Harland visits again

Last weekend Harland was in Nagoya on a business trip, and since the Fuji climb was cancelled by the Typhoon, we decided to meet him and his companions in Ueno at Fridays for dinner. Of course we finished the night at the Hardrock over a few more cold ones.

Now Testing the 宇農前通り Unoumae Dori Live Cam

You may see at the top of the left hand column we are testing the beta version of our live street cam. Its basically a view of the world outside our apartment window. It may be a little buggy and up and down as I try to figue out a good server host, the camera, and required software. If the server is connected, push play(maybe 2 times) and you should get a live view. We are currently using a Microsoft VX3000 webcam and Ustreamtv. Ustream may or may not ask you load the Adobe flash plugin to view the stream, dont worry it is safe. We will try this for a while, let us know how it looks on your screen.

梅雨 Tsuyu The Rainy Season Sets In.............

The 2007 rainy season or tsuyu as it is called in Japanese has finally set in for 2007. It usually occurs in this area mid June to mid July. While it is great for the rice fields, flowers, and other local crops, it can start to seem pretty dreary for humans after the second week. While it doesn't rain all day long it has rained more days than not in the last couple of weeks and looks as though it will rain 24 hours a day. As you can see from the picture comparison , it is not yet raining this morning, but the city is entrenched in a foggy haze and 100% humidity pretty much eliminating our nice view of the mountains and the west side of town. These pictures were shot about the same time mid-morning with the bright one being shot in March, and the foggy one being shot this morning, but it could be any recent morning. I tried to zoom in to Utsunomiya Tower but the haze limited the shot to the about as far as the Shinkansen tracks.

This weekend myself(ksaul) and 3 other expats had planned to climb Mt. Fuji, but had to cancel do to a Typhoon coming up the East Coast of Japan, which would have centered off the coast in the Mt. Fuji area about the time we pushed for the top Saturday night. We hope to reschedule the climb for next week, work schedules and weather permitting.

Typhoon MAN-YI http://www.jma.go.jp/en/typh/0704.html should be as far North as Utsunomiya Sunday, but should hopefully mean no more than another Utsunomiya rainy season day for us.

Beths Going Away Party

Friday night Beths sensei threw a ladies night out going away party for Beth, this party is the 1st of several sayonara parties for the Sullivans! We had a great time, we went to Wara Wara and then to The Flying Squirrel which is a local darts bar.

Day Trip to Ueno (Tokyo) 上野

Sunday Heather and I took a little day trip down to Ueno to visit Ueno Park, Ameyoko shopping district, and the Hard Rock Cafe for a little home cookin(Nachos and Cheeseburgers). Sorry, but the attached pictures dont really give a clue about the atmosphere of this older suburb in Tokyo. I guess we were focusing on relaxing a bit and really didnt take many cool pictures. Im sure we will be back there again, and if you were to visit Tokyo, it would likely be a stopping point in your travels.

Ice Cucumber Pepsi and Melon KitKats

So June has been a month of culinary milestones here in Japan with the introduction of some killer new snack products. Ice Cucumber Pepsi hit the snack shoppe at work this week. Shawn and myself couldn't bring ourselves to make the purchase, so we talked a couple of girls from our office into trying it. Of course they offered us a sample and I must admit, its not bad. Actually kinda light and not so cucumbery. I brought a bottle home for Heather to sample and we immediately decided that a product this refreshing could only be made better with a 40% blend of Shochu Liquor and some big ole ice cubes. Very refreshing indeed.
KitKats have been in the States for years but ya gotta come to Japan to get the cutting edge products. While "MoMo" (Peach) KitKats have been around for a while, this summer brings the new flavor "Meron" (Cantaloupe, Freaking Cantaloupe!) to the scene. Very tasty indeed. Oh yes it is the small things.

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.