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Busted Up Face

“French fry when you’re supposed to pizza, gonna have a bad time.”

I’m off recovering from my Septoplasty and Turbinectomy operation. I’ve had a deviated septum every since I got clipped in the face with a baseball bat. I’d like to tell you it was because of some sweet gang fight or while saving someone, but it was just an accident.
The good news is that I can now breathe out of the right nostril. I haven’t been able to do this is about 15 years, its incredible. Things smell so much better, though they mostly smell like blood right now. LOL.

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Japan Trip – Day 5 – Koyasan

Day Five

From Wednesday, November 16th, 2005: This is day 5 of my November trip to Japan. This morning, we were awoken by a ringing of a bell at 5:30am. We shuffled off to the services area and sat quietly while the monks performed their morning prayers. It was cold, peaceful, and humbling.

The remainder of the day was spent walking through the stone paths of Koyasan and checking out the old buildings. We ended the day by traveling back to Osaka, which I will post pictures of later.

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The Root of All Evil

I just watched an amazing documentary series on the BBC recommended to me by a friend called, “The Root of All Evil“. I highly recommend it. One of the most telling quotes from the movie was one originally from Steven Weinberg, the novel prize winning physicist.

“Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.”

I think this will be one that I WILL memorize. There is also another great quote in that series:

“You can think of chimps as MS-DOS and humans as Windows 2000”.

For humanities sake, I hope the latter quote is not true. 😉

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Japan Trip – Day 4b – Kung-Fu Ryokan

Day Four B

From Tuesday, November 15th, 2005: The Ryokan room, and the Yukatta Battle between Fred and Chris. Do not miss this episode. I had to break the arrival at Shojoshin-in into a separate video feed. We basically got into the room and spent the whole day just chilling out. We were both pretty beat after the day of traveling and battling Kung-fu style!

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Weird Copyright Laws

I’m looking into various ways to support myself while I am in school. One of the possibilities is looking at selling photography online at stock photography sites. In reading the photographer FAQ at iStockphoto.com, I learned something strange today regarding photographing trademarked buildings:

“… photographs of the Eiffel Tower during the day are legal for resale, but not night shots (showing the light show)”

Odd.

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Japan Trip – Day 4 – Ride to Koyasan

Day Four

From Tuesday, November 15th, 2005: On our way to Koyasan to visit some monks and keep in a traditional Japanese Ryokan. The entire day was spent traveling to Koyasan. First, JR Loop line from Shinjuku to Tokyo Station. Bullet train to Shin-Osaka. Loop line to Shin-Imamiya. Nankai Koya Line to Gokurakubashi. Cable car to Koyasan. Bus to Ryokan. Fun!

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Japan Trip – Day 3 – Train Riding

Japan Trip Day Three

From Monday, November 14th, 2005: Welcome to Day 3 of the Japan Trip. Our first real big day of formal sight-seeing. I was finally feeling back to normal after recovering from the jet lag and the nice cold I caught. We managed to figure out the trains well enough to make it to the Imperial Palace, the Meiji Shrine, and meet up with our friend Saya-san in Shimbashi in the evening. Unfortunately, I didn’t take too much video except on the trains themselves. There’s a quick bit about navigating the trains and what you see inside of them but that’s about all. The rest is pictures that you can also see in Flickr.

Anyway, here it is. Enjoy!

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Japan Trip – Day 2 – Shinjuku

Japan Trip Day Two

From Sunday, November 13th, 2005: Lots to see and lots to do in grand ol’ Tokyo. This day, we started it off right by visiting the Shinjuku Center, Sumitomo, and NS buildings for some high flying sight seeing. It was pretty amazing to be able to see metro spread for so far. We walked from downtown Shinjuku through Yoyogi, discovering vending machines, weird looking buildings, video games and pachinko parlors, and finally found the Sapporo beer museum in Ebisu.

We finished off the night by sitting in downtown Shinjuku totally wiped out and still not over our jetlag. It was somewhat surreal towards the end of the night and hence the weird music. I think it really captures the theme even though I totally ripped it off from “Lost in Translation”. Enjoy!

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Japan Trip – Day 1 – Arrival

Day One Title

From Saturday, November 12th, 2005: We arrived in Tokyo on Saturday November 12th, completely exhausted and tired from the 2 hour connecting flights, the 14 hour flight to Narita, the 1 hour long train ride to Shinjuku from Narita Airport, and the 1 hour jaunt to find our hotel. Needless to say, getting to Shinjuku is a multi-stage journey.

Upon arrival, it was a bit overwhelming, but really exciting. After the final leg of the journey, I was feeling a bit punchy. My only regret … I wish I took more video footage so this first installment is a little thin. Hope you enjoy!

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