Company Sports Day at Mashiko Park

Sunday brought some more great weather and a trip to a sports park out in Mashiko City for a company sports day event. Several of the different divisions from throughout the company fielded teams for a day of some serious and a lot of not so serious sporting events. Our team NMC-1 came in 4th out of the 10 teams. Not a bad showing considering the ages and general fitness or maybe lack therof of our participants.

2007 FIM Trials at Motegi

Today I went to Motegi with some friends from work to see some International trials competition. The weather, Motegi, and the event were all great. These guys do some pretty amazing things on a bike, its all low speed but very technical and the riders talent is beyond belief. Must say being up in the woods smelling the premix and fresh churned dirt was also very nice. More pics in the Yahoo folder.

Barbeque? Yeah, we do that.........

Scored ourselves a handy little "cassette gas" grill for some Korean BBQ style cookin at home. While our patio decor could use a little help at this point, theres no better way to cap off the week than hangin on the deck, grillin a little beef and lamb, and washing it down with about a dozen cold ones.

Bill the Cat 1989-2007

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our long time friend Bill.
Best remembered for his prowess at chasing flashlight beams, digging in potted plants, mauling loaves of bread and rolls of paper towels, and late night howling matches with his neighborhood friends, he will be missed.
Bill is pictured here during his 2-week stay on the porch last summer after a losing effort with the neighborhood skunk.

The Land of the Rising Sun and Large Crows.

Some of you back home may ask why Japan is known as the land of the rising sun? Well, while we can’t show you the sun in these pictures, trust me, its there hidden behind the fog and mist overhanging Utsunomiya this morning. The time that these pictures were taken? 4:45AM! And believe me, its been fully light for about 30-40 minutes. The sun really does come up just after 4am every day, even though no one sane is awake to see it. Special thanks goes out to the 2 crows hanging out on our deck, screaming and squawking, (maybe stealing a few socks off the line to pad their nest) thus providing me a great opportunity to explain this rising sun phenomena to you. The crows here are the size of buzzards, very smart, and very loud. Of course they moved along quickly after I got out of bed to greet them, so no pics, but perhaps some time in the future we will get some shots of these 2 early rising pricks and give them their own exclusive post here on the blog.

The COCO Winery in Ashikaga

Today Heather, Chiho, and I went to the COCO winery out in Ashikaga for a day of relaxation and wine tasting. The weather was awesome as we sat outside and tasted our fair share of thier product, and I must say it was all good. Their vineyard is layed out in the side of a pretty good sized mountain which many people like to climb while participating in a tour and educational program. As we had all seen grape vines before, we decided they probably werent any different at the top of the hill than at the bottom, took a pass on the climb, and stuck to sampling. http://www.cocowine.com/english/english.html

Kirin Beer Factory Tour

Yesterday we took a tour of the Kirin beer factory located a few train stops away in the burg of Shimotsukehanaoka. We were provided with our own personal tour guide, Ishii-san who gave us a great tour of the facility, which was capped off with a pouring demonstration and product tasting session. Kirin is the current company in Japan licensed to make Budweiser, and while we were happy to sample thier Bud, we found that we still prefered the Kirin brand products. No pics allowed in the Kojo, so these were the only two we were able to take.

The poster read, なるほどザうんち！or NARUHODO ZA UNCHI!

Which literally translates to "I see the" or "I understand the poop". Amazing! Only in Japan and at the Aquarium no less. We had to see it, and we werent disappointed. Aquaworld had a whole room dedicated to educational displays and interactive activites about pooping. Humans, animals, all the bases were covered. They had dispalys of real poop from animals all around the world. They even had animals painted on the walls, where you could peek into buttholes in the wall and see real poop in a (simulated) natural enviroment. The lion poop even had a few hairs sticking out of it. Very tastefully done. I am sorry to say that this peice of art was on a limited engagement from Feburary to May and will end next week so dont call JAL for tickets you'll have to catch it in another time or place.....But we are happy to report that we now understand za poop!

Ōarai 大洗

On Monday we drove to the coast and spent a day in the port city of Ooarai. We visited the fish market at Naka Minato, a large public aquarium called Aqua World, the Marine Tower, and finally spent some time walking on the beach. The quantiy/quality seafood available at the market was amazing and very inexpensive. The aquarium was as nice as any we have visited in the states and had some pretty unique diplays. As the ocean goes in this part of Japan the water was very cold and the sand a little dirty, but it was nice just the same. As its only a 2 hr drive, Im sure we will return.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=oarai+japan&layer=&ie=UTF8&z=12&ll=36.341955,140.525436&spn=0.182519,0.31311&om=1