Descriptions and titles if you click the image. Basically my trip went North to Sappora, then to Abashari where I took an ice breaking boat out to sea, then back to Sappora, then down to Kyoto for temples and a palace, then to Hiroshima for the memorial, then to Kagoshima for a ferry to this awesome island called Yakushima. This island inspired the director of Princess Monokyo and the forest was amazing, trees as old as 3,000 years old. Ferry was a bit rough to get there though, 3 hours through dark stormy seas with huge huge waves (fun! especially when you were smart enough to remember Dramamine). Then back to Tokyo for 8 days and met up with Gina and Eunah for 3 days while they were visiting from Korea! They were a ton of fun, and hopefully I get to visit them in Korea at some point!!

Explanation of each picture and comments if you click through to the picture…. These are roughly in chronological order of the above trip outline too.

Comments on what each is if you click the image

I’ve decided to stay in Denver for another year, so I’ll be here through June 2011 it sounds like. We are going to find a new place to live in April/May, hopefully closer to a neighborhood we like a little better. Next week I’m heading to Vegas for a big ultimate frisbee tournament plus it is going to be Dmarsh, BBustin, and my brother’s birthday. Should be fun. And then when I get back from that Rose and Steve will be here and going to spend a lot of that week skiing with them! And hopefully I’ll be going skiing during the week a few times after that, and working on cross country skiing as I would like to be good at that.

Work is going well, and just got really busy as we took on some additional business which is quite fun!

Travel wise the year is looking awesome. In a few months I’m taking a few weeks vacation to explore Japan! Then in April I’m going to Italy for a short weekend trip as Iris got a bid to Paganello (massive ultimate beach tournament), and I’m going to play with her mixed team. Extra fun as it should be a lot of Arkansas people and hopefully Daniel and Joel go. And then me and a friend scored tickets to the World Cup in South Africa which I will be going too in early July. South Africa is being nuts on airfare pricing but its a once in a life time opportunity, so worth it.

Oh, and I’m trying to complete the 100 Book Challenge for 2010, which means I’m trying to read 100 books in 2010. So roughly 9 books a month, so far I’m almost done with my 4th and almost on track. I’m posting mini reviews as I go too.

Also, here is an interview we did a few months ago for Work, I’m pretty proud of it as we don’t sound like idiots. Although I did repeat a lot of words over and over and over, oh well, she was really nice and it was fun!

So on Thursday Daniel decided to go to London England in the wee hours of morning for a spur of the moment vacation. And upon hearing this later in the day as he needed a ride to the airport, I decided to go too. What is remarkable is that I could buy a ticket at 1.10pm and take off in a plance at 3.45pm, I didn’t know the airlines allowed you to do that. Props to Air Canada! I had to come back Tuesday so it was a very short trip with little sleep and tons of fun. Big thanks to Tom for putting us up (and putting up with my crazy American views on how to go about providing equality for less advantaged citizens)!

I’ve been to London twice, but this was the first time I got to actually see the city. The last two times I just saw ultimate frisbee fields my brother was playing on before heading back to Essex, and the previous time I had to leave London the day after I got there due to a misunderstanding with Tony with the gold teeth and Scotland Yard. This trip was great and Tom showed us all over the city, rode the Eye (big ferris wheel), went to the top of St. Paul’s Cathedral and so on. Next time hopefully I can find time to do more museums too. I also saw a lot of Pubs and ate some spectacular food. Plus got to meet our CTO which was great! My camera batteries died and forgot a power adapter so only a few photos. Hopefully Daniel has a lot more.

I would also like to extend a special thanks to Phibbers, my favorite pub in all of London Zone 2. With a name like that how can you go wrong? Phibbers…

I went to San Francisco last month for a conference and just fun. It was a really cool city and I had a great time, I could easily live there!

Check this out! Pictures of living bridges, chairs, and other weird stuff. I’m also a big fan of this post and this one of some really old beautiful maps.

Born July 19th 2009
Died August 1st 2009

A brave birthday week, it had such a long and full life with everything I like, good friends, beach, Mexico, scotch, beer, ceviche, and girls with whistles and everclear.

Rest in peace birthday week.

I would like to take this time to honor my backpack, my mom gave it to me in high school and it has been with me ever since.

My backpack has been with me for every trip I’ve ever taken both foreign and domestic. It was with me on my first trip abroad to Germany, it was with me when I spent a month in Turkey over Christmas, it has been to every ultimate practice, every ultimate tournament, and every trip between class or work. It has not complained once. After all these years it has no defects and only the brand tag has fallen off. It has been severely over stuff many times and held more than its fair share.

Cheers backpack! Here’s to 10 more years!

I didn’t have the best trip home, as best I can tell some Subway I ate was no good and ended up in Atlanta laying on the floor for 12 hours with stomach cramps and hugging the toliet. After 12 hours of that I finally got a few hours of sleep and woke up weak but not dieing. Which was good as I had another two days of driving to do and this only added one extra day to the drive home.

I spent the next day going to the Atlanta Aquarium which is one of the best in the country! I really liked it but I still think the one in Thailand was better in number of exhibits, the Georgia one just had lots of really really big areas. It was still an awesome place and I highly recommend it, just check out the photos to see how big the place is. I believe they currently hold the record for the largest tank and they have a 9 foot Manta Ray that will grow to 27 feet.

We had a great week of 70 degree weather and now it is snowing again. Very odd considering it was 60 degrees today and somehow down to snow temp by midnight. Very pretty outside though and supposed to be back up to 70 very soon.

I’m heading back to Fayetteville this week to see my little sister with her debut performance in Foot Loose the play. I hear she is amazing ! And then for Lizzie’s graduation, and then me and Lizzie are going to Tybee Island for a few weeks to relax on a beach. Then we are driving back to Fayetteville, packing up, and driving back to Denver. And by then there should be no occurrences of snow.

If the University of Arkansas is listening you suck, I can’t wait for you to call me to try to dig some money out of me, you will never get it and I will tell you flat out the bureaucratic idiots you have at that school need to be flushed. Universities are supposed to help people graduate, not make their lives living hell.