Vacation Photos

We've posted slideshows of our summer vacation in Cancun and Tennessee.

Click here to check them out!

Highlights of East Tennessee

This post will, in fact, require two posts, I think. I, personally, found Tennessee's greatness too large to contain in a single post. John and Marilyn were extremely hospitable - from picking us up at the airport, to putting us up, to making sure we got back to the airport. And their hospitality didn't belie the kindness of the people of Tennessee. Trying out my Southern accent, I want to say that the people in Tennessee are so naaahce! Seriously - with the exception of a few teenaged shop attendants, the folks in Tennessee were very, very nice. Always asking where we were from, how we were doing, etc...

So, back to the highlights:

• Being with Brian's family
  
• Walking up to Clingman's Dome
  
• Hiking in the Smoky Mountains
  
• Seeing elk
  
• Seeing a great black bear (no pictures!! He is my "The one that got away").
  
  
  
  The Smoky Mountains as seen from the "trailhead" to Clingman's Dome
  
  
  Elk as seen grazing (and most likely unwelcome) in a farmer's field off of Newfound Gap road, from Cherokee toward Townsend.
  
  
  Sunset over the Smokies - along Newfound Gap road, after seeing the elk, after seeing the Bear.
  
  
  Me and Brian at the top of Mt. LeConte - we hiked uphill 5 miles to get here (for U Canadjins out there - that is more than 5 kilometers!)
  
  Also - I respect the people who live in Tennessee; they actually do go hiking and/or fishing in the Smokies; they don't say -"it'll be there tomorrow". I love that. I love that people appreciate what they have, and have to admit, with some shame, that I have climbed Mt. Fuji, and sailed along the Mekong river, but I have never been to Niagara Falls or Quebec city. Why can't we recognize that the best things can often be found right at home?

A few pics of Cancun

I am working on redesigning the Japanrider photo albums so we haven't put up many photos yet, but here are a few pics from Cancun.


Brian at the beach at Garrafon de Castilla


Brian sends an SOS as he is attacked by my mom


Isla Mujeres - Look how blue it is!


Me at Chichen Itza, the Mayan city ruins - this picture was taken from the top of a perfect pyramid.

A Brief Overview of What We Did in Cancun

We ate.
We drank.
We sat on the beach.

Life was good.

Seriously - we only spent five nights in Cancun, which is quite a famous "tourist city" in Mexico, and we had a great time. My mother flew in from Montreal, and she also seemed to enjoy the sun and the shopping.

Cancun is a created city - it was built specifically as a tourist resort, and for me it took some convincing that it was even in Mexico! Most tourists go to Cancun as part of an all-inclusive package from their travel agent. It can be a very convenient and cheap way to go. Brian and I (and therefore my mother) opted not to do that, as we wanted to be downtown rather than in the Hotel Zone (miles of hotels, side-by-side, fronting the main beaches), and to research and select our own hotel.

We finally decided to stay at the Radisson Hacienda hotel, which is a fairly nice hotel with friendly staff but overpriced drinks. Overall, we think it was the best choice, as we got to ride the local buses (with the local people, not the tourists!) and take the ferry over to Isla Mujeres, a small island just north of Cancun.

We absolutely loved Isla Mujeres (the Island of Women) - it was small enough to navigate easily, had plenty of nice restaurants and shops, and excellent (EXCELLENT) beaches. The short (and cheap) ferry ride over was an absolute pleasure,too. In fact, we went to Isla Mujeres on two separate days. (Pictures coming soon!)

We all took a day trip to the Mayan city of Chichen Itza, about 200km outside of Cancun. We had a guided tour of the ruins with, perhaps, the best guide in the country - a funny, intelligent man named Jaime Juarez (I think!!). He is (or was) a history professor, and his love for the ancient people and admiration for their art was very evident throughout the tour. (Pictures coming soon, too!).

And, of course, during all of these fun activities, we ate and drank! My mother had her first (and probably last) tequila as well as her first (and second and third...)margarita. She also successfully flew into Cancun, found our driver, made it to the hotel, and found the hotel bar all on her own - no small feat for never having been in a non-English speaking country alone before.

