Killing time in Venezia

We have three hours to kill before heading out to Northern Italy.
Therefore we decided to come here for a litre of Prosecco and now some
vegetables.

And she kills time beautifully, don't you think?

5/30: Venezia due

Then we walked some more and found lunch (food is amazingly too
expensive here!) and a half bottle of prosecco. We walked further away
into unknown territory until we realized we were heading even further
from our destination. So we backtracked and got back to Ponte Rialto
which you can see here.

It was a long and beautiful day. We walked for about 8 hours.

5/30: Venezia

We walked. And we walked. And we walked. It was a perfect day for it.


During breakfast we chatted with a gentleman from London who
recommended a church near our albergo. It was the most amazing all
marble baroque church I have ever seen.

Then we had a bite to eat as breakfast here consists of coffee and bread.

After breakfast we wended our way through the maze of Venezia, back to
La Basilica di San Marco.

This time we visited the Doge's Palace (highest ranking official in
Venice) and spent three plus hours in this amazing place. The rooms,
the paintings, the dungeons... Absolutely stunning.

I think the fellow straddling the dragon may even be St George!

5/29: Venezia quattro

5/29 Venezia tre

And we have more to come...

5/29 Venezia Photos due

More photos of Venezia ...

5/29: Venezia

Hiroko and I caught the two stop and 40 minuti water bus to our stop
(15 euro each). We then carted our 60kg of luggage over a big bridge
and to our hotel. We checked in and washed our feet for refreshment.
Then we went back to the port for lunch and enjoyed a litre of
prosecco with steak and scampi and mixed salad.

And hen we walked to la piazza di San Marco. There were as always a
ton of people and the sun was very strong. We had a coffee on the way
and got our bearings. It's a maze here! An amazing maze. Without a map
and several stops for directions we may not have found it. But we did
and we entered. And Hiroko (being catholic) was stunned speechless by
the beauty of this very old cathedral. She spoke not a word as we
walked slowly through the basilica.

Next we wended our way to Ponto d'ella Rialto and were amazed to see
the Venezia that everyone sees in the movies and photos through
history! Wow!

On our way back we really felt like we were trying to find our way
through a maze as the streets are so narrow and wind back and forth.

Tomorrow is another full day in Venezia and we plan to take the most
of it! But first, dinner in la trattoria and a complete immersion in
the atmosphere! This is much better than the last time I was here
alone!!

Cam

Via iPhone (please excuse any bizarre autocorrections)

Breakfast in Roma

We arrived to the rome airport in good time. But the 12 hours was a killer on my legs. However we made it. Then we walked and walked to find the hotel but it doesn't look or feel like a Hilton. The complimentary bottle of honeymoon wine that I was hoping we could get didn't show up but that's OK too. We did get instead a bottle of red wine and a bottle of prosecco and a huge plate of strawberries and giant bowls of potato chips, peanuts, and pretzels for 58 euro (what the hekck, eh?) It's Italy!

 

So we got up this morning several times and finally headed down to our first breakfast; a wonderful spread of every kind of delicious food you can imagine in italy. Sooo good. And the Bacon was fantastic but so were the olives, and yogurt, and meats and cheeses, and and and.... the coffee!!!

 

Now it's time to head back to the room, pack up and get ready to catch our flight to Venezia. We have no idea how we are going to get to the hotel, and imagine that we will have to pull our suitcases for miles (23kg each), but again, that's life in italia!

 

It's nice to be back in this atmosphere.

 

I love life!

 

Cam

 

P.S. Now it's time for Hiroko to send her mom a quick email update...

The Epic Schedule

Tomorrow we leave on this adventure.
I'm looking forward to seeing how smoothly things go.
We have no plans set for any of the cities in which we will be, other than to wing it day by day. "Wander the cobblestone streets if Edinburgh, down the Royal Mile, up to the castle, in the dungeons today, dear?" Sure! "Sit at an outdoor cafe drinking wine all day while watching the tourists and locals pass to and fro in Rome, Sweetheart?" Why not!

And so forth.
So anything goes.
The only things fixed are the flights, the hotels and the two bus tours in England & Scotland. The rest is a free for all!

