FHI Glider Competition

FHI was having a glider competition and asked if I would join. I thought making the glider was going to be super easy so I left it to the morning of to make it, but apparently it is harder, you have to actually cut things and measure and glue etc... My glider didnt turn out so good, I could only get it to fly for 10 seconds max and it kept trying to do loops, but I got a stronger rubber band and it was able to fly for 40 seconds and didnt do the loop. The expert fliers told us the key was more power, I guess they were right.
My glider... note the "splice" on the wing, because I didnt measure like I was supposed to the wing paper didnt fit right and I had to add a little more

Seki san flying his glider.

Me and my glider, before it headed into a loop.

Flying the gliders was a lot more fun than I expected. Interesting trying to get them to fly well.

Moto Day Trip

Took a little motorcycle ride this weekend up to a spot my friend Hiroi san had pointed out previously. Nice ride through a windy road in Tochigi starting around Nikko and then up through routes 169 to 245 up around 249 to Yunishigawa.

I took the same picture above in the winter in front of Yunishigawa.
Here it is for a compairson.

Hanami Party 2012

Misato and I rode our bicycles out to this road that has 600 cherry blossom trees lining the road near the Honda Engineering facilities. It was really nice seeing all the trees, and there is a park with food vendors of course. I prefer the Hachimanyama park in Utsunomiya though, more food vendors, and more peaceful with no traffic.

The next weekend I took a nice motorcycle ride to Mt. Tsukuba, if anyone lives nearby or happens to read this that is looking for motorcycle routes I highly recommend this. Beautiful windy road and as I was riding through the cherry blossoms were still out and falling pedals surrounding me when I was cruising through. Really nice peaceful ride. There are a lot of other people other doing the same thing, with motorcycles or rally cars cruising through the curves.

This photo doesnt really do the ride justice.

Mike Comes to Japan

Mike came to visit, we took a little self guided bicycle tour around Tokyo. I highly recommend if you are interested in bicycles and getting off the beaten path and away from the busy subway stations. We stayed near okachimachi which is really good for daytime market experience, but no real bars/restaurants are open late. There are a few bicycle rental places near Ueno/Okachimachi for 200 yen you get a mama cherry all day.

The next weekend we went to keirin which was also really fun, betting on bicycle racing just like horse racing, but we did not win. One of the big wins was the trifecta in order, it paid around 200,000 yen, this in on a 100 yen ticket so a good deal if you can win. The guys legs are freakin huge. The race is mostly a sprint where there are a few laps that are guided by a pace bicycle, the last lap and a half the pace bike drops out and the race is on. Apparently each bicycle can jump out in front of the pacer at anytime to kind of start the race on their own terms. Unfortunately there are no photos allowed inside and no alcohol, strange since alcohol is allowed almost everywhere in Japan and you can usually bring your own into events like basketball games.

After Keirin we headed down to Osaka to check out the city. This was my first time to Osaka and we decided to stay in a capsule hotel. Capsule hotels are awesome for 2 guys traveling alone, or anyone traveling alone really. The only downside is that you are limited on communication once you get into the capsule so its hard to tell when the other person is up and ready to go for the day, one day I lost mike for a few hours.





As you can see there is plenty of room for me, and Im about 5'11". Even some room for my bag. There is a TV and a little radio. Only drawback is you can hear other peole and alarms going off, so definitely bring some earplugs.

We went to check out the aquarium which was ok, but from my posts a few years ago youll see the Oarai aquarium is much nicer.


Later that day we went to the Osaska castle, which is more like a museum which is nice in that regard, but if youd like to see what the actual castles look like I suggest the Matsumoto castle posted earlier this year.



Osaka has a great number of places to hang out an explore if you are in for the nightlife. Mike and I found a place similar to utsunomiya where there are many small places lined up together, we sat at one and met a random guy who spoke really good english. This guys usual friday was to hang out at bars all night before catching the first train back to the suburbs and his family early saturday morning, gotta love Japan.