We all flew out of Cancun on July 16th - about 24 hours before the airport was closed and people were evacuated to shelters due to Huricane Emily. My mother flew to Ottawa to spend some time with my brother, while Brian and I flew to Knoxville to spend a week with Brian's family (more on the joys of East Tennessee coming soon.)

Back Home

Well, jet lag is almost a memory now, and we were back to work the morning after we landed in Tokyo. We landed in the rain, which we then learned was actually a typhoon - typhoons bring strong winds, then clear skies when they've passed.

I haven't yet co-ordinated our photos from our holiday yet, but here are some photos from just outside our apartment.

Rice Paddy in front of our apartment during a typhoon


Mt. Fuji after the typhoon

Gotta Love Jet Lag

Jet Lag is not a bad thing - it gives you back lost time, in a way; time that would otherwise be wasted on sleep.

I was up at about 3:00 a.m. this morning, wide awake and restless, I was happy to get up and begin working on our vacation pictures. I've sorted the wheat from the chaff, as they say, and have labeled most of them.

Jet Lag gave me three hours of uninterrupted creative time, and for that I am thankful. Three hours that otherwise would have been squandered on sleep. Ha.

Japan Rider Returns!

Whew! We are back from our excellent two-week blog-free vacation. We had a great vacation - we spent some time in and around Cancun, including a day-trip to Chichen Itza, the awe-inspiring Mayan city about 200 km away from Cancun. We then spent some quality time with Brian's family in East Tennessee - luckily, that included time for shopping (new suits!!) and hiking. We have not been on a bicycle in two weeks, either - perhaps we must surrender the name Japan Rider, and adopt instead something like Cancun Beacher, or Tennessee Hiker??

We brought two cameras with us, and we filled up one 128mb SD card, and have plenty of pictures on our 1gb cards, too. It will take some time for us to upload, organize, edit, name etc... all the photos, but look for plenty of blogging to occur over the next few days.

Off to Cancun

This is just a brief post to let everyone know that Brian and I will be leaving Japan today for some vacation time; therefore, posts may be intermittent to non-existent!

But look for lots of photos when we return!

Ode on an Unworn Sandal

Brian and I are both giddy - tomorrow we fly out of Narita for a two-week holiday - five nights in Cancun, and then eight nights in Tennessee (near Knoxville).

My only regret is that summer has crept up on us so slowly, time waiting for no man (and not even for me, either!), and the gorgeous sandals that I bought in early spring have yet to be worn (shallow, I know, oh so shallow).

Yet - touring Mayan ruins, sitting on the beach and probably hiking in the awesome Smoky Mountains means that I will not be carrying these lovely shoes across several continents. Such a shame...


The Unworn Sandal

A Bug's Life

The summer heat and humidity helps the rice grow strong, and also brings along some interesting bug life.

Every summer we find a influx of insects on our doorstep - from oversize spiders to collectable beetles to the as-yet-unidentified.

Here are some pictures we took of recent discoveries on our balcony.


A beetle poses for us.



Here's a beetle, which kids like to keep as "pets".



Un-identified insect - Brian has made this picture his desk top background.

TGIF

Friday night at last - a Friday night that marks the beginning of a two-week holiday for Brian and I.

There is something very special about final day of work before flying off to new destinations.

It leaves me speechless.

Audio Blog - Episode one??

Brian and I are just getting more into podcasts, and, of course, audio blogs. We decided to give it a try - so here is our first audio content.

The quality is a bit sketchy, but I think audible. The content...well, it can only get better!

Maybe not a moron...

Actually, it seems that my DVD RW should be able to write to DVD-R. Hmmm...

I will have to speak more with the shop today!

EDIT (July 6) - I discovered that my DVD writer can write to DVD-R 8x (but not 1x or 4x). Haven't decided whether this is normal or not, as I only just figured out that there were multiple types of DVD formats, and that the "-" and the "+" made a difference.

