Dinner with the Kawai's

Saturday night we went to dinner with Heathers Sensei and her husband. Later we threw some darts at FuruSato. Like all of the friends we have made in Japan, the Kawais will be missed.

Sapporo Beer Factory Darts Tournament at Nasu

This weekend Heather, Myself and a few friends hit another darts tournament. This time it was at the Sapporo beer factory in Nasu. The beer factory is a really nice place, housing of course the beer factory and a large beer hall restaraunt that have visited before and of course an excellent place to hold a darts tournament. This time we fared a little better in the darts actually winning a few games and even a match in our low level division. Though we didn't make it to the 2nd round we had a great time and of course tossed back quite a few cold, very fresh Sapporo beers.

Sendai and Matsushima 仙台市と松島

The last couple of days we traveled to nearby Miyagi Prefecture and visited the City of Sendai and nearby Matsushima. Matsushima is a small bay fishing town famous for oysters and some 260 tiny islands and is considered the 3rd best scenic view in Japan. Sendai itself is the capital city of Miyagi Prefecture and the largest city in the Tōhoku region. I was thinking it would be similar to Utsunomiya but it was much larger with over a million people and a whole lot cleaner with a very nice downtown area. Gyu-Ton or beef tongue(and beef in general) is the regions famous food dish and is served in many ways. We had it a few times and must say it was pretty good. Of course we tried several of the advertised gaijin friendly bars and nightspots and we found a few good dart bars close to our hotel where we spent the evenings. We also found a very authentic Mexican restaurant (well Mexican American anyway) called Casa DelSol. It was great as good Mexican food is definitely a rarity in this country.
Anyhow we would recommend both Matsushima and Sendai for a visit and would say you could definitely cover them with a day trip or single overnight visit. We drove it but both places are easily accessed by the Shinkansen and local train system. There are more pics here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8953511@N05/sets/72157617495854121/

2009 MotoGP Rd2

This years MotoGP weekend was a little rough. We spent most of Saturday in the cold rain and didnt see any action at all as the Qualifying was cancelled due to water on the track. We arrived on Sunday morning with a forecast of no rain but were greeted by a heavy downpour as the morning warmups started. Fortunately it cleared off and the track dried up for the days racing. Lorenzo took the win in some exciting racing with Rossi and Pedrosa in tow. Our man Hayden was unfortunately torpedoed off the track in th first lap by the local hero Takahashi which was a complete bummer. Anyhow heres a few pics and a vid of the start. Added 4/28 some photos from our friend Yuji Ishihara, who was sitting in turn 5 and caught "Torpedo Takahashi" giving Nicky the "bump".