We took the night bus from Utsunomiya to Osaka which worked out pretty well. They turn the lights off around midnight and back on at 6, so if you can sleep in a somewhat reclined seat and 6hrs is all you need youll be good to go. I suggest the earplugs again.

Valentines at Yunishigawa Onsen

Misato and I went up to Yunishigawa onsen for valentines day. There is a special event there where they light up a bunch if igloos. Nice little getaway. I want to take my motorcycle back this summer for a nice tour of the mountain roads.

Caught these guys clearing the roof of snow, apparently there is no OSHA in Japan.

Had an awesome dinner in a BBQ sand pit inside the hotel.

Then took a nice private onsen with the two of us next to the river with the snow, very romantic.
Nice picture of the train coming to take us home.

And the Nikko Mountains.

Bill Comes to Visit

I realized I havent updated this in a long time so these next few posts are backlog.
Bill came to Japan, original plan was to go to Nagano to go skiing, but Bill decided he would rather dislocate his shoulder the week before so we made some last minute changes, but still went to the ski area just to check out the famous Japanese snow. First weekend in Tokyo, went to the Hamarikyu gardens and a maid cafe. No pics from the maid cafe, but here is one in the garden of us taking tea.

The maid cafe is somewhat strange place. The cafe staff are all younger girls 18-22 ish who dress as maids, basically you are paying for their company in kind of an innocent shy guy fantasy, but it cost per hour and you must pay for 2 hours and buy 1 item per hour so it came out to be like 3500 yen for each of us. The clientele is quite varied from single men, groups of middle age women, groups of teenage boys, and some parents and kids. It all seems like innocent fun, but kinda sad some people are so shy that they go to this type of place for social (albeit fantasy) interaction. There are all kinds of things like cute pictures or cute little bunny/kitty food designs.

During the week we went back to Utsunomiya and I showed Bill some of my favorite restaurants. One place is a small grouping of hut type places where each hut serves different food. We picked the yakitori (chicken skewer) place. Had a great time, one guy was even very impressed by Bill was so happy he was there told us all about his hobby of low-rider cars, very amusing, stayed there for about 5hrs and were completely drunk, but not worse than the guys we met. One guy left the bar after giving his wallet to the bar tender for the bar tender to take the correct amount of cash, luckily people in Japan are honest and the bartender only took out what the guy owed, the other guy barely stumbled away.

The next day Bill and I were supposed to leave early for Nagano to check out the ski areas, but Bill had such a bad hang over he slept til about noon. Eventually we got out, had some famous Utsunomiya gyouza and headed out. Ended up going to Matsumoto where there is a beautiful castle.

Then headed to a shrine where we were attacked by pigeons.

Headed over to a ramen shop, called sakura something ramen, it was awesome for anyone planning to go to matsumoto or happen to be in the area.
Went back to the castle for some night viewing.

The next day we headed to a wasabi farm, which was kinda fun, but not really worth the separate trip, we were killing time before heading to nozawa onsen although not to ski.

Interesting thing about the wasabi is that it is farmed it what looks like rock beds, a diverted stream runs between the rockbeds and it is all very intricately laid out so the water runs from one side of the wasabi rockbed to the next.

Above you can see how the wasabi is flooded and the water runs through from outside towards the inside along the angled rows.

Finally made it to Nozawa onsen and checked out the ski hill, and the 12 free onsen. One onsen was so incredibly hot we could only stand it a few seconds seriously hot!!!

The picture above is the typical look of the onsen there, pretty small places, this one is the most famous and super hot. Bill and I found the most bearable to be the one with "Bear" in the name. It snowed and snowed and snowed, so by the time we left the next morning the train couldnt make it back up to the station. Luckily the train company was able to get us a bus that took us all down to the next train station, but since this was a tourist town try telling a bunch of americans/aussies and chinese that the train is cancelled with little explanation, people were getting fired up, luckily I could understand his announcement enough to know the bus was coming and Bill and I werent in a big hurry anyway so we were just going with the flow. Wish more people could just relax, nothing you can do about a shit ton of snow falling, not the train companies fault. Thats about it. Here is Bill and I drinking some wasabi beer at the wasabi farm.