April 2003

April 29, 2003

Laura and I went on a hike up Daimonji Mountain on the weekend. The weather cleared up at long last (it had been raining all week) and off we went into the mountains...good fun. The amazing thing about Daimonji is that it offers an especially good panoramic view of the city below, with the added bonus of standing on the site where they light the big ceremonial fires in the Daimonji ceremony. Pretty neat stuff.

April 24, 2003

I got some of the pictures from cherry blossom season up on a new page here, so please check them out! Still in the works is the Sumo page, and I've got a tonne of pictures from Osaka castle that all need a home, too.

In case you haven't heard, Laura's sticking around here and won't be headed back to Canada this week. There are a lot of reasons, of course, but for my part I'm happy that she won't be travelling under the current circumstances. All the same, I feel that my tireless hours of work on a cheery Pingu styled chemical-weapons suit have been for naught, and I had hoped to send Laura off as the most fashionable, yet best prepared traveller out there. The design was based on the popular baby attire shown below. Maybe I can sell it to the U.S. military.

April 22, 2003

Yesterday we went on a bike ride through the mountains and made it out to Lake Biwa in neighbouring Shiga Prefecture. It was a bit of and exploratory mission to see how hard it would be for me to bike to work, and the answer is: too hard. There was a little more mountain than I had been expecting!

Also, one of my students showed me some pictures of the ultimate in Pingu paraphenalia, which should be of particular interest to a certain person among you: Pingu baby wear (sorry Adrienne, no adult sizes available). That's right Pingu fans, you can actually turn any lucky young fellow into le pingouin qui vie au pole sud.

April 18, 2003

Today Laura and I are headed downtown to pick up our glasses...that's right: glasses. It's been a while coming, but it finally dawned on me that the world shouldn't be quite as fuzzy as it is.

April 16, 2003

Payday has come and gone, and there are now many more pictures to put up on the site. Some of the Sumo pictures turned out really well, though I realized that next time I really should take the tripod with me if I want sharper shots.

Spring seems to be making a strong push today, and the weather is really turning beautiful...I swear I even felt a touch of summer in the air! The cherry blossoms are slowly giving way to the lush leaves of spring, and it finally feels like the last remnants of winter's gloom are gone for the year.

April 14, 2003

Eeegads! What's this!? It seems that I've actually updated my site with some new pictures! Impossible!

Today I put up some pictures that I've been itching to post for quite a while: Geisha and Maiko. I've had a few of these pictures kicking around for a while, and I think that they are especially captivating.

I also managed to put together the page for Jigokudani Onsen in Nagano...more than just the monkeys this time (although they managed to get some mention, also).

BTW, I noticed today a messed up link on my website...if anyone notices any mistakes, I would appreciate a little note telling me what the problem is. The site is still in transition from my old host, and I haven't had the time to go through it thoroughly to debug it. (End geek talk here)

April 13, 2003

The weekend is finally here, and with it, I hope to do a little work on the web page. I had a batch of film developed a while ago from Nagano and the plum blossom festival that I never scanned in, so I hope to do some revisions there. This week I'll also be developing a lot more.

As of today, the local elections will finally take place. This is a great relief, as elections in Japan are synonymous with election cars driving around blaring messages through loudspeakers. Just on Friday, the guy below - Honjou Tanaka - decided that he should park in front of our building and forcibly bring us up to speed on his election platform.

Not that I begrudge the Japanese their right to vote or anything, but I do have a serious problem with the close connection between the Japanese democratic process and loudspeakers. Imagine a world where you could have one without the other?!

April 9, 2003

Laura has finally gotten her hands on some pictures of her nephews...complete with their little hats!

It's great to see that the little guys are happy and healthy...not to mention well dressed. Congratulations once again to Melissa and JP.

April 8, 2003

We've certainly been about as lucky as we could have possibly been with the weather here...all last week it rained, ruining any hope we had of good blossom viewing weather. But Sunday and Monday (our days off) it suddenly cleared up and we had a short burst of summer warmth and blue skies. Yesterday we had a picnic under the cherry trees, today it looks like we're in the middle of a monsoon or something. That's what I call timing.

April 7, 2003

Yesterday Laura and I went with our friend Sarina to Osaka and saw the Grand Sumo Tournament honouring the recently retired wrestler Takanohana. It was, to say the least, impressive. The skill of the wrestlers was incredible, and by the end of the tournament we found ourselves pretty involved in the whole affair.

The tournament was held in Osaka Castle Hall, which as you might imagine, is by Osaka Castle. Before going into the tournament, we strolled around the castle grounds to try and take in the cherry blossom trees that had come into bloom. It was incredibly beautiful, and I think I shot about three or four rolls of film throughout the course of the day. I'll be developing the film come payday, so watch out for some pretty good pictures in the near future.

Today we are headed up to the little river here in Yamashina to have a picnic under the cherry blossoms, and to enjoy a little wine and cheese. Though it's normally pretty peaceful up there, I'm not sure how tranquil it will really be today...this season seems to set hordes of Japanese tourists in motion like none other...but then that's half the fun of it. The cherry blossom viewings tend to turn into overgrown bush parties, with people dragging out barbeques, tables and mats and setting up shop under the trees for extended periods of excessive eating and drinking...and of course to steal an occasional look at the blossoms.

April 3, 2003

Well, the happy news in the Bailey family today is that on April 2nd at 5:20 pm EST Justin Peter Bailey-Huang was born, weighing in at 5.4 lbs. He was followed 18 minutes later by his eager brother Joshua Rex who came in at 6.1 lbs. Everyone is happy and healthy and the Bailey family got a little bigger. Congratulations to Melissa and J.P.!

Laura and I spent the morning taking in the cherry blossoms down at Daigo, and they were absolutely spectacular. I will, undoubtably, be doing a rather large section on these later.

April 2, 2003

Laura and I are going to go to Daigo in the morning to check out the first of the cherry blossoms to come into full bloom. Since Daigo is in the Southern part of the city, it is the first part to have the pleasure of the blossoms. I'll take lots of photos.

This weekend we'll be heading to Osaka not only to check out the Cherry Blossoms around Osaka Castle, but we'll also be checking out a big Sumo tournament as well. Japan's premiere Sumo wrestler has just retired, and they are holding this tournament in his honour...it should be pretty neat.

On Monday we'll be having a little hanami on the Kamo River. We're going to load our bikes up with food and drink and head downtown for a picnic under the cherry trees.