Sounders Women soccer

The blog is back and operational after a long hiatus.  For those of you who don't know, Kyle's computer died the day I went to the U.S. and he lost all of his photos from Japan.  But the silver lining is that since the computer died while I was in the U.S., I could bring a new computer back with me.  

I was in the U.S. for a job interview, but I was able to do a few things that were not interview-related.  The most exciting adventure I had was going to see a Sounders Women exhibition game with Jody and Daniel.  For this year, the Sounders Women have 5 U.S. National Team players, including Hope Solo, Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe, a Mexican National Team player, Veronica Perez, as well as a number of U-23 U.S. National Team players.  I discovered another soccer player, Keelin Winters, to add to my favorite list.  She was awesome at defensive midfield.  The best part of the game was arriving 1 hour early to watch the goalie Hope Solo warm up.  It was possibly the most amazing soccer-watching experience I have ever had.  I've never seen a goalie so able to just suddenly appear in front of the ball.

The Sounders won the game 5-0.  The game was almost sold out (for an exhibition game!), with 5,000 people fitting in the stadium.  It sure looked like standing room only...  our side of the stadium was completely sold out before we arrived.  I can't wait until the season actually starts.

Here's the video of the highlights of the game.  Some of the goals were really awesome.

A great time was had by all.  My pictures aren't that amazing- it got dark fairly early in the game and my flash was just not powerful enough to stop the action.  Here are some of the better photos I took.

That's all for now.  There should be some more posts soon!

-Bre (and Kyle)

Tokyo Conference/Holiday

Bre had a conference in Tokyo at the University of Tokyo this week.  I tagged along to have a Tokyo Holiday.  It was warm and sunny in Tokyo.  A welcome change from the cold reality of Sapporo.  We were in Tokyo from Wednesday through Friday.  The sakura (sakura is the Japanese word for cherry blossoms) are starting.  We were there just before full bloom.  It was fun to see how each day there would be more blossoms.

We stayed near Ueno Park which is well known for its' sakura.  The photo above is of a temple gate leading to one of the many shrines in the park.  I think it is the Gojoten Shrine.

Bre's head enjoyed the spring sunshine.

We found an amphitheater at one corner of the park.  There is a stream that ran from a waterfall at one side of the amphitheater into two separate streams that went around and rejoined at the other side.

On Wednesday night Bre stayed late at her conference and I went out to dinner with our friend Anton, who was also in Tokyo for a conference.  We walked around looking for a restaurant for dinner.  We were approached by not one, but two pimps.   I was totally shocked the first time.  Not only have I not encountered any other pimps or prostitutes in Japan, but I didn't even realize they existed until that moment.  If you are wondering what a Japanese pimp is like they wear nice suits and at least one of them spoke perfect English.  Apparently Ueno has a red light district between the park and our hotel.

On Thursday I rented a bike from our hotel.  It was only 200 yen for the day, what a bargain!  I biked down to the Imperial Palace in the center of the city.  It was a windy day.  I was wearing a baseball hat which kept getting blown off.  I had my photo taken in at the gatehouse to the Imperial Palace East Gardens because my hat flew off.  It sounds like a funny story, but there is not much more too it.  When my hat blew off there was a Japanese gentleman who felt so sorry for me that he offered to take my photo.  This was before he realized that my camera has the 50mm fixed length lens with no zoom.  He had a hard time taking the photo, but it came out pretty well anyway.  Domo arigato Gozaimasu!

The East Imperial Gardens are beautiful and immaculate.  Most of the buildings have great tile roofs.  There are also lots of giant stone walls and a moat.  Being here lead me to imagine how you would have to be a ninja to be able to sneak in.

There are not that many parks in Tokyo, and this is one of the largest green spaces in Tokyo.  It was nice to have the break from the concrete jungle that is Tokyo.

The photo above is of one of the lakes at Ueno park near the hotel where we stayed.

We went to Shibuya to meet our friend Eric.  In the photo above Bre is waiting in front of the mural of Hatchiko the dog outside Shibuya station.  Shibuya crossing is known as the busiest intersection in the world.  There are about 300 people who cross the intersection every 1.5 minutes.  Fortunately Eric was able to find us in the crush.  It was fun to visit Eric, like a little trip to America.  We had Mexican food and went to Baskin Robbins for ice-cream afterward. 

 

It was fun to see Eric and we found more sakura in the Shibuya district.  I especially like the photo above of Bre and Eric walking past the lanterns.

