Maxim Noah Khailo

Trip to the Morton Arboretum

2009-11-20T18:05:00.000-08:00

Jessica and I recently went to the Morton Arboretum. I took the occasion to try out some stereoscopic images. A nifty technique to show them is to alternate between the two images quickly. Below are some of the images I took:(WARNING may make you dizzy)

Web Page Rage

2009-07-22T11:52:00.001-07:00

So I updated my website to be more "advanced". It now shows my twitter status under my name. I created a php script that would get the status from twitter. However this proved to slow down my website by a lot because twitter is slow, retarded monkey slow. So I created a perl script that saves my status to a file and my page reads that file. I created a cron job to run that script once in a while. So for those who need to want to know my twitter status with little fuss you can get it at http://mempko.dyndns.org/twitstatus

You know, you can make a programmable clock that speaks my status and stuff. But I doubt you want to be woken up to the sound of my ramblings.

The Trap

2009-07-15T13:35:00.000-07:00

I watched a wonderful documentary by Adam Curtis called The Trap which describes the distinction between positive and negative freedoms and how fighting for negative freedoms has put our society into a trap. Discover what that trap exactly is and how negative freedoms lead to a moral dead end.

Free Market and Snow Plows

2008-12-23T09:37:00.000-08:00

Its snowing here in Chicago. I was driving the other day and saw a snow plow driving on the street with it's plow up. It drove for a while like that on the slippery snowy street until it pulled into a strip mall parking lot.

"That's incredibly annoying", I thought.

The businesses payed private plowing companies to plow their parking lots while the city clearly pays plowing companies to plow the streets. So you end up with snow plows that are supposed to plow a parking lot not plow the streets when they go to their destinations.

This may be efficient in terms of speed. Businesses get their lots plowed fast. Often faster than the city can plow the roads. Which is funny because people can't get to those nice clean parking lots.

However this setup is not efficient in terms of resources. In reality the total cost for an area is larger for the community as a whole. The city I live in already employs bus drivers. How hard it be to equip some city trucks with plows. I am sure the bus drivers would love to get some more hours of work in.

I see the snow plows as an example in the inherent inefficiency in the free market. The free market does not consider externalities (Is that a word?). Two parties interacting don't think about the third. Stores don't consider the idea that they might be putting more plows on the road than necessary. To the point of perversion where nobody can get to their clean parking lots.

Spinning Wheels and Heat Sink Fans

2008-12-15T08:38:00.000-08:00

My little big old new server went down over the weekend. Me and my wife were in the guest bedroom where the server lives under the bed, ready to scare guests. She was knitting and I was on my laptop. Then a terrible noise came from under the bed. The noise of high pitch squeaking that scared our dog.

I immediately knew it was a fan from within the machine. Opening it up I found the heat sink fan over the CPU struggling to turn. So I turned the machine off.

In a moment of inspiration I thought about using my wife's spinning wheel oil on the fan. After unscrewing the fan and cleaning off the thick layer of dust I simply had to pull back a sticker on the back of the fan to reveal the motor. A simple cleaning and oiling using the spinning wheel oil was all that was needed to get the fan purring like a Mercedes Benz.

I don't think it will bother my mother in law now who is coming to stay over the weekend. She will refuse to sleep on our bed so inevitably will end up sleeping in the guest bedroom, on top the server. All I have to do now is setup festival text to speech for some weekend prankster fun ;-)

Little Big Old New Server

2008-12-03T09:10:00.000-08:00

I have setup an old machine (AMD 1.2GHZ) a friend gave me as my source code repository last night. I use darcs for all my source code because it is easy to use and is based on some solid principles. I setup darcsweb on the machine so that you can easily browse around my code and see my changes. I added a link to Personal Projects on the left side column. Most of my code uses the MIT license so feel free to give and take.

Poverty, Crime, and the space you live.

2008-02-27T12:28:00.000-08:00

We often assume socio-demographic reasons for crime in an area such as race, income, and education. With the emergence of GIS technology, studies have been done to investigate whether connectivity of neighborhoods affects income and crime. There have been studies that showed a strong correlation and ones that showed a negative ones.

The architect Christopher Alexander and his theory of centers created a different model of understanding well being in the context of the physical space around you. His idea is that physical space (the actual space of objects and where objects do not exist) has a degree of life to it that can be increased by proper incremental enhancement of centers. Centers specifically are anything that attract the eye. In his book series "The Nature of Order", Alexander explains several practical ways of increasing the life of centers and therefore increasing the life of a specific location. How this affects our mood and consciousness can be scientifically tested and maybe eventually pave a way to construct objects, neighborhoods, and cities that is beneficial for everyone.

It is fun to speculate how our living conditions, architecture, and objects around us can such a great influence over us. Maybe people should start paying attention to the little things around them and notice how they change their mood and perception. If people surround themselves with a lively environment, then surely they will become lively. If we are lively, we may start to have a positive effect on those around us. Even though its difficult in this fast paced world to slow down and pay attention, it maybe beneficial to our mood, health, and eventually our prosperity.

Give Peace a Chance

2007-11-30T09:53:00.000-08:00

Mike Gravel.

http://www.gravel2008.us

About the Ron Paul Revolution

2007-11-12T06:28:00.001-08:00

There are certain words that strike a cord with people. Liberty, freedom, revolution. They rub their inner passions the right way. There is an internet thing called the "Ron Paul Revolution". You see, many people are on board with revolution since they are fed up with how this country is headed.

Ron Paul is a diligent supporter of the constitution. So I ask you friends. When has it become revolutionary to follow the rules? The rules of the constitution? "Ron Paul Revolution" is oxymoronic (oxymoron with a little ironic). So please people. Ron Paul has no revolutionary ideas. These ideas have always been with us in the form of the constitution. Ron Paul is not changing the system but following it. Do not be swept away by words such as "Freedom", "Liberty", and "Revolution". Bush went into the war in the name of "Freedom." Think for your selves.

If you really want to see some revolutionary ideas. Watch Mike Gravel give an alternate debate this November 15th starting at 4:30 on:

http://www.ustream.tv/

A link will be posted on http://www.gravel2008.us as well.

The revolutionary idea Mike has is called the National Initiative.

http://www.ni4d.us/

CNN would not let him in the debate because he did not raise $1 Million dollars. Support Mike and let the media know that money is not what is important for a presidential candidate. Let them know that we want is someone with great ideas. Truly revolutionary ideas.

Violence Compounds

2007-10-07T00:00:00.000-07:00

Violence has been said by many to be justified in the name of doing good. "The Iraq war is bringing democracy and peace in the middle east" for instance is a common justification. The trouble I have with saying violence can be used for good is the notion of good.

When you commit violence, you absolutely know you are causing harm, otherwise it would not be violence by definition. With violence, there is a guaranteed "bad" effect in the form of harm you are inflicting. For instance, the Iraq war has caused hundreds of thousands civilian deaths as a result of the violence our troops and Iraqi troops are involved in.

However, how can you "know" of any good created from violence? The good becomes this ethereal ,mental, if not subjective entity.

Often times good is realized in the absence of bad. This black and white polar view of the world is troublesome. However, even with this view it is easy to see one truth related to war.

If Good is realized in the absence of bad, and bad is caused by violence, then good is done by peace.

You cannot do Good by doing Bad.

