w00kie's ramblings

Tag: japan

  • You broke my watch!

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    w00kie
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    Yesterday I went to Tokyo to buy back the sunglasses I had lost on a snowboarding trip some time back. On the way to Omotesando, I dropped by the Swatch store in Shibuya to get my watch bracelet widened – something about drinking too much beer and putting on weight… So I show my watch…

  • Touring the ponds of hell

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    w00kie
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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…

  • Big earthquake this morning

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    w00kie
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    20 minutes ago we felt a big earthquake at work. The shook for a good 20-30 seconds and the building rocked a good deal. I checked out the earthquake report and it was a magnitude 6.6 quake in 新潟県, some 200km from here. It was a 6 Low on the Japanese scale, which is the…

  • 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…

  • Surfing in Shonan

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    w00kie
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    I’ve got a new hobby. One of my friends with whom I went snowboarding in Hokkaido this winter lives in 湘南 in a cool house 300m from the beach, right in front of 江ノ島. Since the last month I go surfing there almost every weekend. I can check the weather / wave size on Yahoo!…

  • Sumo beer cup

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    w00kie
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    I went to see Sumo 2 weeks ago for the second time since I’m in Japan. This time around, I was sitting in the boxes on 1st floor (really just a tatami with 4 thin cushions) instead of far out in the poor people’s late gaijins’ cheaper seats on 2nd floor. Of course, I had…

  • 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…

  • Yasukuni Black Suits

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    w00kie
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    Last week was Golden Week, a bundle of national holidays all packed in the same week: Constitution day, Green day, Children’s day and the new Showa day. This last one is in honor of the previous emperor’s birthday and is a big hit among Japan’s extremist population, which I like to call the Black Suits.…

  • The ASTRAM of Hiroshima

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    w00kie
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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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    w00kie
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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…

  • Temple stickers

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    w00kie
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    Still in 大聖院 temple, this gate was covered in these paper stickers. I don’t exactly know what they are for, my girlfriend told me it had something to do with sumo… Anyways, it looked really neat.

  • Ultraman and friends

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    w00kie
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    Taken in 大聖院 temple in Miyajima, I have no idea what they were doing there:

  • Hiroshima Report

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    I’m back home, in good old Saitama. As usual, the trip went like a breeze, I arrived 20 minutes before my flight, checked in, passed security and boarded my flight all in one stride. Not the shadow of a line anywhere, a wonder for french guy used to american and european airports. Then once I…