Nagoya Cochin!

All men may be created equal, but not chickens, well at least not in Japan. Over here you've got your regular old chickens, and then you've got your Nagoya cochins.
To hear it from a chicken aficionado, a Nagoya cochin is everything a regular chicken isn't. Bigger, stronger, smarter, better looking, etc, etc. Did you ever see the movie Gattaca? Well just replace Uma Thurman with a cochin chicken and you'll get the idea. People in Nagoya are proud of their chickens. When Nagoya chicken farmers show up at chicken conventions you'll often hear comments like 'My chicken could beat up your chicken', or 'You raise regular chickens? Ha!'.
It's worthwhile noting however that while cochins may be highly evolved for chickens, they're not quite advanced enough to avoid ending up on the dinner menu.
I remember well the last time I went to Nagoya. A friend of mine took me to a cochin chicken restaurant where we ate this bucket of big, spicy cochin wings. I've since been meaning to recreate that experience.

This being Tokyo, it wasn't difficult to find a cochin chicken restaurant or ten on the internet, and Kumi and I decided on a place in Shinjuku. It wasn't the same restaurant as the one I went to in Nagoya, but a cochin is a cochin right? No need to worry I thought.
The shop's plat principal if you will. Sadly, they were nothing like those big, spicy wings I had in Nagoya. These were small, expensive, covered in salt, and devoid of meat. I thought cochins were supposed to be big? However they were served in a wooden box, which I suppose makes some sort of difference. I gnawed a few scraps off the bones and wondered if the last shipment of cochins happened to be mostly runts.

A Nagoya cochin might be able to score higher than a regular chicken on an IQ test, but does it taste better? Cochin meat is touted to be softer and pinker than regular chicken, but how important is that when you're eating a spicy chicken wing? I'll let you in on a little secret. When I ate Nagoya cochin for the first time, I couldn't taste any difference, I just liked eating spicy chicken wings. Here we have some yakitori (grilled chicken) with the pinkness of the cochin coming through. Pretty good, but I fail to see why I should pay more money for pink chicken. Taste any different? Nah.

This looked pretty good on the menu, but it turned out to be a big pile of greasy, gristly, gizzards (try saying that a few times fast). I finished it, but only because I was hungry. Despite what you might have heard, regular chicken innards are just as appetizing as cochin innards.

This is supposed to be some sort of cochin chicken stew, but I swear that it was beef. It tasted so much like beef that I even asked one of the staff for confirmation, but she said no, it was chicken. I didn't believe her though. Maybe the mark of really good cochin is that it tastes like stringy beef? Or maybe the mark of stringy beef is that it tastes like stringy beef? What a dilemma!

Overall, the food here was a disapointment, and the prices were of course, outrageous. Perhaps you have to go to Nagoya in order to get good cochin? It's possible that the cochin farmers keep all the good cochin in Nagoya, and send the junk ones to Tokyo.
The final word? Cochin chicken farmers need to work on building up a noticeable difference between their product and regular chickens. Kobe farmers did it with beef, so it would seem that it's definitely possible. If you ask me, worry less about making the meat look pink (nobody cares) and soft (chicken is already soft), and focus more on making the chickens the size of ostriches, and making the taste more interesting, like turkey or duck. I'll be waiting!

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Hawaii!                                                       (Entered May 08, 2008)
I don't know why anyone living in Hawaii would want to travel anywhere else in the world. Do Hawaiian people travel? Maybe they don't. There's no need. Hawaii has it all: weather, food, culture, music, lifestyle, shopping, beaches, mountains, forests, even snow and ice for those of you (weirdos) that find warm, sunny days boring.
In case I'm not being clear enough, yes, Hawaii rocked.
Part 1 - Hawaii (the big island)
As I stated previously, we went to the big island (called Hawaii) first, which (in my opinion) was the better of the two (the other being Oahu). Only problem was that our flight wasn't direct, so we had to stop in Honolulu (Oahu) first for five hours, which was kind of silly considering that we would be coming back there in a few days. Had we stayed in Oahu first, we could've had almost a whole extra day of holiday. Of course such foresight is beyond the power of the Japanese tour company that we used to arrange our trip. Next time we'll just arrange the trip ourselves. However I can forgive them a little bit for the hotel. We stayed at the Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel which was definitely the best hotel I've ever stayed at in my life. For one thing, it was massive beyond description. When we parked our (rental) car and tried to find the lobby, we got lost. Once the lobby was discovered, we tried to find our room and got lost again. Terraces, pavilions, gardens, buildings, galleries, etc. were everywhere, and the best thing? The hotel itself appeared to be deserted. If I didn't know better, I might've thought we were doing another haikyo. When we asked the staff about it they assured us that they were at about 60% capacity, that it just seemed that way because of the size of the place, and that this was a very common question from guests. Most of the hotel was built on an open plan like the below picture, so you're always surrounded by fresh air and ocean breezes. Here's part of a lounge (notice I said a, not the) and the area where we ate breakfast, which was also amazing.