A good rebuttal might be the argument that the future good created by our violence will out-weigh the bad being done.

However, I think it is foolish to determine the lives of so many people by some hopeful gamble of something so far removed from reality as the concept of "good".

Guitar Head

2007-03-29T07:56:00.000-07:00

I like to hit the guitar once in a while. Play some tunes. Make some muzik. So today I bring you a picture of my Jessica's guitar.

Ok, so really it is just the head of the guitar. But as anyone knows, the head of the guitar is just as important as the rest. And it is also shiny.

Picture of backyard and speech

2007-03-25T12:56:00.000-07:00

Today I bring to you a picture of my backyard. For those of you who do not know, I bought a condo last year in Downers Grove. My patio looks out into the court yard which is a nice place to be.

I am also hosting a wiki page at my house. You don't have to register to edit it. But more of an interesting note is that my computer at home can talk. I made a web page where you can send me a message and I will here it from my computer. This may get annoying after a while but I thought it would be fun to be able to make my computer talk from anywhere in the world. Let's just call it a technological home experiment for me to hear people's messages. All messages are kept and everyone can see the messages people send me. Try it out!

It is very easy now for technology to allow us to communicate with each other. However, the population is booming and it is now becoming impossible to stand out among over 6 billion people in this world. The theory that there are at most six degrees of separation between you and someone else in this world emphasizes the connectedness of our communication with other people. However, our attention to other people is limited. We are connected the 6 billion other people but our attention is only to a select few. I am not the best example of someone mindful of other people but I have, up to a point, realized that we have to be aware of our communication with others and the impact it can have, not only immediately to them, but to the whole of humanity. There is a lot of anger in a lot of people's speech. This kind of speech is not thought out, and the impact it has is not acknowledged. There is no knowing how your angry speech may have a subtle ripple on the people you said it to, and the people they know, and the people they know. Of course our network of relationships is cyclic. So there may be some truth to the phrase "What goes around comes around". So please send me a message. You can make my computer say the angry things you would say to someone else. The difference here is, I would have no idea who it came from. More importantly you can let it be an opportunity to practice good speech.

Here is the link again

http://mempko.dyndns.org/talktome/

HDR Image for you.

2007-02-25T17:29:00.000-08:00

I have had a keen interest in High Dynamic Range imagery (HDR) lately. HDR images are simply a set of images taken at a range of exposures and combined into one image. This creates some interesting effects. It is getting popular around the internet recently. There were some great ones of Chernobyl. Below is a HDR picture I have taken of my retro Motorola record player and a lamp.

You can read about HDR here.

Let me know what you think about my image and go and try taking some yourself. They are very fun and the results are rewarding.

I just came back from life

2007-02-15T20:15:00.000-08:00

I am now alive. So what is going on you say? Well, I came back from Japan, finished school, found a job, got engaged, got a condo, and am now back to writing a blog entry. A lot has happened and I will certainly say it is good to be at a point where I can write this. Leave a comment here and say hello. I have a wiki server running at home now and you can find it at

http://mempko.dyndns.org/mediawiki/

Say hello there also. I will post pictures of my new life and hopefully write something interesting along the way.

Max

Dead Computer

2006-04-03T23:09:00.000-07:00

For anyone who wants to know, I am back to the US of A. So give me a ring or email me if you know how. I have not posted in a while because I could not. After coming back, my hard drive crashed and therefore I cannot post my new pictures until I fix this (its rather complicated, I have a laptop and I will fix it myself). When I have all this sorted out I will post Kyoto part 2. I will also sift throught the rest of my pictures (a couple hundred of so) and find the best ones for future posts.

Kyoto Part 1

2006-02-26T20:07:00.000-08:00

It has been awhile but I bring for you today some very beautiful pictures of Kyoto. Kyoto used to be the capital of Japan until it was switched over to Tokyo. Kyoto as a city is very different from Nagoya. It is incredibly old and therefore has a long history with many traditions. It does not have high rise skyscrapers like Nagoya and Tokyo, but if you want to see traditional Japanese culture, Kyoto is king.

We decided to take the Shinkansen to Kyoto. From Nagoya to Kyoto, riding one of these puppies takes roughly 35 minutes! These trains run at speeds up to 300 km/h (186 mph)! And let me tell you, the ride was like butter. It literally felt as though I was flying in clear skies in a plane. Apparently, these trains on average arrive within 6 seconds of the scheduled arrive time! The Amtrak network in America is truly a joke compared to this.

Here we are enjoying the ride on the beautiful Shinkansen bullet train.

Here are our now traditional travel buddies, Robert and Spring. As you can see in the picture,
It looks like we are flying in an airplane. When Amtrak says they are "The only way to fly", do not listen, it is a lie I tell you, a lie!

As you know, I am pretty late on posting this, (we went last December), that is why there is snow on the ground. But look at that mountain whizzing by!
We then arrived to find ourselves looking at a very modern train station. For more proof of how late this post is, look at that Christmas tree! And yes, there are tons of Christmas trees in Japan even though it has few Christians.

It was cloudy that morning and very cold. However we came prepared with layers upon layers of clothes.
Immediately after arriving we went sight seeing. We wanted to go see an old temple called Ginkakuji (Silver Gate Temple or sometimes called Silver pavilion). We took the bus and arrived...at some temple. I do not know its name, but we found this red temple. We were a little discouraged going the wrong way but, how could I miss a photo opportunity! See how small Jessica is compared to the mightiness of this Shinto tori.

The cop cars here in Japan are so shiny. Since, unlike America, its hard to see a cop car on the streets, I had to take a picture.

It was desolate and cold. I felt as though I was in china here because of the red-green color combination.

Me and Jessica were absolutely shocked and provoked here in this picture. What were we shocked about? The audacity of absolutely nothing. I think though that our expressions are well worth the effort.
Jessica and I were cold but excited to be there. Oh, and Jessica also made the cool hat I am wearing just in time for the trip.

We eventually found our way back on the path to what is considered by many to be the most beautiful temple in Japan. It is highly, highly regarded by Japanese people as the most mighty in Japanese aesthetic.

I thought I would take a picture of a typical house here in Kyoto. If there is anything I did not enjoy in Japan was the way they heat their homes. Most people here in Japan have a heater in each worthy room. There is no luxury of central heating, no there isn't. You wake up in the morning cold because the heater turns off automatically at night and mozy your way down to the cold living area to the cold bathroom. And of course this means that when you are done taking a shower, stepping out is the step of death. I might as well step outside. Fortunately Jessica bought me slippers as a Christmas present last year so I was saved from the bitter cold of the floor. Sorry, I was reminded of it all because the picture has a heater.

All this walking made us tired so we decided to take a rickshaw to Ginkakuji. How could I resist being dragged around like some foreign king with the hate of the people behind me. These rickshaw people were very nice and during the trip explained many historical aspects of Kyoto with nice broken English.
Yes, the fun we had. The nice thing about the rickshaw is that they provided us some of those warm sacks. You know, the kind where you shake it and it gets very hot. This made the trip even nicer!

The rickshaw guys decided to take a group shot. See them and all their comedy.