Let's rock this globe!

I love you.

Amazing Extension of the beauty within

Hiroko's new eyelash extensions are unbelievably natural, beautiful,
sexy, and very feminine.

Is this woman gorgeous, or what?!?

Ten for the road

I'm having a fantasy right about now.....

The final product: gorgeous nails

And they are stunning!
First time ever for Hiroko!
Can you believe it?






Cam

Via iPhone (please excuse any bizarre autocorrections)

Pampering at its finest

How could anyone NOT love this process, eh? Two hours of complete attention in a safe, warm, comfortable environment. It makes ME want to get nails and eyelash extensions!




Cam

Via iPhone (please excuse any bizarre autocorrections)

Vagabonding: Day One

I'm liking this feeling.... It's fantastic!

I got up his morning at the usual 5:15 and prepared breakfast for us. Then upon sending H off to work at 7:30 I booted up the computer and did a little work. What? Work!?! Yes. That is what I did. I wanted to make sure that the virtual system would work for me when I am ootnaboot aroond the woorld. It does. Sort of. And that's jus Jim Dandy. I answered a few emails from clients who answered my sayonara emails and shut that baby down.

Laundry was pleasant, as was doing just a wee bit more of travel arrangements. I also set up a wonderful afternoon appointment for Hiroko and I at a friend's nail salon in Shibuya. You see, as Hiroko is a nurse (she is also a pattissiere, not a chef per we so we must correct that) she has never been allowed to have her nails done. But she has always wanted to. And since today is her last day at work for three months now she can! So we are going to go to my friend's shop for nails and eyelash extensions for her and men's nail for me.

But there is a twist to this tale. For those who understand the "secret" you might be able to guess however as H reads this I'm not going to ruin the surprise.

I tested to see if my collection of Sundance 25years Best Films that I bought a collection of over 15 years ago but could never watch as my computer would never play them right nor allow me to change zones worked on H's computer!! So now we can watch them at home. I tried "Real women have curves" but there is a lot of Spanish with no subtitles so I missed a lot. I shut it off after 30 minutes as it was time to head out for some "cashing not caching".

I was hungry so had a quick meal and then hopped on the train to Shinjuku. After checking four banks for rates I settled on the cheapest (Mizuho) and bought 500 each of Euros and Pounds. I haven't seen pounds for a long time so they are pretty cool if not a little too large in size )hard to fit in a wallet but adds to the cool factor).

No I'm overdosing on a Starbucks Frappuccino and getting kind of sluggish as I await H's arrival at 14:20.

I'm liking the vagabondish lifestyle!

I love you!

Eagles Hotel California

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZcvBseZP-Y&feature=youtube_gdata_player

R.I.P. Tim Burtonesque Thoughts On Death

OK. I confirmed it. The title of the cat photo is not "Portrait of a
dead cat in a dustpan". It IS "I love this place!" (ここがお気に入り！)

And if you look at the way the kitty is curling its cute little paws
and grinning in pleasure, kind of like how we curl our toes and arms
and scootch around in bed in a -30C cabin in the middle of winter, one
can surely sense that this cat loves this little moment, captured in
time by one of the members of the Tokyo Beginners Photo Club.

This collection is posted in Gotanda Station and the theme is
celebration of life, new beginnings and spring.

I took a snapshot of the variety of photos that vary from spring in
the highlands to the lowlands. There are two more sections but iPhone
limos the amount of photos you can share at one time.

It's nice to walk by this place every morning and see and think about
imagery that depicts happiness and life and refreshing new beginnings
when our world is so full of dark economies, war, famine, death and
destruction.

As Des'ree sings, "Life, oh Life... Oh liiife, Life!"

I love life and I love you!

Now get out there and love somebody today!

Cam

P.S. Last day of work at The Hotel California. And I think I may
actually be able to leave!

Seiji-kun

This one is for my best friend Charles over in Fukui.

I call this cat, Seiji.

Eclipsed!

Time to get on the train but we may be lucky because everyone is
outside watching the eclipse.

Two more for our Beloved Naina

Dear Naina

This micro, and this nano, are for you.

We love you!

