A hummer?

Yesterday we had off and I went to a few different stores looking for things for the family. One of the things I was looking for was a bike. I am hoping to find a used one so it will be cheaper and probably still really nice. One of the bike shops didn't have any used bikes but they did have this.

This is a yellow hummer bike. That red and white checkered seat would have been a sweet addition but that is from a different bike. If you want to own a hummer or tell your friends you have a hummer without spending all that money for a big one with 4 wheels. You can pick this 2-wheeled, 1 seated version up for a little over $300. I do have to say though for $300 it needs to have some sort of key to start it or some special amenity for that price. What do you think.? (They also  had a Chevrolet bike)

Fashion show

Yesterday our team was part of a fashion show. It was a real fashion show with a runway and everything. When we got there the girls going down the runway were showing off active wear. Somebody also said that wedding dresses were being shown as well as fall collections. (As I was sitting eating dinner yesterday with the tv on they did a story on it and this a picture from the TV story).

I do have to say though we probably had to best at working the runway................. Or something like that

Dinner and sumo

Tonight I sat down to eat dinner and when I turned on the tv sumo was on. I think there are 4 tournaments a year so it's not on all that much and it was nice to sit down and watch it - it's pretty cool.

Tokyo University Performance - Precision

One of my teammates showed me this video. It is from a university here in Japan and this was a performance they did in Tokyo. Could we maybe see something like this in 2020 when the Olympics come to Japan?

This video is the whole performance the put on.

Check it out - pretty cool

 

Let me know what you think

Where I stay

In one of my other posts I mentioned that right now I am staying in an apartment/dorm with some of the others. I thought I would include some pictures from the area. Our dorm, looking down the street toward the mountains, and one of the many rice fields around here with the mountains in the distance.

Holiday Card

Merry Christmas (a little early)

Stationery Card

View the entire collection of cards.

Good English

Today i was down in the laundry room and happen to notice this as the name of one of our dryers.

Okay, the steam dryer part makes sense, but what about the line below it?

Does that mean the machine spins the clothes around in an oval or almost round motion? or does it mean that the inside drum is almost round? Or could it be that this was sold as a discount because the manufacturing process was a little off, where the correctly put together machines say "simple round clothes dryer"?  But since it was close and the thing still works well they just say "roundish"?

Or, and most likely, is it just a simple case of great English :). ?

Shoes

AndShoes in Japan are an interesting thing. When you go into a building, like a house or a restaurant (or even a gym) you have to leave your shoes by the door. There is usually an area for this, like a little step that you need to leave your shoes at. Then when you go into a building where you take your shoes, you put on your inside shoes. Most of the time these are slippers.most places you go have inside slippers for you to wear. At the gyms there is a big box of slippers that you can grab some from. If you go to someone's house they usually have slippers there for you to wear. In the picture you can see the entry way of the dorm\apartment where most of the players live. The shoes below the step are outside shoes and the slippers above the step are the inside shoes.

And, there are some places inside the house, like a carpeted room or a tatami room where you take your inside shoes/slippers off. I don't know if I completely understand it yet, even after 3 years I am still learning, but I think I have a pretty good idea.

Stretch pole

As an athlete is it important to take care of my body, as I need it to be able to work. Massage is a good way to help muscles loosen up or recover, so if there a tight muscle it doesn't cause bigger problems down the road. One way to do this is using a foam roll or "stretch pole." There are many different kinds you can buy that come in different sizes. As you can see from the picture we have a few different ones on our team. Some are very soft and some are very hard. I prefer the latter as I feel it really helps my muscles the most. You can go online and buy one for $20 to $30 or you can do what I do and go to your local home store and pick one, a hard PVC pipe, up for about $5. I brought one over when I flew to Japan almost 2 weeks ago but last weekend when we played our preseason games in Akita it decided it wanted to stay. So, it was back to the home store and for $4 I was able to get another one in a lovely shade of grey.

Country in one song

Over here in Japan you pretty much get 2 types of music: j-pop (Japanese pop music) or top 40 hits (actually everywhere we have been when you turn on the radio you usually get one or two top 40s stations and that is pretty much it for music, maybe if you're lucky there will be a station that plays some older hits too).

But country? Outside of the U.S. It's pretty much non-existent. Even in Australian where Keith Urban is from, people (at least those we ran into) knew Keith Urban only from the fact that he is married to Nicole Kidman. Crazy if you ask me.

Anyway, I was riding in the car with a Japanese player and he asked me what kind of music I liked. When I said country he said he didn't know what that was and asked me to play a song so he could hear what country is.

Wow........big question!

I didn't know what to choose so I played him my favorite song at the time - Pirate Flag by Kenny Chesney.

The song is a phenomenal song and I still really like it but looking back on it I don't think it was the best song to sum up country music.

For those of you that like country music, what song would you say sums it up in one song? If you had only one song to pick that would represent country music, what would it be? Could you even pick only one? Would you go old or new? Or is there something that would blend them both?

After thinking about it for a while I now think I would go with Hillbilly Deluxe, by Brooks and Dunn. Upbeat like newer country but still has a little twang, and from a group that was around for a long time.

Good choice? What would you choose?

The 2 songs I mentioned:

 

Akita

This weekend we are in Akita (northern Japan- took us 8 hours by bus to get here) to play 2 preseason games. One Saturday, and one on Sunday. Both games however are not in the same gym or even in the same city. After our game yesterday (which we won), we had to get on the bus and drive another 1.5 hours. The drive we took wasn't on a major highway but rather a country road through the hills. We went through and past many rice paddys and felt like we were driving in the forest quite a bit. I have to say the two things together, with the rice paddys tucked up against the trees was very cool to see. Akita will be a big rival for us but I their prefecture (their state) is quite beautiful.

And now for one more win today and this trip will be really beautiful.

The field (what looks yellow) is all rice paddy. If there was a flat open space it was pretty much covered in rice.

Yummy

Tonight I was lucky enough to be invited out for dinner. We went to yakiniku, which is a restaurant that has a grill in the center of the table. The wait staff brings you beef, pork, chicken, squid or whatever you order (all sliced very thin) and you cook over the flames of the grill. Delicious! One of the beef plates they brought tonight was a type of beef that literally melted in your mouth. It was so good!

And., we also tried beef sashimi tonight. Sashimi means raw, so they brought a plate of raw slimy beef - it actually wasn't too bad. Don't know if I would eat a ton of it but it wasn't too bad.

Sloppy running

 Today we had practice and the gym was HOT. We went for a good two hours but by the end of practice my feet were sliding around in my shoes and it felt like my teammate dumped his water bottle in them. (Good defense if you ask me.) But I guess it wasn't that far from the truth. I tipped my shoes up after  I took them off and this is what I got.

Dinner

Here in toyama many of the team members stay in an apartment building/dorm and there is a wonderful lady who cooks meals for the guys. This is dinner. Oishi (delicious) - Arigatou/thank you!