our window felt sorry for us and told us she could sell a ticket to the first ten customers. I was at eleventh! I felt what a bad luck. Then three people right in front of me let me go in front of them so that I could buy the ticket. I thanked them and left the ticket window.

    One hour later, I met the three again in a big city Rome! I don’t even meet my friends in Osaka city but happened here. The three men told me not to go to a certain spot where three Italian boys steal tourists’ bags. These three men helped me twice once at the ticket window and this time about the thief. I felt that they must be an angel.

    After I went back to Paris, I went to Eiffel tower’s highest deck. There, I met several Korean students who studied French at the same school in Annecy which was five hour train ride to Paris!

    I flew back to San Francisco before going back to Honolulu. I visited Japan town and went to a cafe to rest. Several university students entered the cafe. I looked at them and one of them looked at me. We were both surprised that we met each other at Waikiki beach two years prior to that day! She took me around San Francisco the next day.

    What are the odds to keep meeting people in all over the world? This trip totally changed my perception of life and made me realized that miracles do happen.

  • Life Changing Moments

    Today is 3/28/2025. Eight years ago, 3/28/2017, my wife had passed away due to the stage four cancer. We were married for 27 years and divorce was not an option. I thought I grew old with her and enjoy the quiet life once our daughter became independent.

    One day in January of 2017, my wife called me to pick her up from the pharmacy where she used to work since she was too tired to drive home. I drove to the pharmacy and I saw my wife’s face. I saw several dark lines on her face and reminded me of my mom’s face after her death. In Japan, we call this as “Shisou”, “shi” means death and “sou” means face. That day I told my daughter that your mom may not live long.

    At home, I googled about “Shisou” and learned how people will behave once “shishou” showed up. The site explained that people will start to lose their interest in hobbies and behaved differently from their normal routine. My wife was really into political shows on TV but after this “shisou” showed up she stopped to watch political shows. I brought her to the doctor and he sent her to the cancer center. The cancer doctor was confident that the team of doctors could save her life. I kept denying the fact I knew what was going to happen and gave myself a false hope.

    I was working for an IT consulting company and the owner was really nice to let me work from home. It was pre covid era so we were required to be at the office. I cried and cried and regretted why I did not treat her much nicer. Why I did not go shopping with her even though I did not really enjoy go shopping. I apologized to her but she said to me, it was ok, don’t worry.

    On 3/24/2017, we took her to the cancer center, and a different doctor checked my wife’s condition and told us we needed to put her into the hospital. My wife was already too weak to stand and walk. The doctor told me what I knew, “her cancer was growing at much faster rate and won’t make it.” I called my wife’s family in Hawaii and told them to visit my wife for her last time… At that time, I did not know the exact day of my wife’s departure but I knew we did not have much time. My wife was given a strong pill to ease her pain. It was too late to cure her.

    While I was next to my wife at the hospital, I saw an image of one gentleman in a suit with a hat greeted me. I told my wife about the facial feature which looked like the second brother. She told me that must have been her grandfather who resembled her second eldest brother. Another day, I saw an image of a lot of people with ancient Chinese outfit. I knew her deceased family visited her.

    My wife’s family arrived Omaha, NE on the morning of 3/28/2017 from Hawaii. My wife’s mother and three brothers came. I picked them up at the airport and took them to the hospital. My wife wanted to go home from the hospital but the nurses told us it was better for her to remain in the hospital since she could receive 24 hour care. I was awake until around 11 pm but I was so sleepy and was about to sleep. Her second eldest brother woke me up from the nap and told me that my wife stopped to breathe. She had departed. She waited for her family to arrive before her departure.

    It was my wife’s wish to be buried next to her grandmother. We sent her body to Hawaii to have funeral ceremony. My younger brother was very nice to attend the ceremony from Japan. When I took my brother to Honolulu International airport, I told him that I wanted to skydive for several years. He told me that I should do it since we never knew when our end would come. That day, I booked my first tandem skydive from Skydive Hawaii.

    I went to Dillingham airfield in Northshore and had no fear about skydiving until the airplane took off. Suddenly, I felt it was a terrible mistake and I might die! I wanted to cancel the skydive but there were several young girls did skydive and looked happy so I felt compelled to go on. The tandem instructor guided me to the door and I saw clouds, mountains, and ocean. I was terrified. When the tandem instructor pushed me off without even counting, I thought I was done! But once we were up in the air, all of a sudden, my fear was gone! There was no point of reference how high I was and I just enjoy the beautiful Hawaiian scenery! The videographer flew towards us and made us pose. That was really fun! It was a life changing moment! I was so depressed about my wife’s departure but the skydiving lifted my spirit high! I was not sure whether I would continue skydiving or not at that time.

    While my daughter and I were in Hawaii, we were surrounded by my wife’s family which prevented us from getting depression. However, once we went back to Omaha, we got very depressed. My daughter was thinking about end her life to be with my wife. I knew exactly how she felt since I had the same idea when my mom died. I knew I had to do something to give us hope. We both wanted to visit Mt. Rushmore to see the presidents’ sculptures on the mountain. Just that I had never driven more than 3 hours and I was not confident to drive longer than that. I had trouble keep myself awake for a long drive. But my idea was it was better to take a risk of long driving and visit the site we wanted than letting my fear of long drive hold me back and get depressed.