My latest Serenity Video, Lucky 13! With Shiv from India: http://youtu.be/-OQKVs3ruL0 (8 minutes, so a tad long, but better than breaking into two). I love you!

GeoAxeMurderers' Delight

Yesterday Takaaki had a date with some friends to discuss plants and stuff so Hiroko and I took Shiv out to do a bit of "Japanese gardening" and geocaching ourselves.

The day was a very pleasant 20C and the breeze was dry and refreshing so the white person amongst the trio got a bit of sun.

We were only able to find one of the three caches (I showed Shiv another one near our home) but we found a lot more than the cache.



Hiroko has never experienced good Internet friends before (she had a very bad experience with one set of overseas net friends in the past [misplaced trust turned to big financial scam]) and so really couldn't trust net friends any longer. With Shiv and Takaaki here, she is re-learning that her experience was the exception, not the rule and that is bringing joy back into her life. Not to mention how much she loves these guys!

Trust
Love

We have introduced Hiroko to the wonderful world of the Internet Axe Murderers and that is always a good thing.

Add to that conversations that open both of our eyes into the world of India. A world that perhaps the news moguls present rather unfairly. Knowledge pertaining to the real goals and reasons for marriage in India, traditions and so much more. It's stuff that National Geographic cannot even render appropriately.

Knowledge

And then there is the aspect of cultivating new friendships and reaffirming long distance ones that bring a deepening sense of happiness concerning the human race.

Friendship
Gratitude
Appreciation

Not to mention the beautiful garden of Koishikawa Korakuen, the oldest garden in Tokyo, built in the 1600s.

Serenity
Beauty

In addition to the garden, the cache locations were at very interesting spots. One was a corner bridge and the corner of a wall of the old Edo castle that one can see here and there among the city's skyscrapers. But if you don't know about the history those spots are so easy to pass by without even realizing you are crossing a bridge over a river that was made 400 plus years ago!

History

We met up with Takaaki and chose a delicious restaurant that specializes in Hokkaido foods, enjoyed dinner and more dialogue.

Food
Conversation

Hiroko has gone off to work today so that leaves the boys to head out and do some serious shopping. Takaaki comes from the countryside so the past month has been among rice paddies and forests. Shiv wants some city shopping. He is thinking of getting an iPad on this trip as they are cheaper here than in India. But it's another gorgeous day for that and I imagine we will see if there are any geocaches in the Ameyokocho area Shiv wants to visit (near Ueno Park).

Adventure
Technology

Tomorrow they have an early flight home to India. But that's tomorrow. Today is now and we focus on NOW.

What more could one ask for?

Trust, love, knowledge, friendship, gratitude, appreciation, serenity, beauty, history, food, conversation, adventure, technology

And geocaching of course!

I love you!

Cam

Coming Soon: Serenity & The Shivster

Shiv and Takaaki will be leaving Shikoku Paradise and coming to Tokyo on Saturday. I hope they enjoy their last day of tranquility there.

This Sunday we have a free da together and I plan to make a Serenity Video with the four of us. It will give Hiroko and I the opportunity to show Shiv & Takaaki the beauty and serenity (and crowds) of the old Tokyo Gardens.

There are two left on my Seeking Serenity list and one of them is Koishikorakuen:

http://www.tokyo-park.or.jp/english/park/detail_05.html

Yahoo predicts perfect weather with highs of 20C on the Sunday. Of course the weather may change but as we have the ability to create our own internal weather patterns I am confident it will be a perfect day with my friends.

I love you!

Cam

Via iPhone (please excuse any bizarre autocorrections)

Sad Shop Owner

We saw this gentleman while we were Geocaching on the weekend. He's
actually a piece of art created by the former husband of the woman who
was running the shop. He looks rather sad to me. He didn't say much
either. But it was nice to meet him.

The investigation continues

On Monday at approximately 3am a male worker in the sex industry fell to his death from the 7th floor of this building. It showed up in the news but most likely was. It big enough to go international.

Police continue to investigate the cause of the incident.

This building is directly across the street from my office.

I left my lunch on the train this morning so had to go out to buy lunch. I'm too hungry to write more.....




Cam

Via iPhone (please excuse any bizarre autocorrections)

The Message is..... ?

