We've been back for a week now, and easily settling back in to work and home. It's still not quite summer here, but the weekend should be nice--the first of many nice weekends, we hope. If not, we'll just pack up the car and head back to Austin. (I joke!) The drive back was much like the drive down: a lot of sitting in the car, watching scenery go by. Plenty of scenery, though--we drove through Santa Fe, Arches, Death Valley, and Yosemite along the way. I may write more about our Austin adventure later, or maybe not. In the mean time--or in stead--here's my photos from Arches:

A couple weekends ago Laura and I swam the Capitol 2K, as we did last year. And just like last year, I got third place in my division. But it was a very different race this year—not just because it was my second time instead of my first, or because I have better goggles and could actually see what was going on around me. Here's some interesting (okay, interesting to me..) comparisons in the results:

• The divisions were split in half: last year, I was 30-39, this year 30-34. There were 14 swimmers in mens' 30-39 last year; 11 in the 30-34 group this year.
• Overall, there were fewer swimmers. Attendance was down about 10%.
• Also, not many returns from last year. Of the names I looked up, only about a quarter of the swimmers this year did the race last year.
• Those that did, however, swam about 2 minutes faster than last year. (The weather was much better, for one..)
• I was only around 30 seconds faster.
• Last year there was a gap of a few minutes between the guy ahead of me in my division and over a minute behind me. This year, second was 16 seconds ahead and fourth was 13 seconds behind.

I think this will motivate me to get in better shape for next year, and to remember to keep pushing harder. Just a little bit faster and I can get second place. Just a little bit slower and I don't get another cool little plaque to put on my desk.

So, after a month lost in Carlsbad Caverns, we've finally arrived in Austin!

No, not really. We've been here on West Annie Street for three weeks now, though it seems longer than that. Or maybe shorter.. No, three weeks: that's about right. Long enough to settle down, fall into a routine, and for the wide-eyed gasping novelty to wear off. But not nearly enough to do many of the things we'd planned. If the story opens with us driving out and establishing a home here, this is the end of the first act. Tomorrow I get back behind the wheel and drive to New Orleans, where Molly's been for the last week. That's always been the midpoint of our adventure: 'Nawlins, then drive back Saturday and I swim the Cap 2K again on Sunday. After that, another few weeks before the calendar tells us we have to fly back to Portland for a bit, return to Austin, then drive back home.

I'd like to be back home, off the calendar. But I might like having two homes, too.

A comparison:

I'm writing this from the Motel 6 in Carlsbad, New Mexico. We did the walking tour at the Caverns yesterday, and here's the proof. Today Scott and Kaki and I will be touring Spider Cave; Molly and Sky and Egan are off at Slaughter Canyon right now. And tomorrow night we'll be in Austin!

So where were we? The 16th? The rest of the trip was uneventful, in a good way. No more scary food, no getting lost or kicked out of the country. On Sunday, Cabel and Steve headed back to the states, leaving Mike and me to fend for ourselves. We did some sightseeing, bought presents for everyone back home, took it easy—a nice break from the constant running around at the beginning of the trip. The flight back was similarly uninteresting: We took off, eight hours later we landed. I've been feeling listless and tired since we got back, and I can't tell if it's recoil from a week running around constantly engaged, jet lag, or the miserable weather here.



Next Monday we're leaving for Austin, driving south through California, across Arizona and New Mexico, through the sage and brush of West Texas, into the rolling Hill Country that still feels like home.

The last few days have been mercifully uneventful compared to the first two—if we'd kept going at that pace, I'd be a gibbering wreck right now. We've seen and done a lot of things since the last post, but I don't have many stories to tell that aren't just "and then we did this." So I'll just do a photo dump here (many thanks to Cabel's Fancy Zoom) and give a brief outline of events. Click a photo to zoom!