For some reason the rickshaw pullers wanted a picture of us looking quizzically at the camera. We were all "charmingly befuddled"

Eventually the nice rickshaw pullers brought us to the gates of Ginkakuji where we found the air ripe with beautiful natural wonderment.
Already you can see the care taken in trimming the tree. Bonsai... Also I believe this is the Chinese gate. Past it we bought our tickets to enter.

Entering the area you will find yourself walking along a sand covered path lined with many beaufitful trees and a bamboo fence. Once you enter the grounds of the temple, you are taken back to a different age.

I was amazed with what this man was doing. They had taken sand and constructed many structures with it. That's some cone this man is making.
Boy, I thought the cone was amazing. But then this marvel was found. What you see here is sand, not concrete. When I first saw how crisp this looked I thought it was concrete. There are not footprints or any other marks on it. Making it must have been quite a feat...no pun intended. I was told that this is best viewed at night with a full moon shining on it. It is said it looks like a beautiful silver sea.

Its amazing that these things still exist and are preserved so well.
There are few words...

There was a grand path up the side of a small mountain. I was able to take this shot of Kyoto. Notice that the buildings are many but not too tall. The city lies among the mountains in the crests.

Here is a nice shot of Jessica by a small waterfall. I hope Jessica's mother enjoys this one.

The green is not given any justice by the camera, oh well. But further down you will see the power of green!

On the high path I was able to take this bad shot of the temple. The sun was coming down and I did not have anything to block its light.

There is something about Japanese aesthetics which refresh the soul. They are not shy of letting natural beauty be expressed.

I sincerely recommend coming to this temple. There is much to see, and much to appreciate.

The shot below is my favorite one of the temple grounds. Jessica took this shot. Notice that there is a small path there. The shortest path between to points is a straight line they say. I also say that same short straight path is the ugliest. This path does not move any mountains. The nature around it shapes its course. I have found very few straight streets and paths in Japan (except new planned city centers). Those who live in American suburbia know the gridwork around them. Even the new American neighborhoods with curvy streets seem artificially curvy. They did not grow to be that way but were planned. Luckily America is very large and it is easy to escape the predictability found there by doing some traveling. There is a lot of untouched nature there. Oh and if you go out to touch this nature, also please, let it touch you. (I know that was corny, but I believe it is good advice).

I will post part two soon. I hope you enjoyed some pictures of Japan and Kyoto. That night we slept in a traditional Japanese hotel elipses.

Trip to Shirakawa

2006-01-14T21:34:00.000-08:00

Our school here in Japan is nice enough to provide a school funded trip to a remote part of Japan so that the students can get an authentic Japanese experience...and what an experience it was. An experience including scenic bus routes, authentic Japanese cuisine, mountain hiking, and of course someone falling off a ledge breaking his heels. Our school provided a very cushiony bus for the three hour trip.

We started early in the morning to get a head start on the day. The trip was breath-taking because of all the beautiful nature around us. We were heading north to a place called Shirakawa.

We had a brief bathroom break which included funny Japanese robot dancing.

I decided to take the break as an opportunity to take a picture of a mountain scene. Friends demand mountains...so I provide them. As you may notice, the trees were turning color and it was very cold. It only got colder as we went north.

We had another bathroom break at a dam (the kind that blocks a river) site. Here is a picture of Jessica and I in front of changing trees.
Essentially our school booked a traditional Japanese hotel (Usually cost around $200 per person). Before arriving to the hotel we were given a nice lunch at some nature school along the way. Here is another mountain picture.

The nature school had these very nice traditional houses with thatch roofs.

Inside they had a gift shop and I decided to buy a little critter....can you find him?

After our nice lunch we were treated to a mountain hike! It was very beautiful and the mountain was not too small. The picture below is the mountain we climbed.

Along the way our tour guide explained in Japanese various forest facts. Since I had only taken one year of Japanese prior to coming to Japan, I could not understand everything. However, it helped that he used fuzzy props to help illustrate the various facts.
The tour guide did not hesitate to leap out of the path after small but quick frogs. The frog looked hungry, and so did I looking at him. I never had frogs legs before, but I am certainly willing to try them.

After the long hike we went back on the bus to get back on our trip. We eventually arrived to be greeted by frigid air in Shirakawa. The town itself was very old and very small having many many thatch roofed houses. Our hotel would be such a house.
Here are two very happy students in front of the doorway to were I stayed. Notice their perfect choreography. Scared me a little....

Unfortunately for one of our students, the trip would turn out a disaster. Jessica and I were walking around town until one Korean student came running asking for the professors help. Jessica, the Korean girl, and I would find our fellow classmate Charlie mangled at the bottom of a three story cliff! A couple more people came to help. It turned out he was trying to take a photo of the mountains on top when he slipped, grabbing on to the small rope fence which flipped him over the cliff. He hit his head on the way down and landed on his heels which essentially shattered on impact. We tried to lift him to take him up but decided that it would be too dangerous. He hit his head and who knew if his back was broken in any way. It was best not to move him and call an ambulance. One of the professors eventually called and the paramedics arrived.

I was one of the people to carry Charlie to the ambulance. There is a picture of Charlie doing a Richard Nixon...at least he didn't break his neck.

After the fiasco, I headed back with Jessica. The girls and boys were in separate hotels so we had to part. That is why there are not as many pictures of Jessica. I was a camera hog! I came back just in time for dinner. I explained to everyone what happened and then ate dinner. Here is a picture of me in front of the fire in the eating room.
We had a very traditional Japanese cuisine involving many vegetables in small portions and a small fish. It was very good, but it is very easy to see why the Japanese do not have the weight problem the Americans have had in the past 15 years.
After dinner we had the opportunity to go to the local bath house. It was my first time going to one but it was a very relaxing and rejuvenating experience. Only about four of us men went while most of the women went. Unfortunately and obviously it was separated by sex. There is nothing like soaking in some hot water for a couple of hours.
When we got back, Jessica and I joined our fellow class mates for some sitting and fortunate telling. If the candles blew out during your telling, it is supposed to be some sort of sign. Mine blew out every 30 seconds or so. Strangely, it was always the same candle.
Here is a group shot of some of the people I know. I am doing a cool thumbs up, no?
I slept very well that night and woke up around 7:00am for some breakfast. The breakfast was very similar to dinner...very very similar. However, it was very good. That morning I decided I wanted to find poor Charlie's digital camera which he lost when he fell. I gathered a search party of three other people to go look. Here is a picture of morning fog rolling off of the mountains. The air was crisp, and good for a hunt.

Close to the bottom of the cliff where Charlie fell was a river.

We looked and saw the camera in the water. However, it was not accessible from where we were and we had to get to the other side.

Because it was dark when he fell, I was unable to take a picture of the ledge he fell from. In the morning I had a Japanese friend stand close to where Charlie fell to get a good idea of the height. He fell where that house is on top all the way down...not a bad fall indeed.
We were able get the camera out of the water! Here is a picture of camera and the accompanied SD card where the pictures are stored. The SD card had some water in it but after a good drying, it worked! The camera however was beyond repair. The story goes that Charlie tried to get a better shot of the mountains by slowly walking backwards when he slipped. If the camera company only provided a better panorama mode!
I was happy when we found the camera. The morning was beautiful with the sun hitting the trees just right.

It was a fine trip with many interesting experiences.

Another mountain picture to close off the day for those that demand them!
During the ride back we were all tired. Since there was not many pictures of Jessica, I decided to sneak one in while she was sleeping. She's not pleased....

