Travel
June 4 — Trips from the Road
Despite rainy weather, we decided to make a day trip for abalone. The swell wasn’t the predicted 2 feet that we hoped for, but it wasn’t too bad. The water could best be described as “sharky”, due to a combination of runoff from the cow pastures, tiny bubbles mixed into the dark silty water and … Continue reading
Jurassic Island
On the Garden Island of Kauai, there are many, many chickens. They greeted us at the airport when we set down, begged for food (especially the fried chicken) and crowed early in the morning. You could live off of a diet of chicken and fruit for free in this patch of earth in perpetuity. Chickens … Continue reading
Fort Ross and Stillwater Cove
It turns out that there are a lot of camp sites available in the Fort Ross area of the California coastline, and the beginning of September during the mid-week is an ideal time to get a place to yourself. We returned to a place that had yielded some pretty good results on a previous trip … Continue reading
Genocide Cocktail
My sister Merin sent me this picture of a tank full of habu in awamori that she took while on vacation to Okinawa this weekend, in a place called Gyokusendo Kingdom Village. I wrote all about habushu and mamushizake in a previous post, and thought that they made this liquer with one snake per bottle, … Continue reading
Tienes Arroz, Bitch?
This thing made me want to put on a blindfold, spin around ten times, let the force guide my bat straight and true, and smash it open to get to the candy.
A Few Diving Pics
These were taken at Zamami (jima, I think) at Dragon Lady point. Have you ever seen a sea cuke eviscerate? Not pretty… These pictures were taken by our guide, a cute 24 year old Okinawan. This one is of some kind of grouper. I want a pet grouper one day that will live under my … Continue reading
My Dog, Shisar
These dogs are Shisar, the guardians of the Ryukyu (Okinawan) Islands. You see them all over the place in Okinawa, on keychains, t-shirts, and anything else that is sold on the Kokusai-dori (the main tourist street in Naha). Of all of the Shisar statues that I encountered, I especially like these. They remind me of … Continue reading
Craptacular!
This weekend was just what I needed. I took a roadtrip down to Miyazaki City for the Cheesy Disco Party with Mark and Joe Fingerhut to meet up with the usual suspects. To say that things got out of control would be an understatement, and there are many good stories from Saturday night, but I … Continue reading
Pain
A unwilling visit to the Monterey branch of the Bubba Gump Shrimp franchise.
Chinese Meat Market
The “butcher/deli” section in a market in Shanghai. Shopping for ingredients in Shanghai is an adventure of sights and smells. We wandered in a large, grey, hulking building and found each section of the two floors packed with a huge variety of food in its virgin state (more or less). Nothing is nicely packaged here, … Continue reading