The hotel was located on the North side of Hapuna beach, which has won the 'Best Beach in the USA' award many, many times. This is the view from our hotel room. Being hotel guests, we had our own beach chair and parasol waiting for us when it came time to chill out. Paradise.

Our room was massive, had a super massive bathroom, and had an awesome balcony for more relaxation should it be necessary. It was necessary.

Just blue water and white sand.

Like I said, breakfast was amazing. There was this huge buffet (sorry forgot to take any pics, too busy eating I guess) full of every conceivable kind of breakfast thing you could want. I ate fresh tropical fruit, pastries, bacon, eggs, coffee, etc. every morning. While you ate, birds would flit around hoping for handouts. Some of them would fly right up to your table. Being a bird lover I was happy to oblige them.

For our first full day in Hawaii we decided to go driving around the island a bit. Our main destination was Greenwell Farms. Hawaiian Kona coffee is world famous, and is perhaps second only to Blue Mountain coffee from Jamaica. Our hotel served it every morning and being something of a coffee lover and connoisseur, I have to say, it was pretty impressive. There are coffee plantations all over the Kona belt on the big island, but Greenwell was supposedly one of the better ones. They give a nice (free!) tour that takes you around some of the coffee trees and equipment, and explain (and answer questions) all about how coffee is made. They also offer as much free coffee as you can drink as well as free samples of chocolate covered coffee beans. Woohoo! Here's the little gift shop where I bought a few bags of coffee to take home for my drinking pleasure.

Most of the beans on the trees now are still green.

Greenwell also had orange and avocado trees here and there. One of them had a chameleon hanging around in it. Our guide plucked him out for us to see. I'm not really a fan of disturbing wild animals in their natural environment, but I took a picture anyway.

A gecko scuttles between two bags of coffee beans. Maybe the smell keeps him awake?

On the second day we decided to go stargazing. Unknown to most, the tallest mountain in the world is in Hawaii. Yes I know, Mt. Everest is known as the world's tallest, but when you measure Mauna Kea from it's base, which is 19,000 feet below the ocean, then it is the definite record holder. It's still no puny mountain at 14,000 feet above sea level, and definitely the highest point on Earth I have ever been to in my life so far. So high in fact that I had trouble breathing properly. Apparently the oxygen level here is 40% less than at sea level.
There are about 14 or so observatories on the top of the mountain, and even though I knew I wasn't going to be able to have a look through one of these massive telescopes, it was still disapointing to be so close to them and not even be able to go inside. Our guides brought these fairly large telescopes with them so we could do some star watching, but everytime they pointed it to some part of the sky, and started to explain what it was, etc, a cloud came by and covered it. After the third time in a row of this, people started grumbling to show first, and explain after. In the end I only got to see Saturn, two galaxies that were tearing each other apart, and the Orion Nebula. All of them, (with the exception of Saturn which looked pretty good), were fuzzy and unimpressive. Kumi and I both agreed that it was nicer just to look at the thousands of visible stars with the naked eye, which we both did.

It was friggin' freezing up here! They warn you how cold it's going to be, but being in Hawaii, you somehow don't really believe it, until you get to the top of the mountain of course. One bonus of being on a tour, they provide parkas and gloves. There were some fools who came in their own cars, wandering (well running actually) around in long sleeve shirts only. I was cold even with a sweater, parka and gloves. The temperature was well below zero, probably about -10 degrees celcius. Take me back to the beach!! Although our guide was very knowledgeable and a nice guy, stargazing itself was extremely minimal and unimpressive, also it was colder than hell which brought the enjoyment down as well. This tour was fairly disapointing overall, not worth the money we paid.
Oh and I also got sick today, which is a swell thing to happen on your honeymoon. To then spend the evening in a freezer at a super high elevation probably didn't do my body any favours. In fact, my ears became totally stuffed up so that I could hardly hear my own voice, even better, when I went back down they didn't unpop again. This was to last for three days until I finally went to the doctor (in Oahu) and paid $135 for an appointment and some medicine. Annoying to say the least.