Notice the sneaky finger in the picture...that is how you know I took it sneakily.

I hope you all enjoyed this entry. Please leave a comment and make sure to watch out for my next one.

Globalization

2006-01-04T05:53:00.000-08:00

I would like, today, to tell you about all the exotic places I have eaten at in Japan. Exhibit A:

Yes, that is a good old Starbucks. This particular Starbucks is located in Sakae (Rich part of Nagoya, Sakae sort of means "prosperity"). For anyone wondering, yes, Starbucks in Japan is just as popular as Starbucks in America. In fact, when you walk in one here in Japan, you would think you are back in America...Except for the Japanese Menu. Exhibit B:

I know, that is really a poor picture and does not capture the whole menu. I felt a little strange because I was a white guy taking a picture of a menu. I choose not to be too strange, being white is strange enough for many Japanese...Especially the Japanese children. The next picture is another very delicious and fun place you can go and eat. Exhibit C:

Hardrock Cafe in Nagoya is truly a treat and I would recommend anyone visiting to go. It has delicious steak in large servings costing only a little more than one in the U.S.A. Also it comes with English menus and Japanese waitresses with quasi english speaking abilities. When we went here, there was a large group of Australians with a large group of loud children. It was Halloween time so there were decorations everywhere (Yes, there is a small following here in Japan who celebrate Halloween). The children ran around and literally destroyed said decorations. Did I dare to take a picture with the parents right there? Yes I did. Exhibit C-Bad Children:

I covered the child's body with an adorable picture of a kitten to disguise the identity (I don't want lawsuits here). As you notice, the child is preparing to throw the poor and not so scary pumpkin onto the floor to destroy it. There were things thrown, smashed, and punched around us through the whole dinner. The poor and nice Japanese manager tried to get the parents to stop the kids from being so naughty. But this is a feat impossible because well it takes an adult to stop a child....and the Australians were no adults. They were also rowdy, hanging off railings, being drunk, and loud...encouraging their kids to smash things. I say, might as well put breasts on the Japanese manager because he had to be the mother to all the "Children" that night. But, I cannot complain, it was like watching a really funny movie. Now for Exhibit D:

I have not visited the Denny's here in Japan yet because frankly I am scared of the food at Denny's in America. Should I dare go and indulge in a craptastic night of dingy food? The bigger question is, have the Japanese improved in any way the Denny's we have loved? I visited Denny's in the US many nights with my friends Tyler and Andrew...so maybe in homage to them, I will explore the Japanese version of the underbelly of American cuisine. Oh and here is another Starbucks!!!

And yes, like Starbucks in America, this one is also located a block away!

Here is a Mercedes Dealership...They like them over here. And what blog post would be complete without Japanese Elvis impersonators!
This is a picture of a Japanese Elvis impersonator competition. Some were really really good believe it or not...because I certainly didn't!

I hope you really liked this post...next post will be about the School sponsored trip to the middle of nowhere. Oh and please leave a comment.

Adventure Around Seto

2005-12-18T16:55:00.000-08:00

We all decided one day to check out all of the interesting temples and shrines around the city where I am staying. It was Robert, Spring, Jessica, and me who went. Seto is an average sized city with about 150,000 people in it I think. Here is a picture of the main street where there are tons of ceramics stores and the like. This area is called Owari Seto, which means "End Seto". This is the end of the line of the train I take to get to school. In the far back you can see the building called Parti Seto, which is sort of the information center. It has many restaurants and a convenience store.

Here is a temple just very close to the streets you see above. It is Shinto based as you can see with the Shinto style entrance.
Notice the intricate roof.
Here is Jessica and I under red "Arches". Notice my skull shirt.
A close up shot of a statue at the temple. It seemed old to me so I took a picture.

I took this picture for the little building and the weird statue. I cannot decide whether the statue is a fox or a very very large and scary squirrel. Lets take a vote :)Here I am, looking sexy. I am on a swing in a play ground near the temple. Notice the chains on the swing protect the hands from the dreaded pinch! I now wish my old childhood playgrounds had these wonder chains created by gods loving hand. But, in the end, I still got my shoes and pants wet. Notice the puddle under me.

Here is a typical scene where girls get distracted by shiny ceramics.

I am officially addicted to these cans of warm coffee . Let me tell you, if there is anything that I am going to miss when I leave, it is going to be these. There is nothing more satisfying in winter than grabbing a nice hot can of coffee on the street from one of these wonderful machines. In winter, this is as close to heaven as you can get.We eventually left the Shinto shrine and headed to a Buddhist temple. Let me tell you, these people are very careful with everything. The bushes and trees are cut with a very nice aesthetic sense. I can take a picture of anything and it will be a good picture. Look at the random shot below, its good no matter how much I tried to botch it up.
When we entered there was absolutely no one there, no one. It was quiet and sort of creepy. I expected a ninja at this point crawling on the top of the roof to jump down to the ground so we could commence hardcore ninja fighting. But, as I have feared, no such ninja appeared. Yes, I am a poet and I didn't even realize it (Props to Damien). I would have said Kung Fu fighting, but this is Japan man!

Here is a picture of little Shinto stone statues inside the Buddhist temple. For those that do not know, Japanese usually follow both Shintoism and Buddhism. Often you will see small Shinto shrines inside Buddhist temples.
Here is the entrance to the main building. Notice no ninjas. Peace is the way of the Buddha.

Here is a touristy shot of Jessica and Skull Shirt.

Here is a big beautiful tree that reminded me of fractals. For those of you mathematically inclined, this picture will be amusing. For those not so mathematically inclined, I am a loser.

This was a nice area of the temple. But the best part is the bulbous bush at the very bottom. We need more of those in America.

Here is Jessica bored because there were no ninjas.
I have recently watched Bill and Ted. I think I make a good Keanu Reeves impression. Oh, and eventually someone came to the temple. See the car in the back? So I don't want anyone telling me I lied about that.

Here is a picture of Robert and Spring. Robert was also confused of the absence of ninjas. Scratching his beard. Eventually we decided we wanted to treck up the biggest hill in the city. There was supposed to be something at the top so we were excited. On the way I took a picture of this beautiful rusty shack. As rusty shacks go, this one is a winner. I think it is important to show this part of any rich nation. The difference here however, the houses around it were nice, big, and old.

Here is a picture of the street on our way to the mountain/hill. I liked this part because it was definitely an older part of town. The street is very narrow, but cars still go through here. I am surprised every time when I see a car go through a street such as this. You would think that there would be many damaged poles, but there are not. I guess it helps that people have to pay about $2,000 dollars for driving school just to get a license.

This was funny because one of the houses was a factory which made red masks. They were cool devil masks. If anyone (Anyone I know) wants, I can find this place again and buy one for them :-)

Another picture of rusty shacks.

We finally found the path to the mountain and trekked up there. The climb was steep until we came upon a cemetery with Shinto shrines.

We climbed farther and ended up at the top where Jessica and Spring had this picture taken. In the back you can see apartment buildings. Just to give you a sense of how high we climbed. Jessica is of course satisfied with herself so she gave the patented dork smile. Notice its dorky power.
Here is the majestic temple that we so eagerly climbed a mountain for! OOOOOHH shiny! So nice and new! So spiritually metallic. I think I liked the rusty shacks better than this.