3/13: Visited Takahashi, creator of Katamari Damarcy at Namco Bandai. While having coffee after lunch we met the guy who created Pac Man! In the evening we went to Muscle Park and Sega Joypolis.




3/14: Visited the Tokyo Stock Exchange and the Gibli Museum. Met Kohno-san at his web company, then we all went to a not-very-impressive British Pub for Steve's birthday. Amusing story: we ordered the "Party Platter", an assortment of their fried appetizers. It arrives with salsa, guac, and sour cream, none of which have anything to do with the foodstuffs on the plate.




3/15: Went out to Kashiwa to hang out with Noby and Kaori and the boys at their apartment. Lunch at Bikkuri ("Surprising") Donkey. Dinner at a cool sushi restaurant where you order on a touch screen at the table and your order is routed to your table by a network of conveyer belts.

Next, we're off to Namjatown. We were warned that Namjatown was no Disneyland, and no kidding: It's sort of like the Enchanted Forest of Tokyo, but built by one of the largest game companies in Japan instead of an eccentric with endless truckloads of concrete. But we weren't there for the second-rate amusements, we were there to kick ass and eat gyoza. And we were all out of ass.

Gyoza Stadium isn't so much a stadium as a collection of food stands in the traditional Japanese style. There's ten or so little huts, each a counter where a friendly lady takes your order and a small kitchen in back where the chef does his gyoza thing. It's very confusing at first: Each has a giant menu describing, in Japanese, what their gyoza's all about. (I can spot the kanji for gyoza, and that's about it.) So, dozens of choices, all indistinguishable from each other. Usually I'm fine with not being able to read menus because I can just ask for something by name—but here I can't exactly say, "I'll have the gyoza, please!" After a few minutes of total befuddlement, I realize that there are picture menus next to the counter, so I can at least point. They were all delicious, of course.

The other fun thing was we found the Miracle Fruit Cafe. "Miracle fruit" is an odd fruit (a drupe, I'll have you know) that blocks the sour receptors on your tongue. Suck on some miracle fruit for a few minutes and it changes your perception of taste. We ordered the experiment kit, which comes with test tubes of different liquids, slices of lemons and limes, plus other things like kombu and stinky dried fish. I didn't get good tongue coverage, so some sour slipped by, but straight lemon juice tasted like lemonade. Lemon and lime wedges, wonderful. Vinegar still burned the throat, but the initial recoil was gone. Tomatoes and tomato juice were sweeter but still tasted like tomato. The rest was still god awful dreadful.

So, feeling sick with a stomach full of vinegar and lemon juice, I learned something: Your tongue is the guardian of your stomach, and deserves respect. Don't play tricks on it, and don't drink lemon juice.

We had a quick stop at the hotel, then it was off to I-don't-know-where to meet a guy for dinner, a Coda fan, really nice guy who works at Sony Playstation on the PS3 web browser. We picked him up at his office and saw the swank Sony digs, then went off in search of the restaurant he'd picked, through the bitter cold, and faint with hunger. Okay, it wasn't that bad, but we were sure glad when we finally found it. It turned out to be a traditional Japanese place, though I'm sure it's much more nuanced than that, that it's a particular style from some region and era of Japan—these layers of meaning are lost on me. (I was, I admit, disappointed that it wasn't curry. I still haven't had curry this trip.)

But back to the rambling: We've been on our feet for two days straight (and I'm sure the lack of sleep hasn't helped) and now we have to wedge ourselves under the table—and there's no cheater pit for your legs like in American "authentic" Japanese restaurants. My legs instantly fell asleep and sent out shooting pains to complain about their treatment. Despite that, and the embarrassing outgassing of my socks, the food was really enjoyable and the other Japanese guys our host had invited were all great company. When we got to the main course, gas grills were brought to the table and a stew was set cooking. It looked and smelled good, and I was pleased with my ability to eat and even enjoy unrecognizable foods. And then I saw the bowl of egg-shaped things, random sizes but all pinky-white. The guy next to me: "Do you know what these are? They're baby eggs! Unhatched eggs!"