Once the sun went down it was pitch black up here, so pictures ended with the sunset, which was quite beautiful to watch. You feel like you're in an airplane, only you're outside.

The next day we woke up early and spent the whole day doing the volcano tour. I was still sick so all I wanted to do was stay in bed, but I made myself wake up and go. Good thing I did as this was the best tour we went on.
Here's our guide, Garry, decending down into a lava tube, which is an underground cave-like structure left over from a previous lava flow. The most famous lava tube on the island has built in lights inside, handrails and lots of tourists. We didn't go there. Instead Garry took us to a lesser known one with no lights, no walks or handholds, and no other people. Once deep inside, we all turned off our flashlights and got to see what it's really like to be completely blind.
Garry was very knowledgeable about volcanoes and geology, as well as in other scientific areas like birds and plants. He was also extremely funny, and the whole day he entertained us as we drove around, something that made the long drives on Hawaii's rough interior roads much more bearable.

The next stop was the smoking crater of Halema'uma'u. I was a bit disapointed that no lava was flowing or spewing out, nor would we be able to see any during the rest of the tour. Volcano lava is apparently very fickle, and it's just luck of the draw if lava happens to be visible on the day you go or not. While we were in Hawaii, lava was flowing at only one spot, directly into the ocean, and the only road going there had been destroyed. As it was, we were lucky to even get this far. This park/viewing point had been closed until yesterday due to winds that were blowing the poisonous volcanic gas inland (toward the viewing point), instead of out to the ocean.

We had lunch on the edge of these windy, but picturesque cliffs. Way down near the edge of the shot is where the lava is flowing into the ocean. Occasionally we'd see a big puff of steam rising.

The old road. Had you left your car parked here back during the eruption, it would've been fine. Of course you never would've gotten it out again, unless it had four-wheel drive.

In some areas where the trees are wet, the lava won't burn them. Instead they'll last long enough for the lava to harden around them before disintegrating, leaving holes dotting the lava landscape.

There are two main types of lava. The smooth, ropy kind is known as pahoehoe (seen above and below), and the other kind is called a'a. A'a lava looks like crushed, broken up cement. Both have the same chemical composition, but differ in that pahoehoe contains more gas, and is hotter. So ends your geology lesson for today.
To be honest, after driving through endless devastation, I was sick to death of lava. When we drove into treed areas, it was like a breath of fresh air, literally.

We stopped by an area with signs explicitly telling us to keep out, but Garry wasn't concerned and took us in anyway. Apparently in this spot, so the story goes, there was a horse trail that cowboys used to use. Off to one side of the trail there was a small hole in the ground which, while noticed, never caused much comment. Then one day they rode in and discovered that the hole had grown somewhat.... Seems the ground just caved in one day. The hole was too deep to fit in both the rim and the bottom (about 300 feet deep) into one picture.

Then we were put to work. Garry took us to a section of the forest where wild, inedible ginger was displacing the native plants. We were told to pull the ginger out by the roots. This wasn't really part of the tour, but Garry did it just to help out the rangers. Anyway it only took about 10 minutes. One lady complained a lot about doing this, saying stuff like 'I came here to have a vacation, not to work', etc. I felt like saying 'Just chill lady'. Here I am having beaten and subdued an evil ginger plant.

Part 2 - Oahu
The next day we headed back to Oahu. I wasn't wild about returning to civilization just yet, but Honolulu is a pretty nice city (well except for its rush hour traffic which is pretty crazy). It has a relaxed atmosphere to it, people don't rush about like mad, there is room on the sidewalks and buses, and of course it has beaches and awesome weather. I could live here easily.
Here's Ala Moana beach in the late afternoon, almost empty! Waikiki beach is about a 20 minute walk away. Chill time!

We hiked up Diamond Head on the second day. Here we are overlooking Honolulu and the ocean. We saw one old guy running up the hiking trail and overheard someone else ask him how he was doing He replied that he had already run up and down 7 times today, and was doing one more before stopping. Way to go old guy. Although seemingly hard, to be honest the hike up was dead easy.