But I guess it was worth it for the beautiful hidden cemetery we found.

Here is a picture of Jessica scared of potential ninja ghosts.

Here is another shrine. Notice that there is a little cup under the statue. This cup was filled with nice sake. I guess if you can find enough of these shrines and drink all of these, you can get drunk. However, are there any alcoholics worthy enough?
Here is a picture of a spider the size of a golf ball. Needless to say, Jessica ran the other way.
Now this is a rusty shrine shack worthy of a mountain climb. Unlike the strict metallic one, this one doubly useful as a place to put old wood and gardening tools.
Ah, a fine days end to a fine trip of seeing shrines and temples and climbing. I wish I can play you some kind of music to set the mood of the picture below.

I hope you enjoyed this post. I have been very busy so I really do hope you enjoyed this post. Just a note, to show how far behind I am, right now when we go outside, we put on heavy coats and mittens. I have the Shirakawa and Kyoto trip to post. So keep an eye out for them. Oh, and leave a comment if you can.

Trip to Inuyama Castle

2005-11-23T04:34:00.000-08:00

I learned that one of the oldest castles in Japan is close to us in a town called Inuyama (which literally means Dog Mountain). This town is very close to Nagoya and was only about 45 minutes away by train. So why not go right? Jessica, Corey, Spring, Robert, and I all went.

It was raining that day but that did not stop me from taking nature shots. Here are pictures of the path to the castle.

As you can see from the mountains in the back, this city is farther away from the ocean than Nagoya.

First we came upon a nice shinto shrine! We love our shrines here and they are everywhere. This one was fun for various reasons which I will say later.

I don't know why this bridge was built considering you could literally jump over the little stream of water that passes through...but I like it. Maybe my yard will have one of these.

The annoying thing about living in the mountains is that every morning you think to yourself "Wow, gravity is really strong today". Its not everyday that people are "aware" of gravity. See how many stairs?

We finally found a nice little path that would lead us to the castle. We had a little trouble finding it because there were not many signs. But then we saw this very tiny rock.
The first Kanji (The Chinese symbols also used by the Japanese) is "Inu". "Inu" means dog in Japanese. The second Kanji is "yama", and of course yama means mountain (but a ditch in Russian). The last Kanji is "Jo", which means castle. However it is Jo only after a name. Alone it is "Shiro". Enough with the language lesson, here is a shot of the group walking to the castle.

Now here is the first shot of the Castle. Remember this is the one of the oldest castles in Japan, so its no surprise that it is nowhere near as large as Nagoya Castle. The price to go see this castle is very cheap. We paid about $5 each to get in.

Before going in the castle we found a little secret spot where we can see the mountains better.

For those who love us, here is a picture for your computer desktop background :-)
The mountains are not too tall. However they are very elegant, serene, and clumpy.

Another picture of Jessica and I.
Before going in the castle we had to take off our shoes, put them in a plastic bag, and wear green slippers which they provided. Now I am a big fan of slippers after getting some nice fur Ugg slippers from Jessica last Christmas. However, these green slippers would not stay on my feet. They were not too big or too small, but were shaped in a unidirectional way...if that makes any sense. Any slipper can go on any foot. This obviously made them less than form fitting. Having slippers constantly slipping would not be a problem (by definition of slipper), but I HAD TO CLIMB ABNORMALLY STEEP STAIRS!

You can see from the picture above that my right slipper is falling off. That picture was an action shot, meaning it was in the processes of falling off. After the picture was taken, it fell off.
Now it was worth it however to see this armor! Makes me want to be a samurai!

Now it may look very big in the picture but this armor was surprisingly small. I suppose Japanese people were really really really small back then. Most people think of the Japanese as being short and that is what I saw when I first came here. However as soon as school started, I suddenly found myself around a mob of very tall skinny Japanese people. The older generations are small just as I expected them to be, but the younger generation dwarfs the same generation in America. Apparently because the diet back in the old days was not so good, the height of the average Japanese person was fairly short. The diet in modern times here in Japan is very good. There are plenty of health foods and the diet is fairly balanced with many vegetables, fish, meat, fruit, etc. So to my surprise the Japanese were small not because of genetics, but because of the food they ate. I noticed here that many old women have terrible bone problems such that they have backs permanently bent at almost a ninety degree angle. But now there is more calcium in the diet of the Japanese so the younger generation should not have this problem.

Here is another picture of me clumsily going up the stairs trying not to lose my slippers.

The very top had a very nice terrace where you can see everything!

Now, the castle was basically empty except for the armor you saw above. So we were able to explore all the little areas of the old castle. Here is a beautiful picture of a window.
A picture of Jessica being illuminated by warm white earth light.

This one is for my parents. Because I think the ladies had enough.

You have to love pictures of people in front of mountains...especially dog mountains. I know I do.

This one is particularly dedicated to my friend Tyler...who was disappointed that I did not post enough pictures of mountains.

Another beautiful picture of Jessica.

After seeing the best view of mountains I had seen so far, we went down. Here is a picture of that temple I talked about earlier. Inside it had this incredible golden shrine.

The best secret of the temple were these holy chickens. They were very humble chickens which enjoyed my company. I was even able to grab one myself.

Jessica and I later had a fight that day under the watch of the shinto gods.

I hope you enjoyed pictures of one of the oldest castles in Japan. I have plenty, literally thousands, of pictures to sort through so I can post more. This is why I am so backed up on posting. Keep watch for more. I love you all. Bye Bye!

(A classic picture taken when events end)

Throwing Food Festival

2005-11-13T05:24:00.000-08:00

One morning I woke up with a loud bang. I thought I might of been dreaming about the fourth of July but fireworks in the morning? It sounded just like fireworks I thought. So I look out the window and decide that I went back in time in Japan.

As some of you know, I live right next to shrine slash temple. It is fairly large with some very nice Japanese shrubbery. I could not figure out at first what they were doing wearing such classy gear shooting guns into the air which created a huge plume of smoke. It was incredibly loud and our good old dog Nobu was very scared. Not wanting to miss a great photo opportunity, Jessica and I went on over to see what was going one. As we approached all of the guys in uniform started marching out of the shrine over into the streets in a mini parade.

I was very amused by them. However, as they passed us by, they seemed more amused by us Gaijin (outlander/foreigner). They all waved to us with joy as they passed us by. Thinking that all of that fiasco was over, we started our way back home. On the way we were able to talk to our neighbor who was also out and they told us to come back at 16:00 o'clock (everything is in 24 hour time, so around 4:00pm) to see some more. We waited until 4:00pm and were surprised by the amount of people who have already gathered.

Past the crowd you can see some white smoke so I cam closer to have a look.
The person loaded whatever gun that is with gunpowder and then shot it into the air. You would be able to see better if it wasn't for the fact that this old ladies head is in the way. However I forgot to charge the camera and therefore had only a limited amount of pictures left to take. The crowd started to get thicker with old people and children alike.

Here is a shot of the temple building in all of its large roof glory.

We noticed that in front of the crowd was a big scaffold with bowls filled with food on top. Risky children tried many things to try to grab some. Some would jump, some would hit the scaffolding and shook it while others tried to make themselves taller....

Everyone around us had plastic bags and it became clear what was about to come. The head guy climbed up to beat the big drum which would start our "fun".

