MY WONDERFUL LIFE AT 15 CRAIGSIDE

If you're old, you can live alone, with family or in some kind of senior's residence.  I have now been 11 years at 15 Craigside, up Nuuanu Avenue from downtown Honolulu.  Not exactly cheap to live here, for I hate the thought of my travel partner and I paying $12,000/month to the administration just to be away on a trip.  At the end of the year, we will fly to the Tokyo, spend a few days there, then take back to back cruises before returning home in the middle of January.  Our travel bill, thus, is $24,000 for the two of us, just to be away.  But there is no other option if you want to travel, for the end is near, and I have to do this now.  As they say, you can't take it with you, even if you get to Heaven.

See the tall building below?  That is not 15 Craigside.  It is a condominium adjacent to our smaller blueish building to the right.  I lived in a penthouse of that bigger Craigside for 32 years.  So I've now been on this same block for 43 years.

As you know if you are a fan of this blog, that I am in a retirement community, safe and thankful.  The following activities and lifestyle are typical of my life here, and should continue into the foreseeable future, interrupted by some memorable journeys to further experience the world.

We regularly are entertained by organizations doing charitable work, for ensembles such as the Royal Hawaiian Band, or Jake Shimabukuro come to perform here, for free.  Turns out that we too service the community, for members volunteer to work at hospitals and we host an educational camp for the children of staff who work here.  This summer, 15 or so came to 15 Craigside for  three full days, and were taught some of the activities with which we get involved.

The president of our association, Irene, teaches the flower arrangement class.

Next, a bon dance class.

A video was put together of the above activities and shown in our theater for residents.

15 Craigside organizes a golf tournament every quarter.  We just went to the Barbers Point Golf Course.  The chef prepares a bento bag of spam musubi and other delicacies.  I bought a Bloody Mary to go along with the food.

We have a regular foursome that go to the municipal courses most Wednesdays.

Various organizations come to entertain us.  In celebration of their 250th anniversary, the Waihona Winds 111th Army Band came.

Some of my apartment meals.  Unagi with sashimi and sake.

Bento plate, otoro sashimi, taruzake and beer.

Monthly luau, featuring home-made poke, with Kirin 17-year old Japanese whisky, which costs around $450/bottle.

My breakfast is minimal.  Mostly just have some fruits (as seen just below--something I accumulate when I pick up a lunch or dinner) with milk or yogurt.  In fact, I haven't been down to the dining room for breakfast in a decade.  Not even to pick up food for $1.50.  Except that this week I decided to get croissants, so added some other edibles, too.

This was a day for fried rice, barely visible to the right.

I have a papaya with yogurt once or twice/week.

You ask, isn't this a terrible waste of money?  Especially as I'm paying for it through our monthly $6500 fee.  If we have guests, the cost/person is $21 for breakfast, $27 for lunch and $35 for dinner.  The only meals we have in our dining room are dinner on Tuesday and Thursday.  We sit with five different residents each time to keep up with what's happening here. 

• Yes, it is, indeed, it seems foolish to only have two meals/week in the dining room. On the other hand, we do as we please for this supreme sense of freedom.  
• I have made calculations, and in my 11 years here at 15 Craigside, I have just had a meal in the dining room around 20% of the time.  
• I do now and then go down to pick up food, for which they charge me $1.50.  It should be the other way around, for they don't need to pour me water or take away and wash my dishes/utensils, etc.  But, such is life.
• As I indicated, we do have two dinner tables where we eat in the dining room.  But even then, we had a two months absence because we were away for a month, began to avoid residents two weeks  before we left and, returned to learn that there was a COVID-19 outbreak, so avoided open-mask environments for another two weeks.  Mask wearing remains mandatory today (there are cases of COVID-19 among a few residents and staff), except when we're at the dinner table.  One danger if that if one of the diners at you table test positive, everyone on the table will be quarantined in your apartment for a few days.
• So what do I mostly eat?   I like to enhance the food I pick up.  I go to Marukai for sashimi, wagyu beef, etc., and Ala Moana Foodland from foie gras, caviar, special vegetables, etc.  Not many days left, so I eat to a luxurious max.

We do have special meals, like Father's Day dinner, where guests are charged $55.

Dessert.

Then just yesterday, our annual 4th of July luncheon.

Then, last night in our Solarium, we were entertained by a resident band, the No Names.

This was a prelude to 4th of July fireworks provided by the Oahu Country Club.

My lanai garden is doing well.  Calamansi, Basil, Plumerias, Anthuriums and Green Onions.  Notice how gigantic one of them is.  It is a couple of years old.

I close with a double rainbow.  What is that white duck-looking thing beyond the mountain?  

Don't know.  Maybe a reflection from the window.

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A MEGATSUNAMI TO INUNDATE JAPAN TODAY?

First of all, this is Friday, and if you are in the USA, it is a day off for our country's 249th birthday.  How much longer we'll have  a Democracy will be a challenge with Donald Trump as president.

• Greece is where Democracy was born.
• However, Democracy in Athens 2500 years ago was not quite what it is supposed to be.  First, only males who served in the militia could vote.  With all the ineligible men, women, children and foreigners, only around 15% could participate in the democracy of those days

• 
  As best as I can determine, modern Greece did not return to Democracy until 1974!  Joined the European Union in 1981, but elected a socialist government later that year.  The government continues through crises, sometimes with coalitions involving communists, other times just messed up and in scandal.  So is Greece a Democracy today.  I guess yes.

• 
  San Marino claims to have been a Republic since the year 300, but its current constitution only dates back to around 1600.  So San Marino can celebrate 425 years of Democracy.

