Guam Island, Outside the Resort

Today we decided to rent a car and cruise the Island a little. Very good choice as it gave us an entirely different perspective of the island and the people who live here. Very intresting and scenic.

More Guam

As we have mostly spent our days lounging at the resort, we don't have many pics of note to post. We have enjoyed some nice sunsets, some shopping, and eating at the many American restaurant's around town. There are a lot of historical WWII sights to see but we're not sure if we'll make it out to see them. We have found that Guam heavily caters to the Japanese tourist which makes up about 80% of their business outside of the US military. The Japanese come here to shop for low cost foreign goods at several high end and outlet malls. While we will take advantage and pick up a few essentials to take back to Japan, shopping is not what we really are up for so we are mainly sticking to the resort for some relaxation.

Guam 2007 Day 1

Arrived after a nice flight, and the Island and water is beautiful. The Marriott is not 5 star by any means but it will work well for our needs. For the first few days as it is the off season we pretty much have it to ourselves. The weather is calling for sun and a mix of spotty rains for the next few days but the temps are averaging high 80s low 90s, so I think we will survive. If it rains we will seek refuge at the tiki hut and have a Lite beer, and if its sunny, we will probably seek refuge at the tiki hut and have a Lite beer.

2007 Motegi MotoGP Race Day

Today was a rainy miserable day for the race. While the rain did stop about a 1/2 hour before the race, the track was wet and the damage was done. Our favorite riders starting together on the front row were only able to generate 1 top ten finish with Hayden getting 9th. Pedrosa crashed out right in front of us with a nasty highside and Rossi had issues with the tires on his 2nd bike forcing him from first place to 13th. Tony Elias did manage to put one Honda on the podium with a 3rd so all was not lost. Caparossi took 1st and Depuniet was 2nd, sure glad LCR Honda signed RDP for next year, Ive always said he was going to be a great one ;). With 2 races remaining the championship is over with Australian Casey Stoner winning the 2007 championship. Even with the crappy weather the Japanese fans turned out in droves and it was a pretty lively crowd cheering on several Japanese riders put on as wild card riders. We do hope the weather is a little nicer to us next year.

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/