More guys stepped up next to all of the bowls filled with what we now identified as mochi balls! This would be exciting and Jessica was happy because our neighbor gave us a plastic bag!

The old dude hit the drum and a riot would ensue. The men on top started throwing mochi balls wrapped in plastic everywhere! They threw far, near, and even teased everyone with their tall order pride. We tried our best to catch as many as we can but we soon realized how difficult it would be. We thought our competition would be the kids but to our surprise it was the very quick old people. They would grab those mochi balls off the ground as though they practiced ninjitsu. I tried to grab one off of the ground but a women stepped on my arm to prevent me from doing so. So I lifted my arm to knock her over! Sure, now you must think I am the bad guy knocking a poor women over. However, you will laugh at me and see because the women got the mochi ball anyway! The same one I was after. Even after falling down, her ninja speed surpassed mine. Get mochi or die trying was the motto. You might be thinking though "how hard can it be to catch these?". Well, they were solid, not squishy. It was about the same shape, size, and hardness of a baseball! Jessica caught one on her chest but got the wind hit out of her. It was clear we were amateurs at this event. But after it was all over we were satisfied.

The sun was up, the sky clear, and a bag filled with heavy solid mochi.
Here is a nice picture of some of our bounty.

I bit into one thinking to myself "This taste like crap, and its as hard." One of the Chinese girls corrected us and told us they needed to be heated up. So we put one in the microwave and watched it grow twice the size!

With a little soy sauce and sugar we were set to go.

That was my wakeup call. Living next to a temple is not peaceful, not at all. Please leave your comments and keep an eye out for more posts. Keep in touch!

Trip to the Zoo

2005-10-23T07:03:00.000-07:00

Jessica, Robert, Spring, Corey, and I wanted to visit our furry friends here in Japan. This time it was I that found directions to the Zoo. As you may recall, getting to Nagoya castle on our last adventure got us lost. We all met around noon at Sakae. Sakae as some of you may know is an area located in downtown Nagoya. Sakae according to my dictionary means "Prosperity". The other day I saw a $93,000 dollar ring just sitting there in a very little jewelry shop. It is no wonder they call it Sakae. Here is Jessica doing her 'geek' smile that I love so much. Holding in her hand is a brand new umbrella with flowers. Girly girly girly....

We took the subway to the zoo stop. It was very easy to get to and reasonably cheap. The first thing to greet us was this stone koala bear. For a koala bear, it looked confused. But I had always believed koala bears were out of it and always confused on a count of all the eucalyptus leaves they eat. Jessica has just informed me that koalas aren't actually bears...but they should be bears I think.
The first sight of the zoo was not that exciting. It was raining that day and everything looked colorless and cold. If you have not realized all ready, many signs in Japan (such as the zoo sign) are designed for people with ADHD (or "ADD with Hyper activity" for the politically correct).

However, once inside, everything changed. Somehow the greens look greener even on a day such as this. The park was very empty. Probably because normal people go on sunny days...but not us.

Here is a picture of what I believe are black swan. It was the first time I had ever seen them, they kind of look like geese.

To show off, Jessica had to do another 'geek' smile with her new umbrella open. See how big it is? See how small she is?

This fountain was interesting. It looks like a big tea bowl. Even though the day was wet, the water coming from the fountain smelled good.

Our first 'real' animal was a rhino. Even though the geese were technically 'real' in all sense of the term, this rhino can actually kill you. Real animals in zoos can kill you.

For those people who have a particular liking to rhino, here is a backside shot. Kind of pimply...

Here is a picture of a ferocious Japanese cat.
Although the last one was scary, this one is cuddly.

This cat was nice. It was sleeping. An then Jessica made it mad by swinging her long arms. It attacked the fence at her with the rage of a hundred "woken up parents in the middle of the night because the kid was yelling".

It was pissed.
What surprised me most was the small size of all the cages. American zoos for the most part have large areas for the animals to be in. The cats usually have 'simulated' environments with plenty of space. However, the Nagoya zoo had small cages for most of the animals. This made the zoo much more enjoyable because the animals had no where to hide. If you love animals you may find this hurtful but the this zoo was the most enjoyable zoo I had ever been to because you can see all the animals up close and personal.

Believe it or not, this Japanese elephant is the same size as other elephants around the world. I thought even these beasts would be small, cute, and cuddly in Japan. I was wrong...

I would like to move on to the cuddly ones then. Witness exhibit A.
If you did not find that one cute, you do not have a soul and should not bare children. Now this one is less cute but equally delicious. Notice how meaty the legs are and how warm the fur is.

The St. Louis zoo in the last couple of years opened up a penguin exhibit. It is a really nice exhibit where you can get REALLY close to the penguins. I touched a couple my self. At first the penguins were nice. They played, swam, and raced. However, the last visit was a surprise. The lovely penguins learned a new trick. I would lift my camera to take a picture and SPLASH!!!!!! I was very wet. I looked behind me to see another guy slowly lift his camera and then SPLASH!!!!! then he was wet. Lucky for me the penguins below were still nice.

Ah, a nice peaceful swim... Just like I like it. No splash, no wetness, no smelling like fish.

The most fun animal at the park was this monkey...ape...err gibbon. This gibbon is loud, can do back flips, somersaults, and jump off of the walls in a Super Mario fashion. I have a video of it, drop me an email if you want to see it.

I learned that the retina of this cat is green. GREEN. (well technically the reflective material in the back of the retina)

One cool animal was this large dinosaur. It was nice but...boring.

These kangaroos are practicing Shinto priests.

Wet Beaver.

Here is a pretty shot of pink flamingos.

And a polar bear. It took this bear 20 minutes to turn his head so that I can take this pictures. Enjoy
Here is a sexy picture of Frida Khalo. Also known as a sloth bear.

Robert decided to smoke, only that he ended up catching the smoke in his umbrella, suffocating, and then collapsing to the ground.

Japanese care about the roof much more than the wall. Sometimes there are no walls at all.

We all decided to see the Botanical Gardens inside the park. Along the way I had to take this picture of Jessica on a robot. Because in my mind, robots and Japan are lovers.

A blurry picture of Jessica and Spring.

Here is my favorite picture of the tower inside the Zoo. Tell me what you think?

The zoo is truly an oasis in a big city.

More of our stroll down to the gardens. Flowers and pictures of women are the kind of pictures I enjoy most.
An exotic fountain near the gardens.

This tree was absolutely amazing. This is almost something out of a Tim Burton movie.

Most of the pictures of the gardens were taken by Jessica of course including this lovely piece. She is a professional, that she is.

Now tell me, how does the following make you feel?

Or how about this one? ...such penile humor.

This little picture shows a rock with a world on it. It kind of looks like a mountain even if it is only about the size of my head.

This one is my personal favorite....

The gardens were a large maze of green houses. There were probably over a dozen rooms where exotic plants from around the world lived. Here is a picture of my confusion/fear/utter excitement of the plants around me.

They even had these really tall spikey plants. The dessert variety. To show you their size, I stood under them.

This tree was literally elevated about 10 feet by only its roots. I call this one "old grandma with grey hair".

These plants were just weird. Are the holes natural or are they produced by bugs. I don't know.

