General Blog – Page 18 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

October 16, 2016

Go!

ell, like I needed another hobby. I have model railroading, reading, writing (and blogging), astronomy, cycling, and now Go. So what is Go? Essentially it’s an Asian game of strategy. Black and white exchange placing pieces, trying to surround the other forces and claim territory. But it’s amazing the way the patterns flow in this game. You might stalk your opponent for a capture, only to find that he is working to capture you. Astounding. While I love to play (and just purchased my own board and stones) I’ve got a long way to go before getting any good. […]

August 16, 2017

Eulogy

don’t know why I sang it. I hardly remembered the lyrics. But the shelter told us that when you get a cat home you should sit in the bathroom with her and her litterbox until she used it to calibrate her domain. And this new visitor/family member of ours, this little black and white darling with her tiny white nose and vastly curious eyes, she prowled the bathroom and sniffed at the box while I lay in the bathtub waiting for her to christen her abode with a poo. At one point she jumped into the tub with me (how […]

October 5, 2018

Japan – Day Zero – Real worries

eople who read my trip reports know I worry. I worry about little things and big things. Possibly I shouldn’t be a tourist-traveler; I’m too strung for this. You can even see it in our last big trip, when we went to India. And now here I am, a knot of nerves the day before we are departing (and even earlier this week, when I couldn’t sleep and, when I did, woke up in cold sweats). First and foremost, at the start of the week I felt a dull pain down in my frontal-midships area. Went to the urologist yesterday […]

October 16, 2018

Japan – Day One – Transpacific

vernight, JB and I were both restless, both worrying about that 3am wakeup alarm. What could go wrong? But the trip to the airport was a breeze, security easy and casual. The fight to the first stop (Texas, another foreign country) was full except for one seat on our row, the empty seat making picking up extra sleep a little easier. And unlike Newark on that horrible rainy night so long ago, Houston was sharp. Crisp gate instructions, good signage (a color-coded E turned into a back-and-white E, which cost us one hundred paces each way). So we settled in […]

October 16, 2018

Japan – Day Two – Anime and Altitude

fter a nice “American breakfast” (which was a casual-slow ordeal and had things I’d never seen in a rodeo cookup) we slipped out. Strolled through the Shinjuku Golden-GAI district (narrow streets catering to electronics and eateries) but in this early hour everything as closed and the only motion were the cut-through high-stepping commuters. Nosed into Shinjuku station but were unsure what to make of it, with the noise and flow of humanity. Backed out of that madhouse and decided to look in a different direction. Just west of the hotel, in the shadow of the fifty-story Metropolitan Government Building, there […]

October 16, 2018

Japan – Day Three – Towers and Clocks

e’d picked up a Minato City tour book from the Tokyo Met building the day before and used it to fragment out some of the longer self-guided tours into short Raymond jaunts. This being the case, we trotted through waves of morning commuters to get to Shinjuku Station to head to our first looksee – the Tokyo Tower. However, for this, we needed to hop on the Oedo Line (like London’s Circle Line, it loops ‘round the city). So it goes like this – image a triangle pointing to the left. We enter on the lower right point, Shinjuko Station. […]

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 – […]

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 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 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 […]