[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=““i believe lions” was printed on the interior of the Lions jersey I bought.”] [/caption] After an intense and draining day, it was finally time to get back to Tokyo for the last leg of the main tour and to catch some more baseball action! It’s hard not to love Hiroshima and the Chūgoku region in general. Nowhere else in Japan did I see such devotion to a baseball team as I did in Chūgoku. Convenience stores in both the smallest regional stations and the largest Shinkansen stations sell Hiroshima Carp tea, Hiroshima Carp trinkets, and even Hiroshima Carp onigiri. ...

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Domo-kun just before sneaking across the Kintai-kyo without paying admission or being a part of the samurai caste.”] [/caption] Our first baseball off-day and we spent it traveling throughout the area. From Hiroshima we headed out to Iwakuni, Miyajima, and then back to Hiroshima to see the Peace Memorial. The morning started off with the usual optional day tour to see the sights in the area. Dave and I were eager to head to Iwakuni and see the famous samurai bridge Kintai-kyo. Historical accounts state that the bridge was only usable by the samurai caste back in the day and the whole thing was constructed completely without nails. ...

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Brilliant Advertising”] [/caption] Today’s story is no ordinary tale. It is the story of how two otherwise ordinary men became extraordinary. This is the story of how Dave and I overcame obstacles and became the Official Japanball Vice-Presidents of Diplomatic Affairs (and then went to a baseball game). It started on a day like any other. Dave and I got up as usual for our early morning brief to take a tour of the local sights. On the agenda were Ryōan-ji and Kinkaku-ji, two Buddhist temples in the area. During the briefing I started to feel something getting really hot in my pockets. Alarmed, I started trying to dig through my pockets and felt my change was all really hot and so were my batteries. I successfully pulled all of that out of my pocket and learned an important lesson: Never put your batteries in the same pocket as your coins, lest they complete some sort of bizarre short circuit and set your pants on fire or explode. From then on, I kept my change and my batteries in opposite pockets. ...

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“Dave doing his best to look gangsta outside of Tokyo Station.”] [/caption] A day of baseball behind us, our tour was now set to depart Tokyo and journey east to Kyoto, the former capital of Japan. That means that we would get a chance to ride the famous bullet trains for the first time. After a quick taxi to Tokyo Station, Dave and I found ourselves waiting on the platform wondering about the naming conventions behind the various lines of the Shinkansen (the Japanese name for the bullet train). Mayumi broke it down like this: the slowest trains are the Kodama, which means echo. They stop at local stations and generally take longer. The next fastest are the Hikari trains. Hikari means light and, like any good physicist would expect, they are much faster than the Kodama trains. The fastest class of trains is named Nozomi, which means hope. Therefore, hope > 3 x 10^8. ...

Jet lag is always a bit difficult to overcome, but when you’ve flown to the other side of the world, the body really doesn’t know what to do with itself. So it came to pass that I wrote the whole second half of Part II of this travelogue at 0600 after a half hour of tossing and turning, despite being on almost no sleep. This third part comes straight from my exhausted fingers to you, starting before the first Giants game and continuing after getting back to the hotel. ...

[caption id="" align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“A reenactment of me starting to write this entry in emacs”] [/caption] I begin this entry sitting at the gate for my ANA flight…1 (No joke, my flight number is NH0001), listening to Japanese ska to get into the mood as I await my 1220 flight out of America. As per usual, I got here a good three hours before my flight even was ready to think about starting to take off thanks to something I like to call hyper-punctuality, but I’m sure most would call insanity. In fact, I was so early this morning when I arrived at 0900 that ANA hadn’t even opened up their check-in terminal (don’t worry, I’m sure to repeat this detail later) ...

It won’t be the first time I arrive in the Land of the Rising Sun and it probably won’t be the last, but at least it’s all for fun this time. My last journey into Japan took me to Okinawa, an island paradise where I found myself snorkeling and enjoying the beauty of the landscape whenever I was off the clock, but this time I’ll be diving headfirst into three of the four main islands: Honshū, Kyūshū, and Hokkaidō to get a real glimpse of Japan more separate from the US-heavy Okinawa. ...

The Endurance Run fuses yet again to take on the murderer! Get Persona 4!

Better late than never, right? Posts may be slow-going for the foreseeable future, but I’ll do my best to update as often as possible. Charlie and the gang enter Adachi’s dungeon! Get Persona 4!

Deep from the trenches, it’s time for your Monday video feature: Embedded Reporter. Sony is about to launch the new, cheaper PS3 Slim. To go with the new SKU, they are launching a new ad campaign based on the MLB 09: The Show commercials that they aired earlier this year (I loved those).