Motegi IRL Race

Since there was an IRL race at Motegi, I took the business trip members with me. I wanted to take the kids, but I thought it might be too hard. I think I did the right thing by not taking them since it was hot and we had to do a lot of walking.


They ran out of parking passes at Motegi so we had to go down into town and park and then take a bus back to the track. We had to do that in reverse coming home so it was a long day. We left at around 9:00, just barely got seated and the race started and got home around 7:00 at night.






Picture of the Honda Fury. Being in Japan, you see a lot of motorcycles and scooters. I can ride a 50 cc scooter without any additional licenses, but for anything bigger, I have to take a motorcycle test which I hear is very hard. I think it will take away from me riding my bicycle so I probably won"t get a scooter. I am thinking of getting one of these when I get back to the states.






Turn 1 at Motegi. The cheap seats that we bought were in between turn 1 and 2. We were 4 rows from the track with no one in front of us. It was great.








6000 yen ($70) ticket, 500 yen beers ($6) all day, falling asleep at the race and waking up with about 20 laps to go... priceless.






Picture of the pit area and front straightaway before the race.







Danica Patrick in her GoDaddy car.







The truck on the track was right where all of the wrecks happened. There was a bump in the track that sent sparks flying when the cars hit is. Three of them lost control and crashed in this spot. Our seats were 2 sections over from the crash point. We would see the cars going out of control as they came toward us and then you would feel them hit the wall. Unbelievable.





Picture of the pit area after the race. Helio Castroneves ended up winning the race. He led most of the day.







Pictures of girls handing out autographed pictures of the Japanese drivers. Of course, I had to get a set... Sorry Elin, it had to go on the blog. Delete it if you must.









Jeff Robison ended up in one of the center aisle flip down seats. I could not help but snap a picture of him.




One of the vendors had metal signs of old advertisements. I saw this one as I was flipping through. I thought it was funny so I took a picture.









Introducing the Japanese drivers after the race.





Turn 1.






View in front of us when the cars came by.





About 29 seconds to go 1.5 miles.





Turn 1




Ladies and gentlemen... start your engines.




Traditional Japanese music played by a live band.




Jet flyby.

Nikko National Park

One of the reasons I have not had much time to update the blog is due to a business trip for my project. We have had many members from Marysville Auto Plant here working on the 2013 Accord. Last weekend, I played tour guide. We rented a van and borrowed another and 12 of us went to Nikko for the day. For business trip members, it is hard to get around sometimes. The trains and buses are convenient, but you still end up doing a lot of walking. With Elin and I driving them, they got to see a lot more of Nikko. We left at 9:30 and returned around 7:30 at night so it was a long day.




The Parker family at the top of the stairs of the main shrine. They are in the process of building a building around the shrine. It is starting to deteriorate so they are trying to cover it to preserve it.







When we went to Nikko in April, we did not make it to all of the areas. I have been to Nikko a few times and I don't ever remember getting to this area of the shrines/temples.







View of the 5 story pagoda from the back side.













I caught Elin in front of the Torii.









I am not positive what these are, but there are a lot of them through the park.











This is on the way up to the top shrine area. I think it might have been a bell tower, but I am not sure.








There are little creeks and water sources all over Nikko. It is a mountainous area.











One of the guardians of the temples/shrines.












View of the lower shrines from what I was calling the bell tower area.






I don't think we made it to this one, but I snapped a picture of it.

Another guardian.

Picture of a shrine. Sorry, I don't understand the significance of the separate shrines. It would be nice to have someone who understood everything so we could get an explanation. Maybe next time.

Denny next to a large tree.

Some of the business trippers.

We went up the windy road to the top of the mountain. I think I have a similar picture from our April trip.

View from the lookout.

Last time we were at Nikko, we stopped at a little store on the mountain. They have yakitori (meat on a stick) as well as other things. One of the things we tried was smoked eggs. They look funny, but they are really good. I wanted to bring my Bradley smoker to Japan, but the movers somehow packed one part of it so the rest of it was worthless alone so we packed it away. I want to try this when I get back home. I think the white things are mochi which is smashed rice. It has a gummy consistency and is often used for sweets. The texture is a little weird so none of us eat it much.

Savannah's favorite - pork yakitori. She had a whole one and then grabbed Denny's leftovers from me before I could get a bite.

This is the tunnel to get down to Kegon waterfall. Denny walked down with Rich. You have to take an elevator to get down to the tunnel.

Picture of the rock wall near the waterfall. I thought it looked cool so I wanted to share it. It almost looks like the picture is upside down.

Picture of the waterfall.

Savannah and I in front of the falls.

After the waterfall, we had just enough time to get up to lake Chuzenji before it got dark. As you can see, we just missed the sunset but it was still pretty. There was a

Savannah at Lake Chuzenji.

I pulled the car up to the curb and it had just enough room to clear it. This was the rental so I got lucky...

I hate this... I do it all the time. I have the camera turned to get a video and I can't figure out how to turn it. Sorry, you have to figure out how to look at it.

And again...

Rice Harvesting

On Sunday after Savannah's undoukai, we went to the rice field for harvest day. It was another hot day. We went to the rice field at 9:00 and finished up around 12:00. They provided an udon noodle lunch for us as well. By the time we got home, we were exhausted. I think we spent most of the day lounging in the air conditioning.




Picture of the rice field just before we started harvesting. You can see how the rice weighed it down because all of the stalks are bent over.








Savannah and Colleen with their sickles. We were a little hesitant on letting her use one, but they did OK. I had mine in my back pocket while we were weeding and somehow cut my finger. Not too bad, though.











View looking at the silos. I think I took a similar picture throughout the summer so you can see how things changed.










This is a view of the back fields. It reminded me of Ohio so I snapped a picture of the corn and the trees.










Grasshopper on the plastic fence.










Denny hanging out with the ladies.













The kids found a snake. I picked it up by the tail and it swung around and tried to bite me. I wasn't sure what kind of snake it was so I was a little afraid of getting bitten. We eventually got him corralled again and this man picked him up by the head.










Can you see the praying mantis? Colleen found one that had just captured a grasshopper and it was eating it. It was pretty gross.











Rice piled up after being cut by hand. The machine they had could not get all the way to the fence so we hand cut about 5 or 6 rows around the field.










Close up picture of the rice. After seeing how much work it takes to plant and harvest rice, I try to make sure I eat every grain at mealtime. I can't imagine how hard it was to do all of this by hand. On Monday, my legs really hurt from bending over and standing up.

The rice actually has a husk on it. The machine that they had did not remove the husk. I still don't know how this process is done since they bagged it up with the husks still on the rice.

The kids sitting on the bags of rice.

We went to the community center for lunch. Interestingly enough, they gave the kids shaved ice before lunch.

Savannah with her shaved ice.












Changing out the bags on the rice harvester.

Denny waited in line to ride the harvester.

Rice harvester taking out a row of rice.

People working on harvesting the rice.




I wanted to show how we cut the rice so I set the camera down and got a movie. I think it turned out pretty good. Liam is in the back going to town on his rice. I was a little worried he was putting a little too much effort into it. The sickles were sharp.





Rice harvester up close.