I am a Moron

My DVD burner is working just fine. I had obviously not taken the time to read the information that is written on the stickers that come stuck to the computer. The Prime PC site, where I bought my new Acer Aspire 3002, indicated that the DVD drive can write to DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW. However, on the laptop itself, in reference to the DVD writer, it says: "Supports DVD+R Double Layer/ DVD+-RW".

Nothing about DVD-R, which is the most common DVD around here and the one I had been trying to burn. (I had actually bought a whole pack of them).

I ran to the shops last night after finally reading the stickers, bought some DVD-RW, and sure enough, I can burn and burn and burn.

Luckily I discovered this before contacting the shop to return the "defective" item!

Deep Impact

Tomorrow (or, really late tonight), a NASA space shuttle will collide with the comet Tempel 1, hopefully boring a hole into the comet, giving us mere humans a little more insight into what a comet actually is.

The impact is set to occur at 1:52 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time on July 4th (a.k.a. about 10 minutes before 2 a.m. tonight for those in the eastern U.S. and Canada). Here in Japan the time will be 2:52 p.m. in the afternoon. Brian and I both hope to have a few minutes to tune in to the "crash" - in this high-tech world of ours, we can tune in to see the collision on several webcasts; find one here at Space.com, and a some near-real-time images here .

Acer Aspire 3002 Plus

It was a dark and stormy morning. A Wednesday. I remember it well ...

My computer crashed. Again. I had been having some trouble (not unbearable, really) with my great little Sotec for nearly a year, since the battery died and I haven't been able to find a replacement battery; and then I saw an advertisement for English computers in Japan at Prime PC.

I use my pc a lot and I decided that a new laptop would be worth it, and we could use my Sotec for storing files or trying out new stuff - like Linux and Open Office.

My new Acer Asprire 3002 Plus arrived on Friday night.("Plus" means that I went for a slightly upgraded model that had a dual level DVD RW drive -finally, I would be able to burn DVDs! Or...so I thought. But more on that later).

Here is my new laptop, still in the box from the takkyubin (delivery) guys:



Here I am happily taking my new 60GB HD, 1 GB RAM, 1.6 Ghz laptop out of its box:


And here is a comparison of the new Aspire (left) and the 2-year-old Sotec, side-by-side:


We are watching Kranked 5, a mountain bike video, on the new pc, and looking at the blog on the Sotec. They are both great computers, but the new Acer is definitely easier for watching videos - the screen is a 15.5 inch widescreen. And I have to admit, the body is beautiful; I am in love with it just for that.

But...after spending a lot of time personalizing my new pc, I discovered that the DVD drive does not work. It reads DVDs (though you have to set the region!), and it reads and writes CDs, but it does not write DVDs. It should write DVDs...but it doesn't. We have tried everything - looking for new drivers, finding new DVD burning software, re-configuring the Device Manager; I believe it is simply a defective DVD RW drive, and I will have to contact Prime PC first thing on Monday morning. I really hope they can simply repair or replace the DVD drive and not exchange the whole computer, as I spent a large part of last night and all day today installing my favorite software and visiting sites that required logins and passwords.

I will keep you posted on how Prime PC deals with the problem!

EDIT UPDATE- my dvd-rw drive is working just fine. My mistake - I don't think it can write to dvd-r that are 1-4x, but only 8x speed. So I can burn dvd-r 8x, dvd+r, dvd-/+rw. No problem.

Rice Paddy

Riding, or even walking, around Susono at this time of year is a great pleasure, with rice sprouting up in the paddies in the most unlikely places, inspiring a sense of renewal and also of continuity.

This is a close-up of a rice paddy just in front of our apartment.



I won't go into it all here, but rice has a deep significance for Japanese and their culture. Read more about rice here at Japan Guide; and, if this is even remotely interesting to you, I highly recommend the book Japanese Cooking by Emi Kazuko, which discusses the history and aesthetic of Japanese cooking and which includes some good recipes.