For the family members here is a picture of Jessica and I sitting. I enjoyed it the most because as a man, I can not walk ten feet without collapsing to a seat. This is a good practice while shopping with a woman. Although this was not shopping, I say "Who doesn't enjoy a good sit!"

We finally finished looking at all sorts of plants and insects. With about 4o minutes left till the park closed the whole group decided to do some paddle boating. Even though the paddle boats were technically closed, I was able to negotiate with one of the guys there to let us ride. Here is a picture of the types of paddle boats we could have ridden on. Unfortunately at this time the camera decided it had no more battery left so I could not get a picture of the cool HELICOPTER 4 seater with action stripes that we were able to snatch. It even had a propeller on top....how cool!

While Robert, Spring, Jessica, and I were cool about paddle boating, Corey decided it was too childish. So he was left by himself to feed this fish. It would have cost him 10 cents but he was too cheap I think.

We had a really great time at the zoo. It was the most enjoyable zoo I had ever been to because all of the animals were easy to see and actually moving. The botanical gardens were beautiful and surprisingly huge. It was nice to finish the day with some paddle boating. I hope you enjoyed this post. Please feel free to comment below. Love you all, and keep in touch. Oh and click on an ad once in a while. I need sustenance.

Trip to Nagoya Castle

2005-10-08T22:57:00.000-07:00

Now on a nice Saturday Jessica, Corey, Spring, Robert, and I decided to go to see the wonderful Nagoya Castle. Nagoya Castle is in downtown Nagoya somewhere. By somewhere I mean we did not know and we went on an adventure to find it. We took the train to the Nagoya station where we went on our search. During our search we found this nice temple right smack dab in the middle of many steel monsters. Nice Yah?

So we walked around thinking that Nagoya castle is a half an hour walk from the station. Non the less we got lost.

Walking around some more we found this interesting place under a bridge. There is a barbed wire fence between the road and the sidewalk. We decided it was a holding place for rabid bums.
On our little walk we found a crowd of 'round eyes' (A term for white people we like to use). So of course I had to take a picture of them. This photograph in America would be boring. However, seeing that we are in a land where more than 95% of the population is Japanese...It strikes me as a great shot.

A picture of a pointy thing...

When asked people on the street where Nagoya Castle is, they looked at us puzzled and said "You are going on foot?". So eventually we learned that we had to go back to the station and hitch a ride on the train. The Nagoya train station is one big shopping mall with a large hotel on top and another large sky scraper.

Here is Jessica trying out some pimpin' glasses. I think it works!

We finally got on the correct train and found ourselves a small walk away from Nagoya Castle. Here is a picture of a fountain right outside the train station.
Now, Nagoya city in the good old times needed moats to keep the black knights at bay. Here is a striking picture of the moat. It is easy to see that this would be hard to climb. There are several layers of these moats. One level outside the old city. Another to protect the castle area, and another to protect the castle.

Here is what looks to me a watch tower.

Finally after walking a bit we find our beloved Nagoya Castle. It is very large having around seven stories above the ground.

Here is me trying to storm the castle. I am so good at this the water bottle does not get in my way.

In front of the castle is this wonderful engrish friendly sign.
Its good I am not blind and do not need a "guige" dog! The following picture is the entrance to the castle.

Now atop the castle are large golden dolphins. This is one of the dolphins displayed on the first floor. Apparently the original ones were made using gold coins. Workers would point gold coins together to create the outer golden layer. Although...dolphins really don't have scales.

The following pictures are of the amazing view of Nagoya from the very top observation floor! Wow, my breathe got lost somewhere here.

Jessica and I decided to pose on this fake gold scaly dolphin. The inside of the castle is modernized because the castle was rebuilt after the fire.

We decided to explore the outside of the castle and look at its gardens and large heavy rocks. Inside the castle they demonstrated how these rocks were moved. Lets just say Jessica and her small self would not be able to move the following rock!

It took me a while to storm the castle but I finally did...losing my water bottle on the way.

It was very difficult.

The grounds around the castle fixed my poor soul. Coming here should be a law. Below is me and Jessica sitting under a gorgeous tree. Cute no?

We found a nice little tea house hidden away. The great care they have for the shrubbery is still amazing to this day.
I had for the first time some REAL green tea. See how green?

A picture from inside the tea house.
This one should go on a wall. My hair has never been spikyer than this day.

Most of the beautiful shots on this trip were by Jessica. She is a really good photographer. Can you tell?

I was tired of walking by this point and had to find a walking stick. All sticks in Japan are very large....just for future reference.

This one is for the ladies. Enjoy it because it hurt my butt!

Here is a group shot of our travel buddies. And Jessica of course.

After a fun day of getting lost, seeing the castle, and having our souls slapped into life by the beautiful nature around us, we found ourselves back to the lively steel city.
We walked around to find a place to eat and happened upon some random festival. How nice.
Here is a picture just to give you an idea of the amount of bikes people use. People here do not lock their bikes up. They just don't, what's the point right? I guess it is safety in numbers.

We finally found a nice noodle house with loud waiters.

Our friend Robert had a spicy dish. This kind of food really gets the heart going.

And to my surprise and happiness, I found the apple store!!! I tried to find a cheap web camera so that I can see my family and friends and they can see me, but unfortunately the only one they sold was the iSight. The iSight is about $150 here. I need a web camera but not this badly. So I am very sad at the prospect of never finding a Mac compatible camera. I hear there is a store called Bic Camera around here that will surely have one.

That was my trip to Nagoya Castle. I hope you like the pictures. They do not give justice to the beauty that can be found here. Please post a comment up. I would love to hear from my friends and family. Next time I will be posting pictures up about my Zoo trip! Everyone loves animals...unless they do not have a soul. Enjoy.

Trip to the Ceramics Museum

2005-09-30T06:17:00.000-07:00

One of the Chinese girls who lives here invited a Japanese friend for lunch. They cooked a lot of strange food that we did not know how to eat. Her Japanese friend talked to Jessica and Me a lot and we understood very little of what she said. And I think sometimes they were talking about us in Japanese. The instrument the Japanese lady is holding is known as the peepa. It looks extremely exotic but sounds just like a banjo. It even has four strings! ...like a banjo.

Here is a picture of me holding the instrument in the way I think It should be held. But how do I know, I am not a banjo player.

The following day on Saturday (Friday for Americans) the ceramics class me and Jessica are in had a mandatory field trip to a ceramics museum. Beforehand we decided to go around Owari-Seto (Downtown Seto) and visit all of the wonderful ceramics stores. Here is a picture of one now. The building is very beautiful both in and outside.

Here is a picture of a funny pot with googly eyes!

Another Shop.

These shops are filled to the brim with ceramics made locally and afar.

A picture of quaint Shinto shrine. These babies are everywhere.

Picture of Jessica purusin the store.

There are some really funny ceramic figures which can also be found in strange American Asian antique stores. Goofy, Strange, and Exotic.

Ceramics range in price here from roughly 70 cent bowls and tea cups to $10,000 dollar vase! Expensive!

You can see some of the cheap ceramics in front of the store. Some at 80 yen, which at today's exchange rate cost about 71 cents! The ceramics here are beautiful and cheap, probably as cheap as you can find Japanese ceramics in the world.

And of course a ROBOT! What would Japan be without robots?