On the way up we walked past a hatch-like entrance set into the mountain. I was reminded of my favourite TV show 'Lost' which is filmed on Oahu.

In the evening we went to a Luau, which is a traditional Hawaiian dinner with dancing, etc. Below are a couple of guys pulling the roast pig out of a traditional underground oven. Looked kind of gruesome actually.

Then we ate and drank while watching Hawaiian hula, etc. To be honest, the food was only so-so, and while the dancing was good, there was way too much audience participation stuff which Kumi and I both found annoying. More than half of the time they kept getting people to come up and make fools of themselves on stage while the MC tore into them, making them look even sillier. Kind of funny but I paid to see real hula, not this amateur stuff. Still, we got leid (the state joke, get it?) and three cocktails were included with dinner.

On our last day, we took a boat out to a secluded spot, and spent a wonderful time snorkeling around the coral reefs. At least that was what was supposed to happen. After a late start, we spent a good hour on the boat heading to a secluded spot around the island. Once there, the captain announced that we couldn't stop here because the ocean was too murky and they couldn't drop anchor, so back we went. Another 40 minutes and we were almost back where we started. Some poor lady spent most of the return trip in the washroom throwing up. Once there, no less than 3 other boats also joined us and our so called secluded snorkeling spot was now a feeding frenzy of hundreds of people all swimming around the same area. Needless to say, I kicked, and got kicked in return many a time by other people's flippers. It was the snorkeling equivilant of riding the rush hour train in Tokyo.
There were good points of course, the boat stopped while a pod of dolphins played around us. I tried to get some good photos but they didn't turn out so well. None of the dolphins jumped out of the water much. You gotta love dolphins though.

You can't post about Hawaii without talking about food. Most Hawaiians are big, and the Americans visiting there are bigger still. It's simply impossible to get a 'snack' when going to any restaurant in Hawaii. Living in Japan all this time, my stomach really has shrunk (which is probably a good thing) and most of my time in Hawaii was spent being full. Near the end of our trip I gave up even trying to finish everything put before me.
But generally the food was great. I ate steak at least three times, and unlike Japan where they give you a small side dish and about three french fries, in Hawaii the side salad or vegetable is a meal in itself, and you get about 1000 fries.
Drinks were even better. Of course I had to try the famous 'mai-tai' but Kumi and I discovered this drink creation known as a 'lava flow' which is a mixture of strawberry juice, coconut syrup and pina colada. We drank one every night we were there! I even bought a bottle of coconut syrup so we could make our own.

And then it was time to leave again, but I definitely wasn't ready. Despite most of the tours we went on being mediocre and generally way too expensive, Hawaii is still a paradise and just being there was enough to satisfy me. I guess the only thing to do now is move there. I'll be back! Aloha Hawaii and Mahalo.

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Married!                                                      (Entered May 03, 2008)
These past few weeks have been some of the busiest of my life! First, as you might already know, my parents, uncle and cousin came to visit me for about a week. It was the first time any of my family have visited me in all my time in Japan, so it was quite an event. During it all, Kumi and I were busy organizing our wedding ceremony and reception, so each day was not only an adventure but also a lesson on how to deal with stress.
I was determined to make my parents trip as 'Japanese' as possible, so of course one of the first things we did was go eat sushi at my favourite sushi restaurant, 'Midori sushi' in Shinbashi.
Here we are full of fishy goodness, coming out of the restaurant (no I'm not drunk here). No sushi pics, I guess we were too hungry to take pictures.

Quiz - What was I saying here?
*translated from Japanese*
a) One order of tuna please, light wasabi, plus a side order of ginger. Make sure that the fish is fresh and fill up this bottle of soysauce here, chop chop!
b) Excuse me, the ceiling fan just stopped working.
c) Could you pull my finger?

A few more trip highlights:
I thought hard about what to show them in Tokyo, but in reality, after you've done the Hato Bus tour, (which manages to cover a lot of ground, but wasn't all that great to be honest) and gone to Ginza, Akihabara and maybe Shinjuku, there isn't much to do except look at a lot of buildings, and ride the train. So? Out of Tokyo we went to Kamakura!
On the way there we took the train during the morning rush! Believe me, I didn't do it intentionally. After arriving in Japan's old capital city, I was hoping for a bit of peace and quiet. However right after our first stop at the Daibutsu (buddha) a million schoolkids showed up for a field trip. Joy!

