Well, at least some of these rooms suck a heck of a lot more than others! This is a good example of terrible 1970’s Japanese commercial architecture. There was a onsen on the top floor, but it was for men only. There was a tiny women’s onsen, but you had to go to the front desk and leave a deposit for the key. The design was awful from the outside too.
Archive for the 'Travel' Category
Page 9 of 32
Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever had a stuck like that in Japan before. After landing at CTS last night, the plane stopped on a taxiway to wait, as the gate we were supposed to come in at still had the previous flight at the jetway. There was a lingering thunderstorm over the airport, so the tower wasn’t letting anyone take off, even though our flight and several after it had landed without incident. After nearly half-an-hour, and with other planes stacking up behind us (that’s a guess, since I really couldn’t see what was going on, other than what I could see out the left side windows), they had us taxi over to the ramp for us to wait for a gate to clear around the same time the rain subsided. The pilot shut down the main engines so we wouldn’t suck in anything. Another half-hour passed, then without warning, the tractor that had ninja-ed in and attached itself to the nosegear towed us into our newly assigned gate. Of course all this happened without me seeing any planes backing out of their gates or moving away from the terminal. We had actually landed early, but deplaned over an hour late. Continue reading ‘Stuck’
I heard the rumor that the Mayor of Obama-shi, Fukui-ken was going to have a statue of Uncle Barry made, but I was hoping that it would be a professionally-made full-sized bronze. This is what we got instead. Sort-of looks more like Tanaka Kunie with a suntan than the C-in-C. It’s painted concrete, and I hope it’s something the art club of a local school did and not something the city paid for.
The only “I (heart) Obama” goods I could find were some phone straps, neck lanyards, manju, and senbei. I really wanted a shirt or stickers, but since we’re into the second term and Barry can’t run again, the whole connection between the city and the man will fade, and the production of goods will cease. That probably goes for a bronze statue too: This probably isn’t a temporary solution until the bronze arrives with only a few years left of the administration. I think I missed the boat on stickers or a shirt. The senbei were funny, since it had the image of the face on the front, and the back of the head on the reverse. Those definitely wouldn’t have made the trip from Obama to Osaka, no less the bustling around Osaka and the various flights to Sapporo and Honolulu.
More pictures after the break…
Uh oh, boarding, we are surrounded by babies and kids. Good thing not planning to sleep!
Brrr it’s cold, 3F right now this Sunday morning. Going to participate in a Road Rally before we head out. Not sure how much will like it, but guess we’ll try it out.
The RallyCross was a blast! There was only a few inches of snow on ground, but it made for me trying to learn to drive the WRX I was in a total challenge. Just call me Mr. Donut! In fun runs when I jumped into a Civic I was much more at home. Posted times 30 seconds faster, doughnuts take lots of time to make nice, you know.
Having breakfast. We helped set up the rallycross course yesterday afternoon on the snow covered Alaska fairground field. Complete with moose tracks. It’s cold. 15F. Thankfully Palmer was a reputation for strong winds, but it is calm today. And shaping up to be sunny!
Yesterday (Thursday) kicked off with a massive breakfast with our hosts at Gwenies in Anchorage. Hot cakes and reindeer sausage for me. I can say Rudolf was tasty, it was like Portuguese sausage. It was a bit odd that when we finished, it was still dark at 8:00.
Cruise at our main hosts 4,000 sq-ft home for a while. Full on auto racing memorabilia house hold. Quite cool. More cars than I have, but they have the space! Continue reading ‘Furries’
Touchdown Anchorage. Layer if snow on sides of Tarmac. Temp below freezing. No active precip.
Though I was in Matsue, I didn’t get over to Yaegaki-jinja. I don’t think I’ll ever make it back to this part of Japan again, but I won’t regret missing the opportunity to walk through the shrine precincts muttering “Kushinada“. I did see Matsue castle from the bus, but I didn’t get to go inside or take pictures. I guess I’m a little bummed about that.
I went all the way to Uji, but the weather hadn’t been cold enough for the majority of the momiji to turn to red, and Byodo-in was covered in scaffolding and plastic sheeting for a 3-year renovation project. I guess Byodo-in is more interesting to Hawaii folk than the average American, because of the 3/4 scale concrete replica at Temple Valley. They supposedly have a really nice garden, but I’ve been to some other famous gardens and was underwhelmed, so I passed on the 500-yen entry fee. The throngs of shouting schoolkids queued up made my decision to pass easier.