On Friday we went for a boat-ride in one of the Swan paddle-boats with Bre's colleague Adit.  In this photo (above) you can see one of the other swan paddle boats.  In the background is the new Tokyo Sky Tree.

While we were paddling around in the swan boat a seagull landed on the head of the plastic swan.  It made a funny contrast.

Here is Adit having a good time boating.

The thing to do when the sakura are blooming is to have a sakura party under the blossoms.  Just about everywhere there are sakura there are Japanese people having picnics.  Usually this involves a tarp, some food and drinks.  This place actually had a Japanese style table set up on the tarp.

We visited the Tokyo Museum of Modern Art.  In the plaza before the entrance there was this great shiny reflective sculpture.

Our last stop in Tokyo was at the Koishikawa Korakuen Gardens.  They are a nice gardens with many visitors.  There was a Japanese woman who asked me to take a photo of her and her husband, and then offered to take our photo as well.  This is the thing to do in Japan, have your photo taken at all the important places that you go.  There is something to be said for this, it is nice to have so many photos of Bre and I together.  Thanks to everyone who took our photo.

I took a break from photographing the park to photograph one of the photographers.  Tokyo fashion is much more adventurous than Sapporo fashion. 

Koi (an ornamental type of carp) are ever present in Japanese gardens.  This photo has some distortions from the water making the Koi look strange and misshapen.  It was actually a normal Koi.

I am ready for sakura/spring to come to Sapporo, it should arrive in about one month!

When we got back in Sapporo I saw this funny sign in the Subway.  I don't know what it says.  Just based on the picture it looks like your cell phone will throw you in front of the subway train.  Beware giant cell phones!

That's all for now.

-Kyle (and Bre)

Moving day

Yesterday was moving day for Kyle and I.  We're very excited to be out of our old place and into the new one.

With so few things to pack, it went very quickly.  I was the official photographer of the event, so don't expect Kyle-quality photos.  But these will give you an idea of what our lives were like for the last two days.

We did some packing on March 31st, and little bit of unpacking today, April 2nd.  But most of the action happened all in one day...  no foolin'  (ha ha, my little joke about April Fool's Day).

 

Kyle packs our clothes

 The main room in the old place, mostly packed.

 

The bedroom packed, except for Kyle's ties and my sweatshirt.

 

Kyle takes a break.

 

All out, except for our coats

I brought all of our bags and boxes to the door and Kyle carried everything to the front of our building.  Tanioka-san arrived with his car just as we were bringing the last bag downstairs.  All of our things exactly fit in his car (I forgot to take a photo--whoops!)...  but we didn't fit. 

 

I walked and Kyle bicycled to our new place and met Tanioka-san there.

 

Our new place feels so much more like home...  so much more welcoming.  This is the living room/office.

 

This is facing the kitchen/dining room from the living room (it's all one space)

 

Kyle puts dishes away.

 

Almost done unpacking.  You can see that we re-arranged the living room a little bit so the couch wouldn't be so close to the window.  And so we can use one of the bookshelves as a pantry...  I can't really reach the kitchen cabinets very easily.

And now we're all moved in.  The internet works.  The heat/water/electricity works.  Happiness.

 -Bre (and Kyle)

Below is a photo of the view out of our apartment window as of 4/7/2012, or as we write it in Japan 2012.4.7.

Melty slush, mush, and other things that herald Spring

It has been getting warmer in Sapporo.  There are now long stretches of sidewalk that are free of snow.  The snow that remains is not the pretty snow that we once knew.  It is the melty, grimy, slushy snow that makes me wonder if Sapporo has a soot problem.  Even the snow far from the roads has a coating of grit.  All of this causes the snow to melt faster forming large icy puddles.  I went for a walk yesterday to see how the melting has gone and took these photos.

This spot reminded me of Shel Silverstein.  This is where the sidewalk ends.  It ends in a pile of dirty snow protected by the shadow of a wall.

The arterial streets have all formed these ice barriers at the side of their snowbanks.  They are formed as the melting snow is thrown up by passing vehicles.  It lands on the snowbank and cools down forming an icy slope covered in grit.  The photo below gives you a better idea of what it looks like.

I found this leaky pipe under the elevated train tracks.  It has been leaking for a while and formed an icy layer that was melting with the warm water from the afternoon.  I really like the photo below of the same ice.  I held the camera up at arms length and pointed it down at the ice.  It is very abstract.

I took the last photo through the fence at the JRA track at sunset.  Normally it is almost impossible to see through this fence, but with the low angle of the light you can see the other side.

That's all for now,

-Kyle (and Bre)