Ganryu Island and Mojiko

So as i mentioned previously... since its a 3 day weekend, i had friday off so i decided to do a day trip i had long postponed, head up to Mojiko at the northern tip of the island and visit Ganryu Island.

Here is Mojiko, a small port city, directly across from the fmaous japanese city of Shimonoseki (site of the signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki of course). Its about 80-90km north of...Read more

beach day pics

Yesterday my labmate [eirI] and I rode our motorcycles over to [nijihsiN] to meet up with [eomoT] and some friends, we were headed to the beach at [onieM] hama. Sweated our asses in the sun getting there, but once we got on the beach there was a nice breeze.

Its actually an artificial beach created on the landfill in front of the [akuokuF] Tower. This beach is usually packed on weekend days...Read more

late - karatsu

Don't you hate it when you forget to switch an entry from 'private' to public? and then you wonder for two days why no one left any comments. :-P

Case in point:

Yesterday I went with Yo-chan to the nearby city of Karatsu (唐津). Its about an hour away to the west.

The reason I wanted to go was to see their castle. You can read a nice text review of it here.

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Takamatsu/Tokyo trip phone pics. Trains and Toy Story!

OK, Ayumi fans will have to wait another day for my blurry bootlegs from her show. In the meanwhile, here are the (tons) of pictures from my cell phone cam during my trip last week. (sequel to the award winning blog entries - Takamatsu and Tokyo pictures...)

From the Bullet Train:

Hikari Railstar bullet train i took to Okayama, pretty badass! :-)Read more

Takamatsu visit photos...

MOOD: Gaga

END MOODS/CURRENTS

So as I mentioned, on monday I took the bullet train to Okayama and transferred to an express train to Shikoku, the other of the 4 main Islands of Japan.

I visited a professor I know there and he actually did a great job showing me around (we spent the entire afternoon together, but only about 1 hour at the university itself, the rest was site seeing... as you will see. ANYWAY, be sure to check out the videos ( underlinedlinks in bold), I like them quite a bit, I think they do ...Read more

more random japanese TV... and Shikoku Udon

i am in tokyo now. I am staying at a cheap hotel near Ueno station. I went out to get dinner about 11:30. Only things open were ramen stands, snack bars, massage parlors and love hotels... I ended up getting Ramen at this restaurant completely run (and occupied) by Chinese people.

When I got back I ended up watching another bizarre TV show... i missed the beginning but basically they had this woman getting these three contestant guys to do different things w/ a Chinese wok. They went to a batting cage and ...Read more

OK, I promised Ninja pictures... Kumam0to Castle part 2

OK, I assume you saw the castle pictures HERE in my entry yesterday, right? Well there was a surprise waiting for us when we got up to the upper tier to the castle grounds (much like Kareem waiting at the top level in Game of Death).... Take a closer look at this picture:

Hey, those aren't gar...Read more

Kumamoto Castle pictures pt 1

ok, I just checked and I have way more good castle shots then I thought... I gotta split it into two groups... ninja and non-ninja... and I really should put these up before the ninja ones... :-P

So last saturday I took Junko to see Kumamoto castle. Its about 70 minutes to Kumamoto by high speed train (it'll be quicker once the new bullet train service opens in a year or two). We took the Tsubame, my favorite train in Japan last year when I was here.

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proof of the Pokemon 747

You thought I was delirious from tempura poisoning when I made that last entry, didn't you?

But alas, like the Big Foot video, I have proof!

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lots of fun

I was out til about 2:30 again last night (sunday night). ugh, but I had a really good time at the members party at the 'regal beagle'...

It was a lot different then the regular friday/saturday type events - no navy guys, (almost) no H gaijin, (almost) no H b-boy guys either for that matter. It was mostly just real party people (some of them pretty good dancers) out to have fun and be friendly, which is a good thing.

I took about 800 pictures, I'll have to put them online tonight or tomorrow.

in the meanwhile...Read more