the LPGA tour

The first Monday of September is Labor Day. My hubby's got a day off every year, so we had an excursion to Illinois!! On Saturday, we drove for three hours from West Lafayette. You can see the scenery in the first picture! Look at this! The shape of the clouds tell us autumn is already coming as we say in Japan!! Below in this picture, the golden green field is a cornfield. During our driving, we saw corn fields or soy bean fields all the time. We just said," What if we took the same road again?" We wouldn't be aware of it!! Cornfield, soy bean field, again, cornfield, soy bean field...

Anyway, we arrived at Springfield. Springfield is the capital city of Illinois, but it's much smaller than Chicago. Every year, on the first weekend of September, the LPGA (Ladies Professiolal Golf Association) holds the "State Farm Classic" tour there. My hubby and I have some favorite female golf players, so we look forward to coming to this tour every year!!

Just after arriving there, we started to play golf. The day before, my hubby searched some Web-sites to decide which golf course we were going to play. He looked very serious about that...
"So, what are the main criteria for deciding this course?" I asked him
He smiled. "The name!"
"WHAT?" Yes, we went to "the Lincoln Green".
"Springfield is famous for the hometown of Abraham Lincoln! We should play there!" He looked excited. I understood, the criterion was very simple...but why was he so serious about picking the course?? He is MYSTERIOUS...

"The Lincoln Green" was not a characteristic course, but it had a huge area! There were a few ponds in the golf course. Therefore, we saw many camping cars and tents! (Look at the picture!)They celebrated Labor Day camping in a GOLF COURSE? It was interesting... I played 18 holes with my hubby. But, I don't think I "shot" a ball. Actually, I "rolled" a ball... Don't ask me my score!!

On Sunday, we went to the "LPGA State Farm Classic."
Unfortunately, most of our favorite players did'nt participate in the tour like: Ai Miyasato, Natalie Gulbis, Paula Creamer, Michelle Wie, Shinobu Moromisato, Rico Higashio(Oh! She is not qualified for this year!)... However, Annika Sorenstam, Lorena Ochoa, and Cristie Kerr participated in. If you had been there, you would have noticed where Annika Sorenstam(The picture is from the LPGA Web-site:
http://www.lpga.com/default_rr.aspx) was soon! She is a STAR player, so she was always surrounded by many galleries. The most impressive thing about her was she was so friendly! Until just before she started to play, she had been trying to write her autographs for many fans.
Uh-huh, she was so kind! I think famous athletes should try to do this if they want many people to support them. It was the third time for us to go to the LPGA tours, so we met many golf players. Most of them tried to be friendly as possible as they could, and it was so nice. Paula Creamer anwered my husbands' comments, Rico Higashio had a chat with me, and Natalie Gulbis was so friendly that she accepted having a picture taken with my hubby even though it was prohibited to bring a camera! Unfortunately, Ai Miyasato was not friendly. She gave us her autograph, but she looked arrogant, and said nothing when we talked to her. She is a rookie, so it is hard for her to respond to so many things... But we thought she could get more fans if she was friendly.

Anyway, we were impressed how Annika Sorenstam was friendly, but we also were worried if she couldn't concentrate on her plays. However... THE STAR PLAYER MADE IT!! Even though she shot 10 under the day before, she finished 19 under( This is AMAZING!) on the last day. She won!! Sometimes we heard many galleries yelling at her several fascinationg shots. She is a genius!!!

After we left State Farm, we drove toward Chicago. We went to an outlet shopping mall in a suburb of Chicago.
The next day, we went to another shopping mall in Shamburg, which is also a suburb in Chicago. The picture is the "Woodfield Mall." Isn't it a BIG fashion mall!?

As you can see, we enjoy our American lives... But we LOVE Japanese food & culture!! The reason why we always stay not in "downtown Chicago," but in "the suburbs of Chicago" is... there are a BIG Japanese supermarket and Japanese restaurants there!! We stopped by the Japanese supermarket, got Japanese food, and read Japanese magazines... On Sunday night, we went to a "revolving Sushi" restaurant, whose name is the "Sushi Station." We enjoyed crabs, sweet shrimps, salmons, salmon roes, tunas... Our Monday's lunch was ramen!! Ramen is originally from China, but we have changed the food to Japanese style. My hometown, Sapporo, is famous for delicious ramen! Since I came here, I have found some Sushi restaurants, but I couldn't find a place which provided the "authentic Japanese ramen." However, one and a half year ago, the Japanese supermarket "Mitsuwa" (former "Yao-han, the same one we went to this weekend) started to have "Santouka(山頭火)" in their food court!! That was exciting!! There were some ramen restaurants in N.Y. and Hawaii, but it was first time to have an "authentic" ramen restaurant like "Santouka" in the U.S!! They also privides salmon roes' rice(in the picture, the left of the below ), and they use the cheek meat of pigs as special roast pork(the middle of the picture!!) Not only ramen noodle, but also these special menus are AWESOME!!

I can enjoy Japanese food, TV, magazines here, and I can communicate with my Japanese friends via e-mails here. What a convenient world!!!