The Wonder of Skype

My cousin, Ricky and I had done everything humanly possible to get the Skype call established between Sendai and Hawaii.  Ricky works in China, but he went home to Sendai for the holidays to set up Skype at his mother's home in time for our Hawaii Cousins Party.  It was my dream to have the four sisters able to talk to each other face to face.

The Cousins Party had already been organized more than a month ago.  All the cousins brought their many special dishes.  We always plan for more than we need and everybody gets to bring home enough left overs for the following day's meal.  However, everybody outdid themselves on Saturday.

Auntie Grace made those sushi at the bottom which blew everybody away.  The sushi was made with hot dogs, and cucumbers in the center to form tulips.

There were crab casseroles, salsa and chips, macaroni salad, nishime, pumpkin soup, lumpia, chicken teriyaki, beef teriyaki sticks, shrimp tempura, noodles, kimpira gobo, peking duck, and tons of other food which I'm having a hard time recalling.  I was on edge trying to keep everything on schedule from the group photo, to dinner, to talking to everybody, to dessert, to Skype call, to making sure everybody got their take home containers to choose the food they would be bringing home...

Here's my nephew, Cody and brother, Dennis waiting in line to get their dinner.

Here I am with my amazing Uncle Toshi and the three sisters who really enjoyed all the amazing food.  Uncle Toshi is amazing himself.  Without glasses he's got 20/30 vision which Art says is better than his vision with glasses.  Uncle also has blood pressure and cholesterol levels that we probably had when we were five years old.  And he just happens to be  92 years old, or was it  93?

After our coco cream puffs, flan, chocolate haupia pie, chocolate banana pie, mochi desserts we went upstairs for the Skype video call.

My aunt was waiting in Sendai for the call.  It was 8 PM Saturday-Hawaiian time, 3 PM Sunday-Sendai time.

I was thrilled to see my cousin (Ricky's older brother) and his daughter also participating in the Skype call. 

Each sister introduced her family to their youngest sister.

The Internet connection wasn't the best.

There was occasional feedback which sometimes garbled speech and a grainy picture coming from their side, but it was still wonderful.

Cousins and their children were finally able to meet relatives they had never seen before.  Since our daughter, Tiffany and her husband, Ed had given Art a high definition, super duper computer video camera for Fathers Day, I'm hoping the relatives in Japan had a good picture coming from our end.

Then all the cousins went back downstairs and the four sisters could spend a little time together at last.

I'm so glad the party was a success and we could finally give the sisters a chance to be together again.  Ricky e-mailed me to tell me his mother was now comfortable with Skype.  In fact, he'll now be able to talk to his family when he's away on his business trips.

I'm feeling pretty happy right now.