• 
  Is the UK a Democracy?  They've long had a monarchy.
• There was the Magna Carta in 1215 which limited the monarch's power.
• There was a civil war from 1642 to 1660 between King Charles I and the Parliament, when the King was executed and a Republic called the Commonwealth of England was formed.

• 
  But history books seem to say that King George III (yes, he was the Mad One), had a key role when his American colonies claimed independence in 1776.
• While prime ministers began to take over the real leadership from the 1600s, it was not until the 1832 Great Reform Act that voting was truly established.  Yet, women and working-class men were excluded.
• Maybe a true Democracy did not form until 1928 when universal suffrage was established to incorporate women and most men.
• In any case, Google celebrates July 4th.

To the topic of today, this is a bit off the wall, but the internet is buzzing, and tourists have cancelled trips to Japan.  Why?  A 1999 manga called The Future I Saw by Ryo Tatsuki predicted a massive tsunami hitting Japan on 5July2025, and it is already that date in Japan.

• Read Wikipedia.
• Original manga on 1July1999, and reprinted on 1October2021.
• Amazon paperback for $13.99.
• Manga cover of this effort.

• 
  First gained attention when it was found that the cover of this manga had apparently predicted a disaster occurring in March 2011.  Remember the Great Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of 11March2011?

• 
  About this manga edition, based on Tatsuki's dreams in 1985. 
• She suffered from writer's block in the 1990s, so she felt compelled to abandon writing.
• For her final production, she compiled her previous works and manga into a single volume.
• 
  Purportedly, of her 15 dreams, thirteen have already come to pass.
• On 24November1976, she dreamt about the sudden death of Freddie Mercury, who died 15 yeas later on 24November1991.

• 
  In 1992, she dreamt of a portrait of a woman named Dianna.  Diana, Princess of Wales, died in a traffic accident in 1997.  But Tatsuki said readers made the death connection, which wasn't her vision.

• 
  Kind of got out of hand, for an impersonator began making claims about her having predicted the Great Hanshin earthquake, and that Mount Fuji would erupt.

• 
  As a result, there is this current mass hysteria, as several airlines have canceled flights to Japan out of traveler concerns that the predictions would come true.

• 
  This disaster would come from a massive fissure opening in the Philippine Sea, causing a tsunami three times taller than that caused by the Tohoku earthquake.

• 
  Somehow, other claims surfaced that the tsunami would be caused by an asteroid, and perhaps ending the world.
• Last month I featured a couple of postings on megatsunamis.

• 
  China, Vietnam and Thailand were particularly influenced.  Bookings to Japan for late June to early July dropped by as much as 83%.
• Even a time has been mentioned, for Tatsuki's dream occurred around 4:18AM on 5July2021.

• 
  Ryo Tatsuki was born on 2December1954 in Yokohama.
• Debuted as a manga artist in 1975, but retired at the age of 45 in 1999.
• Is a self-claimed clairvoyant, and referred to as the New Baba Vanga.
• A manga, in case you did not know, is an adult comic book in Japan.

So why are normally sane people in the Orient taking this specific prophecy seriously?  And from a comic book, too.  Well, maybe because there have been similar prophets before.  Here is a top ten list of eerie predictions from history that shockingly came true.  Nostradamus is not included, but a glance at his projections indicates that the resultant notoriety comes mostly from exaggerated interpretations.  On the other hand, if a potential mega tsunami troubles you, why not just delay your visit to Japan.  So maybe that is the simple explanation.

• 
  Tatsuki these days gets linked to Baba Venga.  Who is she?
• Vangeliya Pandev Gushterova was a mystic and healer born in Bulgaria on 3October1911.  She lived for 84 years and passed away on 11August1996.
• She was born premature, had a terrible life and a whirlwind tossed her at the age 13, causing blindness.
• Got married in 1942 and became a soothsayer.

• 
  In the 70s, her reputation soared, and reportedly, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Leonid Brezhnev consulted her.
• In the 1990's a church was built for her in Rupite, Bulgaria.
• She died of breast cancer in 1996.
• Among her predictions include.
• Chernobyl disaster.
• Date of Stalin's death.
• Princess Diana's death.
• 2025 Myanmar earthquake.

• 
  A few predictions failed:
• Nuclear war between 2010 and 2016
• That the 44th president of the U.S. would be the last.  This was Barack Obama.  But maybe the 47th could become a dictator, ending democracy, so she was just a couple of presidents short.
• Watch this video.

My prediction?  Keep in mind that today in the USA is already tomorrow in Japan.  So even though it's the Fourth of July here, it is already July 5 in Japan.  So 4:18AM in Japan on July 5 was 9:18AM on July 4 in Hawaii.  To be sure, I googled, and found this very long video, which at first seemed scary, but noticed that this earthquake/tsunami was reporting on a 2024 event.  So at least 4:18AM Japan time on July 5 has passed.  No mega tsunami.  No warnings from the Japan Meteorological Agency.

Of course, it still is July 5 in Japan, and at this writing, there remain a little more 23 hours until the day ends.  But to reassure you, as an "expert" in mega tsunamis, this Tatsuki manga prediction is so unlikely to happen that you should carry on as usual even if you live on Kyushu facing the Pacific Ocean.  

There are no reports of a large asteroid ready to crash into Planet Earth and no danger of a major landslide anywhere in cliffs facing the Pacific Ocean.  The tectonic plates affecting the Philippine Sea show no particular pressure.  But even if there is a sudden and major subsea earthquake there, the far field wave amplitude should be only a few feet high, not the 100-1000 feet height of a mega-tsunami.

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