What it looks like in New Hampshire...

I'm in NH right now, this is what it looks like.

What has Bart been doing for the last few weeks?

Here is a quick summary of what has been happening since my last post.

Went to San Fran for new years and ate Chicago pizza.

National Auto Museum

Last weekend, we went to the National Auto Museum here in Reno.  Pretty
nice place, lots of interesting cars. Would have been nice to see more
modern era classics and more concepts, but hey, this is Reno.  I really
need to make an appointment to go to the Petersen Museum in Los Angeles
someday.

Anyway, here's Linda with the gold DMC-12.

Turkey Day 2010

Ahhh yes.

Some more pics.

Took my mom up to Pyramid Lake one afternoon.  Took some pics.

A couple pics from 11-13-10

We went back to the NV State Museum in Carson City to check out the
new wing.  A few pics.

JAPAN: A Summary

Let me think back.  As a kid, I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was already interested in Japan.  I was a huge (and still am) fan of all things Ninja. (sorry Pirate fans, Ninjas FTW) I loved Voltron and Tranzor Z and Spectreman.  It wasn’t until I was in my teens that I realized these awesome shows were all made by the Japanese.  And it wasn’t until later in life did I realize that lots of the weird toys I played with as a kid were Japanese too.  So basically, I’ve been a “Japanophile” all my life.  And I think the same goes for Linda.  For as long as I can remember, we’ve both wanted to take a trip to Japan.  We both love the food, the Otaku culture, and everything in between.  For a long time, a Japan trip just wasn’t in the cards.  We were either too busy or too broke or both.  Several times we started the planning process, but things just didn’t pan out.  We would just get our fix at the nearest Japan Town.  However this year, we got serious.  We started planning back in January, and with the tickets bought and the hotels booked, we were going to Japan for Halloween 2010!

Our arrival to Japan was somewhat muted, as we had to fly from Reno to LAX first, and then catch an eleven and a half hour flight to Japan from there.  We arrived at 4:00pm Japan time, and it’s hard to believe, be we didn’t even get to go outside until we arrived in Kyoto, where it was already dark.  Kyoto is a four hour journey from Narita International Airport.  Basically, you get off the plane at Narita, clear immigration, and walk through the airport and find the JTB counter to get your Japan Rail passes.  Then you go to a JR desk and secure seats on the Narita Express to Tokyo, and at the same time you can get Shinkensen (bullet train) seats as well.  Next, you walk through the building to the track and catch a train to Tokyo, which is about a 40 minute ride.  After the train ride to Tokyo’s Shinagawa station, you exit the train, still inside an enormous building, and walk to the Shinkensen track bound for Kyoto.  Then you board the train, and take a comfortable three hour ride at roughly 150 mph.  We chose to start our adventure in Kyoto, because travelling there and then back to Narita at the end of our trip would have just been too much.  Plus, we had events to attend in Tokyo during Halloween weekend.  So Kyoto had to be first.