2007 Motegi MotoGP Saturday Qualifying

Heather and I are just back from yet another great day at the track. Qualifying brought a great front row for tomorrow, Pedrosa, Rossi, and Hayden. Couldn't have asked for better. Stoner struggled some and even my next years Honda hero Depuniet will start in front of him. I hope he doesnt plan to torpedo Nicky and Danny in the first turn again this week. Weather was even hotter today, but look out things change, and it will be cooler tomorrow with that lingering chance of rain. Not so many of my crappy bike action pictures today, putting up a few of the crowd and and other doings from the day. We were down front for Nicky and Danny's press conference, where I was able to afterwords get Nicky's attention and advise him to get the hole shot and don't look back after that, he thought that was good advice and gave us a thumbs up and smile of thanks for such wisdom, maybe it was the shock of hearing English. After, we went to a great Yaki Niku place with some friends, burnt some meat and drank a few cold ones, looking forward to more of the same tomorrow. Sorry Matt and Scott P., No Buckets this year, we are saving that for next year.

2007 Motegi MotoGP Friday Practice.

Great day to be at the track instead of work. Very hot(as you can tell by the pic of the 2 resting locals) but very nice just the same. The Top 5 in todays GP practice were 5) Stoner, 4)Hopkins, 3)Melandri, 2) Depuniet, 1) Pedrosa. Rossi huffed an engine about 20 minutes in and struggled through the remainder with his back up bike. Im sure he will dial it in tommorow. Stoner just seemd to be in cruise mode. Pedrosa and Melandri proved the Hondas can get it done so hopefully Hayden can pull it together tommorow with some good qualifying and get to the front row. Hell, even the perenial crasher Depuniet put in some decent laps. Sorry for the usual poor quality of my photos. We shall try harder tommorow. :)

大谷 Oya Stone Mines

Today Heather and I visited the Oya stone mines and museum also just a few minutes out of Utsunomiya. Oya stone itself has been used in construction for hundreds of years in Japan and it is a very familiar sight around many large buildings and homes. It is very soft and workable but maybe not as strong as other materials so seems to have been regulated to mainly decorative use and fencing materials in recent years. What makes the Oya Mines so interesting historically is that during WWII the large caverns were used by the Japanese military for the construction and storage of airplanes and other equipment as well. As the caverns are pretty large and deep its pretty easy to imagine large makeshift factories being conctructed inside. Whats hard to imagine is the 85Kg rectangular blocks of stone being sawed out with some of the old equpiment still on display there, and then being hauled out up flights of stairs on some guys back that probably weighed half that much.
Also in the area are several large and small statues made from the stone that are over a 1000 years old. Probably the most famous is the largest at (I think) 27M is called Oya Kannon which was created around 1950.
As always you can see a few more photos in the flickr folder.
I will also put a link below to another persons website with some really nice pictures of the inside of the caverns. It was very cool, wet, and actually foggy inside this morning, and as it was pretty dark also, the fog reflected in the flash ruining most of our cavern pictures. This gentleman obviously has better equipment and skills than us. http://www.yesicanusechopsticks.com/thesequel/Oya/

益子町 Mashiko-Machi

Friday I made a trip to Mashiko with some freinds. Mashiko is located just outside of Utsunomiya in Tochigi Prefecture. It is famous for its clay pottery dating back to 1853, however it wasn't until the 1930s when it gained national fame because of the work of a famous potter named Hamada who was named a Japan living national treasure.
There are many, many, shops and several other interesting sites in the area including the giant Tanuki statue.(aka the racoondog).
I was also able to get some nice shots of the original wood fire kilns that are not used so much anymore. The shops that still use them are very expensive.
This area is a must see for the ladies visiting Tochigi.
http://www.onmarkproductions.com/html/tanuki.shtml
http://hometown.infocreate.co.jp/en/kanto/mashiko/mashik-e.html

78th Annual Tokyo City Corporate Baseball Tourney

Friday night we joined several thousand co-workers for a trip to the Tokyo Dome to support the Honda baseball team in the 78th annual Tokyo City baseball Tourney. We travelled about 2.5 hours by bus from Utsunomiya to Central Tokyo, With Tickets, Food and most importantly, "Beverages" provided. It was our first visit inside the Tokyo dome and it is a real first class facility. Many of Japans largest corporations have company teams and their were 16 represented in this tourney. As the Japanese are rabid baseball fans even at the corporate level the games get pretty large and fan support for their teams is amazing. Until you've been to a ballgame in Japan at the professional or even at this minor league level, it's pretty hard to imagine how wild they actually get. I'm not a huge baseball fan but I have to admit going to games here can be a lot of fun with the crowds getting into the game even more so than NCAA or NFL football in the US. It was cheerleaders and chanting through the entire 9 innings of ball. Honda's competition last night was Mitsubishi, and while fan support for Honda was about 4-1 in our favor, Mitsubishi got it done on the field and won the game 6-4. Honda was done for this tourney, but still we had a great time. Below, I put a vid up on youtube of some of the cheering, which was non-stop. Unfortunately the actual cheerleaders were out of camera range, as they were a bit more "photogenic" than the people seated around us, but you get the idea.

Tokyo 東京 Shibuya 渋谷 Ginza 銀座 Ebisu 恵比寿

On Friday and Saturday we rolled over to Tokyo for a couple of days where we stayed at the Cerulean Hotel in Shibuya. Another great upscale hotel where we had a killer room with a great view of central Tokyo from the 33rd floor. On Friday we visited the Hachiko Statue and the worlds busiest pedestrian intersection Shibuya Crossing. After that we shot down to Shiba Park and went up in Tokyo Tower. At night we visited a Greek restaurant called the Aegean which had been recommended by another expat and it was great. After dinner we went to a pretty nice foreigner bar called the Hobgoblin, which was full of friendly locals and expats alike. After midnight we managed to hit both of the Gas Panic clubs in town. Not a bad day for old timers.
On Saturday we visited Ginza which is home to many art museums, large corporations, and is basically known as Tokyo's most upscale shopping district. The are many very nice buildings and on the weekends they close the main street for pedestrian traffic only. We visited the Sony Building and then after spending several hours walking around the rest of Ginza looking at all of the overpriced name brand merchandise, we decided to train over to Ebisu for something a little more relaxing.
There we visited Yebisu Garden Place which is the headquarters of Sapporo Brewery, and the Beer Museum. While we didn't make the museum this trip, we did enjoy the park area and the Yebisu outdoor cafe. This was truly one of the nicest, cleanest areas I have visited in Tokyo.
That night we went to the Hobgoblin this time for dinner, and then finished the night out walking the streets of Shibuya and visiting a Irish pub Called The Dubliner.
All in all a great long weekend. I have been to Tokyo many, many times but have never stayed in the City itself more than one overnight stay. The city is large and lively and expensive to the point where it can be too much at times. In 4 days we didn't even put a dent in the sightseeing potential that the place offers, so I'm sure we'll be back several times, maybe just in smaller doses. Once again, more pics in the Flicker folder, but our pictures don't tell the story of all that there is to see and do.