Aomori Ocean

Apropos of Nothing, Fav Photos From My Travels

Buy a mask at Todaiji

Tim o' the boat

Dog ties - Korea

Third Ring Road, Beijing

Sumo face stickers - Azabu-juban

Self-portrait

I HAVE CRAFTED THE PERFECT PENGUIN

The Olympic stadium is Red.

Bird's Nest?

I have so many photos form the Aquarium ..

Gotemba loves its kittens.

Girls in Seoul.

Fuji! From the top of Julie's apartment building.

Ciccone's wife or: Surprise! Photos from three years ago

Curry (Jukie style, with apples)

Cat of the fall, Meguro

Always love the Indian food

rofl ...

The Great Wall Forum

A link from Andreas Christoph:

Great Wall Forum

Spend some time digging around at the forum, and tell me that you're not absolutely crazy to go bum around the Wall! I myself have fallen prey to a wicked case of the Great Wall fever.

This guy knows what I'm talking about.

Jack-o-lanterN!

I carved it.

From the archives, the Great Wall at Jiumenkou

You would think that, 'front and back of Great Wall' is sort of a gimme, as far as historical accuracy goes; unfortunately, not. My friend Andreas Christoph, the German Great Wall Enthusiast, tells me that they rebuilt the Wall at Jiumenkou with the inside out and the outside in. Nevertheless! The scenery is beautiful and the wall, as long as you can ignore the misplaced waterspouts, is a friendly jaunt through the countryside. The true draw of the wall is the vantage point that it provides, as a virtually endless pedestrian causway floating just slightly above the stunning countryside of China. Think of the Highline, only is goes on and on and on and on .. Walking along the wall is a narrative, a slowly unfolding self portrait of China. Of course, it's always best to get to the road less traveled, onto the 'wild wall' and away from the other tourists, even if it requires bending a couple of rules, or waiting until the guard looks the other way and hopping a couple of barriers.

Walking in the fields of Aomori

Overwhelming Cuteness/Our Most Honorable Robot Overlords

Noah

Poko

On Halloween, Japanese children dress up in garbage bags covered with stickers, and families bake the traditional '銀パイ,’ metal pies to be left as offerings, accompanied by jars of 'ozeki' one-cup sake, for the benevolent robot overlords (ロボさま） in residence at the local shrine. It's a bit lost in translation, but Halloween never the less. Beau baked this pie.

I am still staying at the house of my friends, Beau and Chikako. As such, I just wanted to take a moment to recognize the overwhelming cuteness with which I am confronted on a daily basis, in the form of Noah and Poko. Also, a metal pie.

No more news

DOBUROKU

This sake is so awesome, it is not even legal. Think your nigori is all special? Watevs, check the bottom of that bottle: this is what unfiltered sake looks like. I mean, damn, Chikako's dad's friend totally made this in his family brewery and stuffed the top with rice stems because otherwise it would explode. You can't buy sake that good. Because it is illegal with deliciousness.

Unfortunately, since it's Japan and the polite thing to do is to wait until we can drink it with Chikako's dad, I can't drink this super-special sake either ;___;* At least, not yet .. still, this is why it is a good idea to go work on your friend's wife's parent's rice farm in Japan ^________^& kanpai!

A day in Tokyo. Negotiations continue with Nagata-sensei; looking positive, though things could still go either way. Over some non-existent (call them metaphysical) beers last night, Dr. Satterwhite clued me in to an intriguing lead re: a Minka enthusiast (leading preservationist is more accurate, leading enthusiast more exciting) in Kamakura. I'm very interested to see how that plays out, if things with Nagata-sensei do not come together. However, still lacking anything concrete to do with my life, I continue to wander about Japan, photographing and photographing and photographing and cursing myself for not taking the time to blog it all. Today, I will go to the aquarium (designed by Taniguchi), before hopping on a 5:56 shinkansen up to Aomori to crash and hang out with the illustrious Beau Buchanon, Noah, and Chikako. Peak fall season hits Aomori in about a week ^___________^

Whenever I come to Tokyo, I stay in Asakusa, old Edo, all of which orbits around Asakusa-dera. Asakusa-dera is a beautiful temple and, perhaps because it was under reconstruction and under wraps for the first nine months that I was living in Japan, has the mystical sensation of seeming to grow larger every time that I visit, always shrinking in my memory and reappearing in massive, larger than life proportions. Maybe it really is too big to imagine. Asakusa-dera is simply too big, and a beautiful example of temple construction; yet it is always here, in the heart of Tokyo, that I overhear jaded tourists muttering, hands shaking with the effort to lift their gargantuan guidebook once more to bloodshot eyes, skin baked by the intense neon of the Tokyo streets, tongues deadened by the subtle flavors of Kansai-ryori, 'Just more of the same, isn't it?' It's okay, I understand. Japan can be exhausting. I do not correct them with violent exclamations, though Asakusa-dera is most definitely not 'more of the same'; and if they ever return, I imagine that they too will have the thrilling sensation that Asakusa is larger than life, and that the beating heart of Japan is in the temple's smoking censer.

*shout out to Andy + April, the woodblock print that Mom and I gave you last Christmas is a winter scene of Asakusa-temple. Cheers!

A Trip to Lake Towada; a Ride on the Ferry

Beau, looking flustered.

Noah, probably looking just as flustered as his dad; it's harder to tell, with babies.

A taste of the fall foliage, by the time that we arrived at the lake itself, it had gotten into rainy and blustery territory. The ferry ride was still awfully pretty, especially for the rain storm. Unfortunately, it was dark, and nice and colorful pictures were out of the question.

Captain 's not to big to throw a rope.

So hard to choose!

Company on the lake.

Docking ..

.. and heading home.