The world is my trailer park.

It's time once again to revive this blog and entertain random readers with somewhat embellished tales of semi-adventure.



Wednesday, November 4th

This year's trip to Japan began in Yokohama, where I was fortunate enough to receive a tour of the Kenwood offices, and managed to get a small glimpse at the engineering magic behind their two-way radios. The visit only lasted about two hours, but I still managed to glean some useful information.

Unfortunately, I don't intend to divulge much of that information here, as it's probably of no interest to the public-at-large. However, when I return to Lloydminster, I'll be sure to share my tales with all relevant co-workers.

My stay in Yokohama was just two nights, so apart from the Kenwood tour, there's not much to report. However, it's almost worth mentioning that my hotel accomodation was rather upper-crust, and I felt more than a bit out-of-place. (Shin-Yokohama Prince Hotel -- 40 storeys of earthquake-proof snootiness.) To be honest, the staff was very friendly -- it was more the clientèle that was out of my league.



Friday, November 6th

After Yokohama, I hopped onto the Shinkansen (N700 series) and headed towards Kobe. Once there, I met with an email friend and promptly hiked up Mt. Nunobiki, which lies directly (and I do mean directly) behind Shin-Kobe Station.

Part way up exists a series of waterfalls, the largest being this:


The motivation for this excursion was to find a GeoCache location for a co-worker. I'm happy to report the effort was a success, and the hippy teddy bear that accompanied me from Lloydminster now has a snug new home, suspiciously resembling a Tupperware container.

After that, I was taken to see a Japanese garden complete with a display of entries from a chrysanthemum cultivating competition. Some of the winners looked like plastic plants, yet they were most definitely real. I also found it quite amazing how a single flower can be trained to bloom in such vastly different ways, sometimes giving the appearance of different species.

Following a trip on Kobe's extremely well-used train system, we walked around the harbour area where an important discovery awaited...

When I was younger, West Edmonton Mall had a couple of ball-sculptures located at opposite ends of Phase I. Something similar currently exists somewhere in WEM, but the original ones disappeared some time ago. Well... I found one nestled inside a shopping mall near Kobe Harbour. The paint was new, but it was definitely one of the original ball-sculptures that I spent many hours observing in my youth. Quite an unexpected surprise.

The next morning, before leaving for Fukuoka, my email friend and I took a ride up the Kobe cable car and visited the Nunobiki Herb Gardens.



Saturday, November 7th

Following that little adventure, I once again jumped onto a speeding Shinkansen (N700 series) and headed towards Fukuoka...