    We launched our journey to Mt. Rushmore in May 2017, a month after my wife’s funeral ceremony. When we crossed the Missouri river in South Dakota, the site was so beautiful! The Missouri river I saw in Omaha was much smaller and less impressive but the beautiful site in South Dakota lifted our spirits high! On the way at one of the rest area, we learned about Bad Land with amazing geographical features. We visited there and I was amazed about the nature! I purchased a national park pass there since I knew I would go back there. We spent long hours there and stayed at hotel nearby. The next day we traveled to Mt. Rushmore. The site was amazing and gave us full of hope by learning how these four Presidents of the United States built this country. In Hawaii, I told people to call me Ted since the sound of name was cool and took from Ted Nugent, a legendary guitarist. At Mt. Rushmore, I learned a lot about the President Theodore “Ted” Roosevelt. He loved the nature and because of him, the nation park system was born! I am an outdoor guy and made other call me Ted. I felt the President Ted Roosevelt was my previous life!

    That year 2017, my daughter and I decided to spend a month in Hawaii for Christmas. Also, I wanted to go to Japan for new year and visit a skateboard shop near Mt. Fuji to buy a mountainboard bag since US no longer sold it. After spent Christmas in Hawaii, I flew to Tokyo, Japan. I visited a new attraction Tokyo Sky tree and other sites then headed to Osaka where I came from. I met my brother, and my friends. I visited Osaka swing too. Then I headed to Kyoto where our family grave site locates. I spent a day there and headed to Mishima, Shizuoka. I did manage to find the skateboard ship in Shizuoka city and bough a mountainboard bag. The next day, I took a bus to Yeti ski resort which opens earliest every year in Japan. I get to see Mt. Fuji while I was snowboarding! The next day, I met a Japanese girl who studied at University of Nebraska at Omaha as an exchange student and met at Omaha Jitterbugs. She took me around Mishima and the tourist spot to view Mt. Fuji. Then I took bullet trains to head to Nagano for snowboarding.

    I sat next to Australian couple and had too much fun talking that I forgot my boots backpack in the bullet train! I arrived at the hotel near the ski resort and told the owner my issue. He helped me to contact a right place. I was so lucky that no one stole my boot backpack and JR (Japan Railway) sent me my backpack 2 days later! The hotel provided us breakfast and dinner so I did not need to worry about food! The restaurant at ski resort was great too. They don’t overcharge like US counterpart and have nice selection of Japanese dish. I was supposed to meet a swing dance instructor in Tokyo but I had too much fun snowboarding in Nagano, I decided to stay one more day in Nagano instead of going to Tokyo.

    Losing my wife was a great shock but that pushed me to go more adventures in my life. After seeing her ending, that really made me not to hold off on any challenges and experience everything I want to do. Today 3/28 reminds me about my new attitude of life.

  • Fear is the bottom of all the issues.

    Yoda told Anakin, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” This quote resonate in my heart and opened my eyes towards all kinds of people’s behavior. I met some rich people who hardly spent their money and kept accumulating their wealth. Judging from Yoda’s quote of fear, these rich people have fear towards losing their money which leads to lose their comfort including food. However, I met some who choose to live a cheap rented apartment and rented their nicer house to earn money. That is, they were willing to sacrifice their comfort for making more money. The fear of losing money make them live in uncomfortable living condition.

    I met several software developers who had tremendous fear of losing jobs. These people crafted the system to hide the core system so that no one can replace them. When I tried to approach them to learn the system, they created several obstacles including excuse of being busy with other projects.

    Workaholic is another form of fear of losing job. I worked with several workaholic who kept checking the status of their projects. They were always worried so even on weekends, they checked their company emails and logged into systems to check the status. Their souls could never rest during the weekends. The stress from job should be reduced during weekends doing hobbies but they never really reduce stress from work. Eventually, stress accumulates to the point, they need to go to a hospital. One of my manager was like that. When I saw his right hand, it was shaken constantly and he had to leave the company for several weeks to be in a hospital. I met female workers who was so overweight. They too could not reduce work stress and resorted to food especially sweets. Being overweight cause several health issues including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and high blood sugar level.

    Once we lose health, we cannot recover it and we cannot enjoy our lives after retirement. What for keep worrying about the job and lose one’s health? A company won’t take care of your health when you are no longer useful to the company’s bottom line. It is very important not to worry too much about our job.

    I met a friend whose father did not spend time with him during the weekend. The father always went out with his wife instead. This is another form of fear. The fear of losing his wife’s love. Because of his fear, he was compelled to spend time with his wife during weekends and neglected his son. My friend always told me that “my father never took me to ski, never played baseball with me.” When my friend grew up to be an adult, he had no desire to spend time with his father. Ironically, his father begged my friend to spend time but it was too late. He could have spent as short as one hour with his son during weekends.