Smoking provides short term pleasure in exchange for (what will feel like) an eternity of cancer-ridden Hell.



Or could it be: "Smokers(,) go to Hell" ?

I must admit, though, that it certainly catches the eye!

And let me just say that although I love the fact that offices are smoke free here, the plethora of "Smoke stations" that abound the business and shopping districts of Tokyo seriously degrade the air on the walk to and from the stations. I'm not exaggerating! Japanese bijinesuman sure loves his smoke! (and Japanese bijinesuooman, too)

I love your lungs and esophagus! Keep them healthy for me!!

Cam

Via iPhone (please excuse any bizarre autocorrections)

How to Climb a Geo-Spiderweb

A GeoExcursion to a Cosplay Seaside park

We rented a van today for six hours and moved some stuff to Hiroko's mom's other place. Then we had some left over hours and decided to go for a drive. We were stuck in traffic and it took us an hour and a half to go the 25km but we made it to a seaside park out by Makuhari Messe in Chiba. It only took 15 minutes on the expressway to come back.

The park was quite nice but we didn't have a lot of time as the van needed to be back in 3 hours. But there were a few geocaches around so we attempted to get them.

The first one was a multicache. I had to climb to the top of this spiderweb and get some info that would fit into the next coordinates. Unfortunately the coords led us to a spot where we could not find the cache.

The peak was pretty high up and as other kids were playing on this spiderweb it moved around quite a bit. I made a brief video on my iPhone and will see what I can do with it.

That is Hiroko waaay down there.

Then we went searching for another cache and we found it. But as you can see it was well camouflaged. It took a bit of time to find it but we did.

I am not sure why but there were a lot of cosplayers in the park dressing up and taking photos. It must be a hangout park for them. It was kind of cool to see them all.

We tried the multicache again but were not fortunate. There was another cache we wanted to get but it was in a smoking area and several cosplay boys had taken over the area and were sitting there smoking and relaxing. So we gave that one up and headed home. That's the adventure for the day.

I love you!
Cam

Via iPhone (please excuse any bizarre autocorrections)

Traditional Kite flying in Japan

This was amazing.

The guy kept pulling kite after kite after kite out of a box and letting his string of kites go higher and higher!

If you can zoom in in these photos you will see that these kites are all connected to one string... Which means this is one long kite. I couldn't even count how many he let out of the box but it was amazing!







Cam

Via iPhone (please excuse any bizarre autocorrections)

Decisions Decisions

I can't decide which I want more....

The raw flesh in the foreground or the irresistible flesh in the background....

I think I'll have them both!

Itadakimasu!




Cam

Via iPhone (please excuse any bizarre autocorrections)

Sendai Horikawa GC: Got the little bastard!

Wow what a day!

I decided not to give up and went for one more cache. There is the
Sendai Horikawa Park cache that I have checked three or four times and
could never find anything. It was driving me nuts because it is one of
tomohiro's bullets and part of the Park Series.

Looking at all of the other comments before mine people could not find
the geocache. So, we were all assuming that it was lost. Those bullets
are so tiny and the magnet is so small that it could very easily get
dislodged.

However, when I was eating at Gusto after finding my fifth cache of
the day, I looked at the park cache and found that in April yumiko had
actually found it!

And, as yumiko is a woman's name, that meant that the cache could not
be hidden at a high location (unless of course she is a pro volleyball
or basketball player).

So I went back to the park in the absolutely pouring rain, covered in
"God's soap", and searched and searched and searched.

And guess what? I found it!

It was actually right where it was supposed to be, and right where
I've been looking for the past several searches. It took a little bit
of touchy-feely to actually find it but I got the little bastard.

When I logged into Geocaching.com and left a comment, I told people to
use their sense of touch not their sense of sight because they won't
find it by looking.

Getting the logbook out of that tiny little bullet was extremely
difficult today because everything was wet. Writing in it was
difficult as well because of the pouring rain. I had to go and stand
under a little roof at elementary school where some bicycles are. And
as it was nearing the end of the school day I needed to hurry because
if all of the little elementary school kids come out and there is a
big soaking wet foreigner hanging around things could get a little
bit... difficult.