robert.admin – Page 121 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

October 31, 2018

Blogging (DOG EAR)

loved Japan. If you read my trip report, you can see how much I loved it, day by day. Great fun, good food, friendly people. Outside of the “purse incident”, it was the perfect trip. Now I’ve been blogging DOG EARs since 2012 and recording trips since 2011, which is a lot of words under the bridge. And it does take some effort. Usually I’ll take my tinytop with me so I can write as I experience it. This time, we were traveling light – a backpack apiece (and a purse, sometimes, it seemed). But this time it was adding […]

October 28, 2018

The Last Days of Magic (Review)

o imagine that all you stuff you wish, think, or dream was true – fairies, elves, giants and, of course, magic – really was. And that you (as a modern twenty-first century human) know it is only myth because books tell you the real history of the world. But maybe that is only a false narrative. What if there really had been magic, all the way through until the late fourteen hundreds, that various civilizations slowly spread, conquering the magic on their frontiers. The Vatican, of course, with its own league of magic-using exorcists, continues to fight actual witches, not […]

October 24, 2018

OpsLog – LM&O – 10/24/2018

hings keep evolving at the club. Shelfton industrial has been re-tracked. Hellertown is now Lehigh. And the paper warrants are in to their second session. I was dispatching so I wasn’t outside to shepherd the paperwork. Overall, it went… okay. One problem – crews would mix their pickups and drop-offs and would end up holding paper for both. I hadn’t anticipated that and now it looks like some cars went to their local deliveries and were immediately picked up and brought back as outbounds. One of these actually was delivered, returned to the yard, then placed back on the local […]

October 23, 2018

Japan – Day Nine – This can’t be good

ike I said, I’d only post if something bad happened. And here we go. Final day in Kyoto – shuttle pickup at 1pm, so we had a morning to wander around the city and enjoy it for a little longer. Went into a bookstore (I sound like a broken record). Look, we were travelling with small backpacks and mine was stuffed full of old clothing but hey, in the bookstore they had a copy of The Art of Porco Rosso (a movie I just adore) so I had to pick it up. JB said, sure, go ahead – if we […]

October 22, 2018

Japan – Day Eight – Raked stones and backwards panels

oday was our free day in Kyoto – our final full day. So we each picked something we wanted to do. JB went for the Ryoanji Temple with its internationally famous racked gardens. So, while JB was getting ready, I hit the streets on an errand – I needed to pick up a little spending-yen, about $50 would carry us for the day, I figured. The thing was, on the ATM machine in the nearby 7-11, I got the number of zeroes mixed up and pulled $500 (i.e. 50,000 yen) by accident. No way I needed this amount of money. […]

October 21, 2018

Japan – Day Seven.Point.Five – A relaxing stroll to dinner

(This one ran long so I’m breaking the day up. Sorta like an afternoon nap) hile JB slept off our post-Yagi-san day, I slipped down to the lobby for any information on how we could spend our final full day. While there were no pamphlets anywhere, I did find a nice guide book in the gift shop (which I cheaply flipped through). In its pages, I did find something about the “Kyoto International Manga Museum”. And, the hell! It looked like it was a block from our hotel! When the wife rose from the dead, we decided we’d scope it […]

October 20, 2018

Japan – Day Seven – A thousand gates and equal deities

onks at the buffet; what? Apparently there was a monks convention in Kyoto and a number of monks were in our hotel. Came down this morning and saw two (in full orange robes, heads smooth) spooning up the scrambled eggs. Funny thing; as we sat at breakfast, more entered. But they didn’t sit with the first set; two sat apart and one alone. You’d think there would be temple shop-talk and nirvana sightings but no. Seems that monks put their robes on one leg at a time, the same as everyone else. So Yagi-san showed up bright and perky to […]

October 20, 2018

Japan – Day Six – Cloverfield unmasked and shopping

unny thing: in the morning, waiting for our guide Mike to take us to the station for our trip to Kyoto, we explored a below-level stairway (by exploring, I mean to say “dragging a reluctant JB into a new situation”). Anyway, what we found – Morlock Town! From Shinjuku Station all the way to the Municipal building there is a massive complex of subterranean pedestrian tunnels. When we were down there, there was a flood of salarymen all flowing to the huge western office blocks. And to think of all the street level hassles we’d waded through for days – […]

October 18, 2018

Japan – Day Five – Mt Cloverfield

e’d opted for a special day tour of Mt. Fuji through the hotel. So, of course, the day dawned cold and drizzly. Oh well, at least we’d do a day trip out of Tokyo and see the countryside. The bus start was chaotic – between the drive and guide yelling back and forth, it sounded like a Chinese junk sinking. Finally got on the road. Even with the light rain, JB and I agree, a bus is one of the finest ways of touring. Unlike trains (where you see the backs of houses), from the bus window you’ll see people […]

October 18, 2018

Japan – Day Four – Shrines and Temples

oday after breakfast we met with Mike-san, our Tokyo guide. Nice gentlemen, older and state-side savvy so he served as a good cultural bridge. He was to provide more than capable at maneuvering us through the null space between our various attractions. First stop – the Meiji Shine at Harajuku, a beautifully wooded park and complex. Mike explained the facets of Shintoism and invited our participation. I even paid for a charm (token? Not sure) to keep me safe from car accidents – I’ll tuck it onto my bike and we’ll see. Also sent a paper prayer to Mookie – […]