    Control freaks are people with fear. They cannot trust anyone and they have a tremendous fear of not succeeding. They are compelled to control everything so that they feel they can avoid any failure. A control freak makes everyone around her uncomfortable. I had a worst experience in my life that I had an extreme control freak manager. Well, to keep my mental sanity, I quit the job.

    What Yoda said to Anakin really explains all kinds of life issues. Being stingy, workaholic, neglecting kids, control freak are examples of undesirable behavior. Several religions preach believers some ways to let go of their fear. Happiness comes from health mind and body. Never let fear control you!

  • Conversation led to discovery of alligators and crocodiles

    When I used to work at an insurance company in Nebraska, I had a conversation with one of my coworkers. I accidently told him about a crocodile in Florida, he immediately told me that there weren’t any crocodiles there only alligator existed.

    In my heart, I thought I made a mistake but I told him yes, there were some crocodiles in Florida. We both googled. To my surprise, there are actually crocodiles in Florida and that’s the only place in the world to have both alligators and crocodiles coexist!!!! No other place.

    I got lucky and my coworker admitted his mistake. Then my curiosity of alligators and crocodiles grew. After further search, I learned that there’s one more country where natural habitat of alligator exist. It is not in south America nor Africa. It is in China! Why alligators exist in seemingly two unrelated countries? Both US and China are so far apart. Whereas crocodiles exist most warm waters including Austria, Africa, South America, South West Asian countries, etc.

    Several years later from the conversation with my coworker, I took my daughter for a road trip to South Dakota. We visited Bad Land national park. When we joined a ranger’s class, he showed us an alligator’s fossil. He told us that a long time ago, alligators existed in South Dakota. I got so curious to see whether alligators migrated to Southern states including Louisiana, Texas, and Florida where alligators exist today. There’s a missing link between South Dakota and these southern states!

    I learned the evolution theory as an animal adopts the environment and evolve to fix. If this is really true, then why alligators in South Dakota did not evolve to fit there. Why no trace of alligators from South Dakota to southern states?

    I started to doubt about the evolution theory and actually this is not a proven theory. It is generally accepted theory.

    When my daughter asked me to take her to a museum in Lincoln Nebraska, I learned not only mammoth roamed around Nebraska but also African lions and camels! I was able to find a biology professor and asked her why these mammals exist. She told me that no one knows the answer. Again, if the evolution theory was correct, then why these mammals could not adapt the changing condition of Nebraska and evolve to fit.

    The more I see animals, the more I doubt the validity of the evolution theory.

  • My Unexplainable Experiences

    Several years ago, I used to have a part time job at a shoe store in Royal Hawaiian shopping center in Waikiki, Hawaii. One day, an Asian lady entered the store. The store was very small and I was the only one working there. After she was browsing shoes, she walked towards me. I had never felt the strong aura from anyone else in my life! Her aura was so strong that any straight line behind her like the wall looked distorted. The way I felt was like entering a dry sauna room. I also started to see several fireballs floating behind her back! That reminded me of the Japanese statue of Thunder God. But the fireballs were like hell fire.

    She was speaking in Japanese, “You came to this country at age 21. You have a wife but she is not Japanese.” All these were correct but I thought anyone could say something like that. Then she said, “You have a child. A daughter…” I was freaking out. I asked her how she knew all these. She told me that she was a famous psychic in Hawaii.Rai jin

    When she left the store, the inventory room lights were off at the same time. I was so surprised and checked the light switch. It was completely off! When I turned the switch on, the lights were back. It never happened to me where the light switch turned off by itself.

    My wife drove to Royal Hawaii Shopping center to pick me up and felt strongly to pray to God for no reason. We thought this psychic drew her power from the dark side.

    A few weeks later, the psychic lady came back to the store. I felt she was pulling something out of me. So I was jokingly told her, “you are reading info from me huh?” Then the force to pull from me stopped.

    A few years later, I got a job at a Japanese restaurant in Waikiki. The owner brought a famous Hawaiian priest, rev. Akaka on New Year’s day to bless the restaurant for that year.

    When I saw rev. Akaka blessing the place, I saw a clear energy came out of his mouth! This reminded me of one of Japanese Buddhist statue where several little buddha came out of the monk while he was preaching.Little Buddha from the monk's mouth

    From my sights of the psychic’s fireballs and rev. Akaka’s clear energy from mouth, the religious paintings and statues were not just from an imagination but from a person who actually saw these and asked an artist to create!

    While I was working at the Japanese restaurant, one year I visited Tokyo, Japan to see my friends. During my free time, I visited a Buddhist temple near my hotel. There was a monk chanting. Since I attended several Buddhist ceremonies, listening to Buddhist chant was not new. However, it was my very first time seeing a clear light blue ray came out of the monk’s head! Up to this, all the monks I met were just normal people and did not have a special power like this monk!

    Because of my ability to see these energy, I know there are good and bad energies. Most people I met do not have this ability and some do go to see a psychic for the advice. The psychic may be able to tell our life accurately but we don’t know where these ability come from.

    This year, I met a psychic who told us that there is no good or bad energy. I knew immediately that this psychic drew energy from dark side.