made my last round in the streets of Busan. stopping often and checking everything out.
fresh abalone! i wish we had these in Hawaii! then i’d be an Amasan!
then watched the WQS contest in China online. lots of people thought Shun Murakami winning the contest was unbelievable. but not me. i always knew this kid had it in him. when he was 9 years old, i use to compare him to Seth.
this was Shun’s biggest contest win of his career. and now he’s starting off 2020 ranked #1 on the WQS! good job Shun!
i was sitting at the airport in Japan and heard “all flights canceled to Manila.” omg, there was an eruption! and to think that was one of my options on this trip. gosh, i’d be stuck there! 
came back to Hawaii and it was pouring rain. i had to ride my motorcycle from the airport so i was soaking wet!!! but going at 55mph and having 30mph trade winds straight at me, i was feeling the 80mph (130km) raindrops stinging my face. this is the best cure for jet lag! haha! 
then went surfing in the pouring rain with Renta-kun. Renta-kun went back to Japan for the holiday season so was stoked to be surfing again. i came back from 4C or 39F freezing cold weather so i was even more happy to be back surfing again!
i took this video of Shun Murakami when he was only 11 years old. i brought him to Hawaii a couple of times and had him hang around the Moniz kids. i wanted him to have Hawaiian lifetime friends, and i wanted the Moniz kids to have Japanese lifetime friends. this is the rainbow bridge between Hawaii and Japan i dreamt my whole life about. so to see this kid win a huge contest yesterday, i was very very happy. at 11 years old, his dream was to make the WCT. so was Seth’s. so yeah, now it’s your turn Shun! please be the first Japanese to ever do it!!!