My dad made history while waiting in the Krispy Kreme lineup. You know how they hand out free doughnuts while you wait? Well my father refused his! The girl handing them out did a double take, shook her head and asked again, clearly refusing to believe her ears, but my father firmly said 'no', stating that he wanted to save room for the one he bought. First time for everthing I guess.

We went up to Hakone for a night, but it rained the whole time. So much for a nice view of Mt. Fuji which is pretty much the main draw. We then went up to Owakudani to get some of those black eggs that are boiled in the sulpher vents, but they were sold out... The hotel we stayed at was excellent though, good food, service and large rooms.
Kumi and I were instructed by my uncle to pose here. Man that's one strange looking bear.

Getting naked with family members isn't a regular occurance in normal Western households, but my uncle and cousin wanted the 'full' Japanese experience, which means heading to the onsen (public bath). The hotel (still Hakone), being top of the line, had a pretty nice indoor and outdoor bath, and even better, we had the whole thing to ourselves!

In all the commotion, I pretty much forgot that it (the 17th) was my birthday. Kumi remembered though and secretly had the hotel we were at make a cake for me. Hooray!

And then the big day was upon us! Kumi and I had to wake up at dawn to get to Meiji shrine in time for the 9:40am start. We had to be there hours early just to be properly kimonoed and samuried, and Kumi of course had to have her makeup done, and wig properly set, then there was a practice ceremony, etc. I think we both woke up around 4:30-5:00am
Here we are just before the ceremony getting educated on protocol, you know, when to bow or clap, when to speak, the proper way to drink sake and handle these special branches, etc.

No smiles please, this is serious stuff!

Had to read my vows in Japanese which was a bit nerve-racking, but I made it through without any mishaps. Once that part was over I relaxed a little. However, when it came time for me to drink my sake, I choked a little on one of the bowls (there were three or four total) and it took all of my concentration and power not to start coughing like crazy, but I managed that as well. Then the ceremony was over and it was time for pictures. Lots and lots of pictures...

I had my picture taken more this day than every other day of my life conbined. Seriously. Not only did I pose for hundreds of pictures with family and friends in every conceivable combination, there were hundreds of random people and tourists also snapping shots of us. To be honest I had hoped to avoid the crowds of gawking people as the ceremony was early in the morning, but Meiji was packed. Now I know how Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie feel when they step out in public.

Surrounded by paparazzi.

Then in the evening we had our reception. Somehow I misjudged the time and I barely had time to change into my tux before we rushed out of the house late. A few minutes later I realized I'd forgotten the bingo cards and the taxi driver had to take us back again, in early rush hour traffic... One of those memories I'll no doubt look back fondly on...
Once the party started though things went pretty smoothly. Everyone showed up and seemed to have a good time. Here's our MC Machiko (Kumi's school friend) announcing the beginning of bingo. We had a total of six prizes, the top prize being three Kobe beef steaks! However five of the prizes went to Kumi's friends or family much to the consternation of the friends on my side. Luck of the draw I guess!

Cutting the wedding cake! This was the only thing I managed to eat during the whole party. The food looked good, but I was too busy mingling with and taking care of guests. Kumi only ate a bite of hers.

The belle of the ball.

Kumi and I surrounded by the gang, all of who you may have seen on this site before. From left to right: UK Mike, Yasuko, Dale, me, Kumi, Jason, Hitomi and Jason.

No rest yet! The next day Kumi, my parents and I all headed up to Fukushima to hang out with Kumi's family. Kumi's parents paid for everything including the shinkansen ride, putting us all up in an upper class Japanese hotel, and treating us to lots of fancy lunches and dinners. Here we are below enjoying our absolutely massive Japanese style (kaiseki) dinner. None of us even came close to finishing it.

We visited a number of nice parks, including one where the cherry trees were still blooming. Tokyo's trees finished weeks ago so it was a good chance for my parents to see them. Here's both families below with one of the park caretakers (who happens to be a friend of Kumi's mother) on the right. All sizes are to scale.

Then after spending one more day in Tokyo, my parents and uncle headed back home. My cousin had previously left a day earlier. What a week! Well actually 10 days to be specific. Congratulations to my family members for passing their Japanese initiation with flying colours! Especially my parents who have barely ever traveled overseas. Be it bizarre food or situation, they were all met and surmounted with enthusiasm. After the stress of everything, the whirlwind tour around Japan, the organizing, the parties, the rush hour trains, the guiding around, the eating, it was time for a rest. A nice long rest in Hawaii! But was it restful? Find out soon!

