w00kie's ramblings

Category: travel

  • On the road to Hokkaido

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    w00kie
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    My good friend Jon, who is clearly superhuman, was until 3 weeks ago working at Valeo on the desk in front of me. He is now between jobs taking a sabbatical and, since he can’t stay idle too long, has started a great journey from Saitama to Hokkaido… on a bicycle. He will be twittering…

  • Shimane beach report

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    w00kie
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    Simply beautiful… The weather was incredible, even with +50 SPF sun cream carefully spead by my girlfriend all over my body, I managed to catch a few sunburns. The beach was very quiet, just a couple dozen people enjoying the sea. For a comparison, I would say the place looks like a beach on the…

  • Little beach trip before Obon

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    w00kie
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    Next trip of the summer will be 2 days in the Shimane prefecture, enjoying the beach on the Sea of Japan and a nice ryokan in an onsen town. Once again, the schedule will be very tight: I’ll leave Tokyo Monday evening, meet my girlfriend as she leaves from work and spend the night in…

  • Touring the ponds of hell

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    The second day of my trip to Beppu was spent on the 地獄巡り, literally touring the hells. What they call hells are 8 remarkable hotsprings around the city, spouting 99°C water and throwing huge plumes of steam in the air. Some of them have cobalt blue water, another called 血の池地獄 is as red as a…

  • Hotel Seikai in Beppu

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    w00kie
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    I came back yesterday afternoon from Hiroshima, barely escaping the closing of the airport for cause of typhoon closing in. The trip was short, but well-packed with fun and relaxation. I will split the story of the trip in several post to keep the not so photo intensive, and I’ll start with the hotel. As…

  • Short Kyushu escapade

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    w00kie
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    Still jetlagged from the US, I’m already back on a plane: I just bought my tickets to Hiroshima for next week. My girlfriend has 2 days off Wednesday and Thursday so I’m taking the opportunity for a little R&R. And since I’ve pretty much seen all there is to see around 広島, we decided to…

  • Cursed business trip

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    I’m in Detroit Metro airport waiting or my flight back to Tokyo from my 1 week business trip to the US and I hope my troubles are over. Here’s a quick list of the problems so far: In NYC on the first night, my friend got strangled by a crazy drunk jock as we were…

  • Business trip to the US

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    w00kie
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    Tomorrow I’m leaving for the US we’re I’ll conduct some training sessions and will discuss implementation of new systems with people from the North American division of my company. Here’s the flight plan: One weekend in NYC to see a friend 2.5 days in Dallas 2.5 days in Detroit 15470 miles 32 hours 35 minutes…

  • 4 days in Hiroshima

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    w00kie
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    So I’m back from Hiroshima as you must have seen in the little Twitter column on the right. Had good fun with the girlfriend, here’s a quick roundup: Friday – arrived at 4PM, saw Spiderman 3 (was kinda lame), ate Italian Saturday – went to Iwakuni to see the 錦帯橋, nice bridge, ate yakitori and…

  • Back to Hiroshima

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    w00kie
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    I’m leaving in 20 minutes for Hiroshima to see my girlfriend. I’ll be there until Monday night and will get back to work on Tuesday morning. With the nice weather, I’m hoping we’ll get to make a nice picnic next to one of the many rivers in Hiroshima. I’ll try not to catch the flu…

  • Back from China

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    So I’m back from China and it wasn’t as bad as my colleagues led me to believe. Of course, I stayed only 5 days there and he spent 4 months. I doubt I could’ve stayed sane more than 2 weeks over there. Anyways, it was cold, filthy, totally disorganized and did I mention it was…

  • Missing the Hanami

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    w00kie
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    This week, the cherry trees blossomed all over Tokyo and the Kanto plain. This weekend, and particularly tomorrow since today was rainy, everyone is preparing to put down the blue tarps under the blossoms and drink themselves stupid. However, I will be waking up at 5AM to take the plane to Changchun in Mandchuria –…

  • Snowboard in Hokkaido

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    Last weekend I took the Monday off and went with 3 friends to Niseko in Hokkaido for 3 days of snowboard. Departure 8am on Saturday from Tokyo – Haneda, quick flight to Sapporo – Chitose, then 2h30 of the most excruciatingly slow bus ride I’ve ever experience. At 2pm we were geared up and on…

  • The ASTRAM of Hiroshima

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    One of the train lines in Hiroshima is called the ASTRAM. The name アストラム comes from あす meaning “tomorrow” and トラム which is tram in katakana. I was thinking of another theory but my girlfriend didn’t find it that funny… :) me: It’s the ASS-TRAM!!! *grins stupidly* 愛子: Don’t make fun of my city!

  • Huge rice scooper

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    Here is my girlfriend in front of the biggest しゃもじ in the world: If you ever go to 宮島, you’ll see those wooden rice paddles everywhere. They are used to scoop the rice out of the rice cooker, at least before the wooden type was replaced by newer plastic, non-sticky ones. Souvenir shops sell big…