Jim Migely

So when I wasn't traveling through Japan I was spending time in Tokyo. I was able to stay with my sister and brother-in-law while I was there. My brother-in-law, Stephen, was transferred to Tokyo for work a little less than a year ago and my sister, Maureen, obviously came along. Although they work at the same company, Maureen is not working while in Tokyo so she made it easy for me to get around the city with her knowledge of the subway system (which is amazing, by the way) and her knowledge of the Japanese language (she has been taking classes while living there). Again, I don't want to spend too much time writing about everything that I did. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. Overall, my time spent there included eating great food, visiting ... read more

Although I'm now back from Japan, I'd still like to share some of the other experiences that I was not able to share while I was there. One of those experiences was our visit to the island of Miyajima. It's a small island off the coast of Hiroshima that is known in Japan as one of the three most scenic spots in the country. So, of course, we had to see it. After a 45-minute ferry ride, we arrived at the island. We had heard about the tame deer that roam the island and saw a few as soon as we began walking away from the ferry lounging in the shade beneath some trees. I'll share a story or two about them later in this entry. Along with the deer, we were also looking forward to ... read more

Maureen and I just got back from Tokyo this afternoon after spending a few days in Hiroshima and Kyoto. We saw a lot and walked a lot. It was an amazing week. I'm sorry that I wasn't able to keep up with the blog. I never really had time with everything that we packed in. I'll be back soon with an overview of my experiences. Thanks to all who have commented or have sent messages!!! It's great to see that people are actually reading this. ... read more

Just a short note to let everyone know that Maureen and I are leaving for Hiroshima today. We'll be spending two days in Hiroshima and two days in Kyoto. The plan is to be back in Tokyo on Friday afternoon. We will not have the laptop with us but will do our best to find some internet cafes while we're out of town so that I can keep up with the blog. I may just be e-mailing Stephen back here and Tokyo so that he can copy and paste what I write into the blog. We'll see. Looking forward to the trip south. Sayonara!!! ... read more

After a 4 hour nap to recover somewhat from the Mt. Fuji climb, we headed to Jingu Stadium to watch the Tokyo Yokult Swallows play the Yokohama Bay Stars in my first Japanese baseball experience. The Swallows are not the only Tokyo team. The other is the Tokyo Giants who are a lot more popular. If you know you're NBA teams a good comparison would be between the L.A. Lakers and L.A. Clippers. The Giants would be the Lakers and the Swallows would be the Clippers. Regardless, I had a great time. The fans are extremely enthusiastic, but a little more reserved where we were sitting. We had great seats along the 3rd base line and were lucky enough to have a few "superfans" sitting near us who would lead a cheer in between innings and ... read more

This is a delayed entry about my visit to Yasukuni Shrine since I left for Mt. Fuji soon after. When arriving to the shrine, I was told by my sister that I needed to wash my hands and then pour water into one hand to sip and rinse my mouth before entering the shrine. This was definitely a tradition I was not used to but was happy to do it. The shrine is located within a larger memorial park that includes lanterns representing each person that died in any war/conflict since the 1850s. The Yasukuni Shrine itself is supposed to holdthe souls of these people. When seeing the shrine I wasn't sure if I could walk inside of it or what the protocol was. I figured out that the tradition was to walk up, throw 100 ... read more