Spring is ON!

This was *supposed* to be a post about Okinawa...

Sage advice... who knew.

New Year's Day in Hirosaki

Happy New Year!

After grabbing a few hours sleep, Nancy and I met up with Mel and Jeff at the mall hoping to find a promising Good Luck bag... nothing really caught out fancy though... except for an infomercial that was playing where Japanese women rubbed a tool with testical-sized-disco-balls on their faces... from the before and after shots, we guess that it's to move any fat you have in your face around and not a cure for acne, but... we really weren't sure...

The hell?

Christmas in Shichinohe and New Year's Eve in Hirosaki

Had a quiet xmas by myself this year. I enjoyed the most relaxing xmas eve, spent the day watching movies and went out in the evening to Hoshino Resort Aomoriya Onsen Ryokan, Misawa with Chelsea. It was a crisp clear night, the moon was almost full, the stars dotting the sky, and the pool was light up by a nebuta float at the far end with smaller floating candles dotting the black water in front of it. It was a pricey one, 1200￥　but what the heck, it was really really nice and everything was provided, as it was part of a hotel. It was damn near deserted, too. So there I lay, in the warm, dark water, and it was bliss. I miss my family and friends, but moments like that make the separation worth it. Christmas day was spent chilling in my jammies Skyping with anyone and everyone who came online, it was great! In between chats, I watched some very non-Christmassy movies (I dunno what it is about the Swedish version of the Millennium trilogy [Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Girl who Played with Fire, Girl who kicked the Hornets Nest], but the last couple years, that's what I had to watch) including Shaun of the Dead, A Fantastic Fear of Everything, Fright Night (2011), and then made the trek out in the blowy snowy night to the Shimoda mall to catch the late showing of The Hobbit (Japanese subs in 3D).

We call this... the departure point.

To the Book deposi-- I mean Mall!

Hey folks,

It's not for lack of trying that I haven't sent a package back to North American full of strange things, it's that I  haven't quite found the right things to ship back just yet. Now I get to see many strange things, but they're just not... the *right* strange things. I went down to the Shimoda Mall with David and Tim and here are some of the items we came across at Village Vanguard.

Hello Kitty Airfresheners.

Mt Fuji

What have I gotten myself into... 

Okay, cats and kittens, now, some of ya'll know I dig the outdoors. I've been off on overnight canoe trips many times and have done a little backwoods camping. I love proving to myself that I can do something that other folks say they can't (or tell me I'm crazy for trying). I also like adventures, exploring and just getting out and doing something. So when Chelsea mentioned she was going to climb Mt Fuji during the long weekend with some other folks, and asked if I wanted to join, I jumped on it. JR railline had this wonderful Three Day Pass which saved us so much coin on train fare, it was amazing. Still, though, it was a crazy long day which began at 5 am Saturday September 15th. I walked down to the Shichinohe-Towada Bullet Train station to catch my ride down to Tokyo.

It's almost go time...

The moment you've all be waiting for...

... with baited breath....


... shivering with... anticiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii...





...






...





...pation.

WTF

It's about time for me to start a collection of Engrish and or just plain weird stuff I find... Or just what tickles my fancy.

Kindness Parking located at the Kappa Sushi restaurant just outside Aomori City.