After we walked around and got tired we found two of our friends here. Corey is on the left and Spring is in the middle. Jessica is the goofy one on the right.

More of our class came off of the bus. Don't expect me to name them. Its impossible. For me anyways.

The man on the right is known to me as "Jackie Chan". When I first met him I was talking to an International Student Office employee named Coomagai. He thought I looked like Tom Cruise! And now Coomagai calls me Tom. I call him Jacki Chan as retaliation... Even though he is Korean and Koreans hate being mistaken for Chinese. Now many many people here call me Tom Cruise. I wonder how long this nickname will last?

Group shot with some girls Jessica knows. There I am in the background doing a Zoolander face.

The bus was incredibly crowded! I have never been in a bus this bad. Everyone who got on were going to the world expo. They were not only incredibly crowded but they were also old Japanese people. The shot is a little blurry because the bus bounced too much.
Here is a beautiful shot I took when we all got off of the bus. This is the museum grounds.

The museum.

The museum grounds were incredibly beautiful. These are some artful rocks in a man made pond.

Now Japan has the most amount of spiders I have seen in my life. The walk to the museum had over 100 spiders on trees and bushes. At night there are some spiders the size of golf balls.

The museum was incredibly beautiful. It had ceramic art dating back around 800 years. That means a fragile bowl lasted over 800 years without being damaged. Many of the pieces were found underground. They also had Chinese and Korean ceramics. However, the most beautiful pieces were those made right in seto city.

That was my day. And what's a better way of ending this day than with some great shots of Engrish. Here are some cloths with intangible English on them.

"Merrily mind moke sun power"

"The mountain path of point"

"Florida Sweet Fruit: Natura slects "
"Taste to fresh banana!"

"Holiness depictto. A pure heart is expressed by the various colors."

"It tried to show what it thought of at that time without hiding what, too, by the color"

Yes that's right. I feel inspired and enlightened. I shall now go moke some sun power.

I love everyone. Fee free to leave a comment. The next installment will be my trip to Nagoya Castle!

First Week In Japan

2005-09-18T18:10:00.000-07:00

So I have finally arrived in Japan!

I drove 18 hours from Florida to St. Louis arriving about 4:00am in the morning and straight afterwards loaded up all of jessica's stuff and drove another 4 hours to Chicago where we spent the day packing my things and getting some paperwork done. Then we work up around 4:00am the following morning to get to the airport. Another 18 hours on a plane later we were in Japan. Here is a wonderful picture of Jessica being very tired at the airport.

Our school paid for a jumbo taxi to take us to our new living quarters which are kind of in the city Seto. Actually we are in another city bordering Seto where our school is located. On the way to the two hour long ride in a taxi I snapped a beautiful picture of a Japanese sunset...because Japanese sunsets are different you know?

And me and Jessica in the taxi.

Here is a picture of our new colorful Japanese friend who lives in Hawaii and speaks mostly English named Corey.

Now the very first thing I noticed that struck me as something you never see in America is.....ALL CARS ARE SHINY. Meaning, all cars are clean, shiny, and spotless. On my two hour track to our new Japanese domicile I have not seen one car that is dirty, rusty, or junky. In fact, I have not seen one all week.

Japan was the only country that allowed 70lb luggage without a grand fee...my luggage was 69.5 pounds! Perfect...However this was true until yesterday. Therefore I will be paying lots of money coming back to America because most likely, I will have more things to bring back. I will probably be shipping lots of things back to America. Oh, and here is a cute picture of me and Jessica on the train we take to school.

The small dormitory we live in is very nice. Its more of a two story house because it only has 8 rooms. We have a kitchen, living room, and two bathrooms. Now there are about five girls living here including Jessica and only two boys...me and Corey. We live very close to a big department store and supermarket that both take VISA. Our new favorite drink here is Qoo (pronounced coo).

Its a wonderful Japanese drink made by non other than Coca~Cola. Ah wonderful globalization. The school I am going to is called Nagoya Gakuin University. It is a school atop a hill kind of out of the city. I take the train and a free school bus there. The campus is very beautiful...breathe taking actually. And of course it has exquisite shrubbery.

One of our favorite places to eat now is called Mos Burger...very delicious....and not too pricey.

Which compares a lot better to McDonalds of Japan although they have the McTeriyaki Burger.

One of the first events we went to was the Seto town ceramics festival. Seto is world renowned for making ceramics. The city is about 1,200 years old and one of the oldest kilns can be found here. Seto is also hosting the World Expo.

And some very colorful statues with phalic humor. Dirty Samurai

There were delicious snacks to eat....

While the children at the festival played games and were given the chance to win stuff...like teddy bears and toy guns...well not really, more like a PSP, Nintendo DS, and Gamecube. You can see the DS in the upper right corner...

A building....

There is a strange obsession with Shrubbery here that bewilders me. Many of the plots of grass here have become large games of checkers...

And another picture of shiny cars.

Here are some pictures of the beautiful town. Some of the buildings are very old, and some are very new. With no central town planning involved in the creation of this city, it has vast winding streets and mini shops and surprises around every turn. It feels very different from the gridwork of the suburbs of Chicago. This city feels very alive and the history of it seeps through everything. It feels very safe here. Many buildings look old and can be mistaken for slums, however in that second a shiny car will pull out of the driveway.

Jessica and I visited the local "Michigan Avenue" called Sakae. It is about a half and hour train ride but well worth the trip. The first thing off of the train is a huge underground shopping mall where I followed Jessica around looking at designer cloths.

Above the mall is a beautiful modern city scape with large sky scrapers. The area lit up like a Christmas tree with glowing billboards and enormous TVs....and a Ferris Wheel!!

Now another very Japanese thing is the crazy amount of vending machines you can find here. There are vending machines on every block! There are even vending machines that serve Beer....

With nudy girls on the side of them...

Now one of the most amusing things about Japan is their obsession with English. They put English on everything...they think English is cool but as you can see...Its not quite correct...Its engrish.

And last but not least, our beloved dorm dog...Nobu.

I will post more pictures as they come. School is going to REALLY start tomorrow so I have to get organized. Six months of this is going to be interesting. I love my family and friends and I hope the US of A is treating you well. If anyone wants to talk, they can call me on skype. Goto www.skype.com and talk for free! If you want, you can call me here in Japan using this phone number (630)448-4936. My skype screename is mempko. my email is mempko@gmail.com

I hope people send me their pictures and feel free to make comments. Chow for now.

New post using BlogDash

2005-06-13T21:39:00.000-07:00

This is my first post using DashBlog which is a widget for the MacOS X dashboard.

So what would I like to post today? Well, school just ended for me. I am now a Senior in College earning my BS degree. My girlfriend just left to her home in the next state which leave me very sad. She is my life blood. Hence when summer comes I become a hairy russian vampire who does a lot of geeky stuff on his computer...like install DashBlog so that I can blog from the comfort of a pretty Mac interface. In all respects, geeks need more beauty in their lives. I of course am another type of geek. One with clever class and informed style. So I will do my best to bring you the news of my japan adventures with many pictures of japanese people...which we know we want more of.

First Post

2005-06-02T23:43:00.000-07:00

Hello, my name is Maxim Khailo and this is my blog. I will be going to Japan in September 2005 for about 6 months and hopefully this blog is going to be a good way to communicate my travels to my friends and family.