California: "Got Crabs? We Do" Derry and I began our trip, as I mentioned, to the tune of Highway to Hell by AC/DC, leaving Palo Alto in the heat of the noonday sun, and soon found ourselves driving through the chilly western part of San Francisco through the typical summer fog that often envelopes the city during the summers. But it wasn't long before we were back into the heat typical of the rest of California. As hunger gnawed at us, we decided to pull off in Hopland to have lunch at the oldest brewpub in California, and the second oldest [View Full Entry]

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Healthcare (which interestingly enough is considered a spelling mistake in America - I kid you not - type it into your spell checker) plays a prominent role in my discussion of my final week in the great state of CA. This is partially regarding my recent, and certainly expensive, though yet-to-be-billed-for, experience on Tuesday, Michael Moore's new movie Sicko. But what I would really like to start this blog off with is a comment that was written in response to my first blog entry on California. I said something referring to California as being an excellent place, but no Canada in [View Full Entry]

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It was time for a mini-road trip after being in one place for so long, and so it seemed the perfect opportunity when Derry offered a few weeks ago to join him and his pals for a jaunt up to Reno, "The biggest little city in the world." This is, of course, a self proclaimed title, and I'm dubious of it simply because of its lack of measurable qualities. But no matter, Reno believes it, so who am I to stand in the way of mini-Vegas, perhaps a more appropriate moniker, although not as popular with those that live in Reno [View Full Entry]

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Trail of Beers A good deal of the past couple of weeks has involved drinking, not a great volume at any given time, but there each day seems to have an event that has had drinking involved as one of its central tenets. It is not a great volume of said liquid, but it has been a consistent consumption pattern since I arrived here. The beer's just so good. This all may not come as a surprise, especially at the end of this year, and I'm sure many of you may question whether I've become an alcoholic. The true answer [View Full Entry]

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Sunny San Francisco? One of the favourite sayings of San Franciscans belongs to that famous American humourist Mark Twain, who once said wryly: The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco. There's a good deal of truth to the situation as well. San Francisco is blessed and cursed with its unique climate. The spring and autumn are gorgeous, sunny, and temperate, but for the most part, the summers are terribly cold and foggy. This is owing to the heat of the valley. As it heats up, the air rises, leaving a bit of a vacuum. The air [View Full Entry]

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My Kind of Town Palo Alto is my kind of town. It's a college town, with Stanford University, my Alma Mater, right there. Which makes it one of those great places to walk around. Walking down University Avenue, the main street running through downtown, you hear such things said as: "Well, that depends on how you interpret Socratic thought," and "I always have trouble singing in that key," and "Sir, can you spare some change." Okay, so the last one's not that unique, but the other two make me glow with excitement as I stroll down the sidewalk littered with cafes [View Full Entry]

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Last Minute Japan On my very last afternoon in Japan I was talking with one of the women that worked at the hostel. It was pleasant, and I said that I was going out with Tohko to Karaoke. She asked rather pointedly, "is she your girlfriend?" I told her that she wasn't, "She's just a friend." At that point she said, "Oh good, then you should come to a party with me tomorrow night." The bittersweet irony took no time to settle in: I traveled the globe for a year, and I received the most obvious sort of invite for an [View Full Entry]

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The Rise of Empires Leaving the the LeRouges behind, I made the overnight trek to Tokyo, where I spent the day before heading to Mt. Fuji, but before the day was through a new empire of sorts had begun. Sumo had found itself in new hands. Hakuho beat Asashoryu, the Yokozuna, and had paved the way for his all but inevitable promotion to the position himself. The interesting bit is that neither of them are Japanese; they are both Mongols. So it seems after all of these generations, Kublai Khan has, in a sense, claimed Japan for himself. I have written [View Full Entry]

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The Many Happenings in Masuda Masuda, as it turns out is not exactly set up for tourism. It's not that there's nothing to see here, or that the people are unhelpful. Okay, it's not that the people are unhelpful, but there isn't a great deal to see just here. It is, however, an excellent jumping off point, and a great way to get a feel for "the real Japan" as far as it may exist. As for the tourist industry in Masuda, it appears I am the tourist industry here in Masuda. I don't want to give it a bad wrap [View Full Entry]

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Contest Closed: The winner of the caption contest is my buddy Steve, whose offensive entry made me laugh so hard I could not relay it to Camille and Denise in a comprehensible manner. Good work Steve. Email me your address and you shall recieve a postcard in the next few weeks. Hiroshima Arriving in Hiroshima was no surprise; it was as necessary a stop for me as Tokyo would be for any tourist to enter Japan. It took us only a few hours from Kyoto to arrive, and it was at this point that Denise left us to our own devices, [View Full Entry]

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