Nabana no Sato:

I went to Nabana no Sato and enjoyed seeing the illuminated lights. It is the place to go in Nagoya to enjoy the winter atmosphere with the lights. Below are some pics. I was impressed. After seeing the lights I went to the onsen (hot springs) that are there at night. A really nice onsen. Maybe ranks in my top 10 of onsens I have been in Japan. Just really nice and the perfect way to warm up after walking in the cold for hours to see the lights. Pictures taken with Canon 50D, Tokina fish eye, 10-17mm, F3.5-4.5.

Wow its been a really busy couple of weeks since I got back from Hokkaido. Business trips and long hours... starting a New Year is sometimes no fun. But at least tonight I can relax on a Sunday night and get ready for the new week ahead.

Nagoya has been a little cold. My heater broke and I have been a few days without one. But finally had a new one installed yesterday. My house is much much better.

Andy gave me these pics from the New Years I thought I would share.





Andy was able to go down to Obihiro for a few days and visit his grandmother and grandfather. Of coarse any visit requires a game of tennis. Here he is with his grandmother he hasn`t met in a while.



Here is a good picture he took while we were skiing. The view was beautiful and the skiing was excellent. We went skiing I think about 5 or 6 times while we were in Hokkaido. The other days we played some tennis in Sapporo.



Coming home a nice pic of Mt. Fuji....

ohhhh back from the snow paradise...

I was in Hokkaido for the winter holidays. I got back and I am dead tired. But had a great time. Went skiing / snowboarding 5 times and played tennis 5 times. So it was a very active holiday for me. I was able to relieve a lot of stress. But my body is sore... its been a long time since I was so active everyday. Basically in the day was hard play and at night was good food and movies. A great holiday and I was able to meet some friends and have some great conversation. Just loved it!! I will post some pics.

So while I was there I watched the american music awards one night. Wow I must say Pink was awesome. She is really good and I really liked her performance. I have found it on youtube and attached below. Its really good.



She rocks!!! Here she is at the Grammys... (Not the best quality but you can see... I think the best performance at the Grammys in a long long time...)




So I would say there was a lot of great music in 2010.. loved Eminem and Train too! But fell in love with Pink again...... She always kills me...

Enjoyed a ton of good food in Hokkaido. It was funny as I arrived at Chitosei I was getting my luggage and 2 police officers came and grabbed me. They took me over to a corner and started asking all kinds of questions. Where I am from, and why I am in Hokkaido, and asked for my passport. Well I got upset at them and told them I live in Nagoya but also live in Hokkaido at times and I went to University in Hokkaido and have family there. They were really embarrassed. They thought I was someone else and I guess they were looking for a gaijin from AU. I must have looked like him a little. They had a picture. So they thought I was him and I guess bringing drugs or something in the country. Anyway they really apologized to me and I told them to take care and don`t catch a cold because Hokkaido needs good healthy cops. It was kind of funny. At first I was upset but then I cooled down... they were young cops anyway. Nice guys and I asked to see their badges again and told them they looked good. They seemed proud of their badges and told me that Hokkaido copied the same shape of badges as the New York police department. I thought that was funny... I guess its something to be proud of...

So anyway I guess thats my 2010. Great year for many things and a tough year for other things. I completely lost some loved ones this past year and thats always tough. But hopefully 2011 will be at least as good as 2010 and even better.

Hokkaido Baby!!!

I finally can start my winter vacation. I got to Hokkaido today and its cold!!! But feels so good to be here. Christmas eve and looking forward to spending the night tonight with some friends. I will be here for a couple of weeks and plan to do a lot of skiing and eating!! Its good to be away from work for a while and its good to be away from Nagoya. Nagoya is a nice place but my heart has always been in Hokkaido. So I will stay here at my place just playing games and playing. I am ready to start this holiday!!

ok so its 3 days before Christmas. I am sitting here on a train riding across Tokyo to a meeting. I have the most stupid song stuck in my head. Now here in Japan there is a song that is pretty popular just in time for the holidays. Its called "A winter fairy is melting a snowman". No lie this is the name and this is the chorus of the song. Its a little crazy and gets stuck in your head.

So I am sitting here now with this song and I am thinking.... "what the hell does this song mean??" "A winter fairy is melting the snowman"?? What is that?? So is the winter fairy a bad fairy. She is melting the snowman so is she killing a snowman? Is the fairy a witch?? Its interesting to hear some of these songs when they throw in English. I mean its Japanese English but still makes no sense....hehe. Anyway, if you have a chance check out the song... its likely it will get stuck in your head too... then you will think "what does this mean??"

Singles in there 40s in your area!!

I am getting old I guess. About 6 months ago I was getting spam advertising single available women in my area of Nagoya...hehe. Now all of a sudden the 30s have changed to 40s... I am now getting spam telling me there are single women available in their 40s in my area... So what happened in 6 months?? Am I now not able to date single women in their 30s???? Funny!! 20s, 30s, 40s.... who cares??!! But I will always be in my 30s.....at least in my heart.

And suddenly all hell breaks loose...

So I was having a great autumn. I went to a lot of places and really
enjoyed the whole autumn atmosphere. Then all of a sudden all hell breaks
loose. Last week my eyes were infected with something. It appears I had an
allergic reaction which happens once in a while. actually its been a long
time since I really had something like this. My eyes became really red and
swollen. It got so bad last Wednesday I couldn`t even open them and ended
up taking the day off. Then the following day they were really bad and I
took that day off too. By Saturday morning my eyes were a little better.
Still very red. I look like a zombie or something. But then as I thought
this may finally heal, I got thrown into a migraine.

I used to get migraine headaches a lot growing up. Sometimes they are so
bad that I need to be alone in a dark room with really no sound. I had some
special treatment done about 10 years ago. From that my migraines basically
stopped and I had been almost migraine free. But then all of a sudden on
Saturday BOOM... I was hit. Its been a long time but I felt it coming and
knew what it was. So I ended up in bed all weekend with a very bad
migraine. Then on top of that I caught a cold and so while I have really
red sore eyes and a killer headache, I also now have a really bad sore
throat and basically I just feel so weak right now. Crazy right??

So I spent the whole weekend just dying in bed....but luckily I always have
drugs on me and that helped. Today is Monday. I woke up and went to the
doctors office to get checked out. My doctor was surprised at everything I
have. But he is telling me he thinks some of this may be related to stress.
I don`t know. I don`t feel to stressed but you never know. Still, I ended
up getting like 8 different kids of pills and some eye drops. Really crazy.
I am looking at all these pills thinking I can`t believe I need to take all
of these. But hopefully they will get me back to normal. I need to get back
to normal fast. Andy is headed to Florida this next weekend for a tennis
tournament. I can`t go but my parents will meet him there and support him.
I will get to watch him from the internet. So anyway crazy how things
change.

Before my hell started I did enjoy some good places in Kyoto again. I went
to 2 places I have never been. The autumn leafs were just beautiful. Some
pics are below. So anyway fall is over and winter is here!! I am ready to
do some skiing this winter in Hokkaido. I will be ready to go after I get
healthy!!
Always a traffic Jam on a Saturday morning..... I had lots of time to sit in the car and take this picture....
I love Japanese Maples!!

Andy took a picture of me just as I was going to take one of him...

Kyoto

Fukushima