I always feel I should be open to new experiences, and Japan has a great way of giving to them to you with no effort whatsoever on your behalf. The trick is to not think about it, I told myself; just open your mind and experience it. Also, it's probably just like a hard boiled egg, no problem. So in it goes, chew, and there's the surprise: it pops and some kind of.. liquid floods my mouth.

I should have expected that. Japanese food has a cruel sense of humor with us foreigners.

Luckily, I didn't gag like I did last time I was in this situation, and once the proto-proto-chicken fluid headed down my throat past the cholesterol-loving part of the tongue, I found it was actually really good. (Mike agreed, and thanked me for warning him about the surprise.) After this, there was a bit more food—though nothing so dramatic—and the rest of the meal followed its pleasant, congenial path while my lack of sleep started catching up again. I felt like a kid out past his bedtime, and I just wanted someone to carry me home.

Finally, at last, we were done. I prised my poor, useless legs out from under the table and beat the life back into them. I shambled out, we said our goodbyes and very-nice-to-meet-yous, and we packed ourselves into the subway car, stuffed like a sausage with the hordes of people just now getting off work at 11PM.

As I was fearing, I woke up at 5 AM this morning after a few hours of off and on sleep. Mike's a snorer, I should have remembered that. Must get earplugs today. Starbucks wasn't open (yes, I'd go to an honest to gosh Japanese coffee shop before Starbucks, but there don't seem to be any..) for another hour, so I walked around Shinjuku, down to Yoyogi and back. The streets were empty save for a few straggling drunk kids and the advance team for Tokyo's assault on the day: Sidewalk sweeping old ladies, white-gloved cops, and delivery guys. Seven AM, and back to Starbucks.

I've never sat in a Starbucks before, typing away on my MacBook like a cliche (I'll have you know it was straight coffee, not a venti soy whatever), but I'm in Japan so I think I'll get away with it. Also, a couple hundred yards from me are dozens of Japanese who really should know better lined up to buy Krispy Kreme donuts by the multiple dozens.

When everyone else finally woke up we went to the amazing and terrifying food level of the enormous Takashimaya department store to hunt for breakfast: random filled dough products, selected entirely on appearance instead of ignorant examination of their labels. One turned out to be tuna fish, which I really can't stand, so I gave it to Mike and we popped in to a corner store to find a replacement. Now, as I mentioned last time, people here seem to have an obsession with packaging that I find a bit excessive. So when the lady at Takashimaya put each bread item in its own little bag, then the pair into yet another bag, I thought I could offset that the tiniest bit at the convenience store: The kid rang up my two items and pulled off a plastic bag from the rack; I said I didn't need a bag, idimasen ("don't need", as far as I know); he nodded, turned around, and threw the unopened bag into the trash.

Well, at least he saved me the trouble.

There's plenty more to the day, including the most disgusting yet delicious thing I've ever eaten, but it's late, I've had somewhere around four hours of sleep in the last 48, and I'm starting to have odd physical dissociation sensations. So,

To be continued..

By the clock, I woke up on Monday at 9-something and got to bed around midnight, 38-odd hours later. It was really only a 20 hour day, but I was near hallucinating by the end of it. Half of the day was spent on an airplane. Here's the first of what will no doubt be many pictures of weird signage, from the airplane head:



"Cups below. BUT DON'T FILL THEM WITH WATER!"

The first thing I learned today, which I should have remembered from China, is that if you ask a question in Japanese you'll get an answer in Japanese. And you won't understand a word of it.

Second thing I learned is that Tokyo is no place for throwing stuff away (which is funny, considering the Japanese obsession with maximizing the packaging-to-contents ratio) or for using a laptop on your hotel room bed. There are apparently no public trash cans anywhere in the city, and the only electrical outlets in this room are over at the desk. Curses!

a short video.