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Hiatus...                                                      (Entered Apr. 24, 2008)
Off to Hawaii for about 9 days, so Mike's Blender will be taking another break. Expect wedding photos, Hawaii adventures and more kooky Japan stuff in early May!

See you on the beach!

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Man Spa!                                                     (Entered Apr. 23, 2008)
Girls always seem to be going to the 'spa' here in Japan. What's all the fuss about anyway? They go on about that massage, or this facepack, or that esthetic treatment, etc. Are men missing out on something here? Can a man go to the spa and still call himself a man? Is it possible to take the term 'metrosexual' a bit too far? Only one way to find out!
Since our package was a bit more luxurious than most, I was taken to a private booth at the back of the shop. Good start! I didn't really want to have witnesses until I knew what the deal was.
First thing on the list was a haircut, which I suppose I didn't really need as my hair was already pretty short. After snipping off a few strands of hair, the guy in charge of beautifying me proceeded to rub shampoo into my scalp like he was getting rid of all the dirt I ever accumulated in my entire life, and perhaps some past lives as well. The main thought running through my head was 'If I end up being bald after this I'm going to be pretty pissed off'. My head was then stuck under the sink and my hair was rinsed then washed (more shampoo!) no less than three times. Does this guy think I've been living on the street for that past few years? With water running into my eyes and my scalp tingling like it had just been peeled off, I couldn't exactly figure out what girls enjoy so much about this.

It's always good to have an excuse when you do stuff like this. In my case, I was getting married, and Kumi convinced me to join her in this package deal for a 'couple' spa treatment.
Actually my skin is super sensitive and dries out at the slightest provocation, which means it needs extra special care. Maybe this spa treatment is just what I need? Bring on the creams and facepacks!
Here's my skin getting ready to be soothed.

I'm not getting embalmed, just getting a little eye spa. They think of everything here.

To be honest time really dragged on, and the guy seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time on every little thing. Lying back in a chair getting 200 different creams, packs, oils, emulsifiers, and what have you, applied to your skin is pretty dull. I think I might have dozed a bit.
Had to hold in a couple yawns here. Spas are tough work!

The hot towels were pretty good though, and I had warm steam blown into my face a lot of the time too. Gotta open up those pores! I think I had a total of ten hot towels put on my face. If nothing else, this place doesn't skimp on towels.

The pore sucker was the highlight of the whole experience, although I have to question its effectiveness. I somewhat doubted that it could really pull out dirt or blackheads with it's minimal suction power. Double or triple the power and then let's see what happens.

The whole experience took around an hour, but it seemed longer. At the end the guy asked me if I wanted a massage and when I said 'no thanks' he promptly went ahead and started pounding on my shoulders. Maybe he couldn't believe that I'd actually turn down such an offer? Apparently my shoulders are quite stiff, something I've never noticed. I never really had much use for massages and this one didn't change my mind much.
Finished at last! So is my skin softer and smoother than a baby's butt now? Well, aside from looking very polished and pink, I couldn't say that I was amazed by the results. I suppose that one session isn't really enough and that I need to come here every month or so. But will I be back? Doubt it.

What would a spa treatment be without a little video footage? Thanks to Kumi who dutifully filmed and snapped pictures throughout the whole tedious process.

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A Bit Busy...                                                (Entered Apr. 21, 2008)
For those of you who've bored yourself silly staring at that licence plate article for the last week and a half, rest assured I have an excuse for my lack of posting. After 10 years of wheedling and prodding them to come visit me, my parents have finally made that grueling 20 or so hour flight from Ottawa to Tokyo. So I've been like, really busy showing them all the sites of Tokyo, Kamakura, Hakone and Fukushima see?

What? That's not good enough? I'm not forgiven? Hey I'm not done with the excuses yet, the next ones even better. Kumi and I also got married. You know, as in had a wedding and a reception and that kind of thing? Yep, so I figure that with those two excuses under my belt you'll all be good fans and keep checking this site just a wee bit longer until I get organized enough to post once again. Of course wedding pics will make their way here eventually. Stay tuned!

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Mike's Blender Info:
Currently: Tokyo, Japan
Born: Ottawa, Canada
Email: mike[at]beddall[dot]net

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