Out of the house at 9am this morning to pick up Tokyo Dave at SeaTac. He is coming for an overnight stop on his way from Tokyo to San Francisco to see me, and renew his US driver’s license.
A little grocery shopping followed “license department waiting hell”, and late in the afternoon of hanging around the house it was off to the apartment to pick up shirts and a package.
Here is today’s humorous story about wanted and unwanted guests. Tokyo Dave would be the wanted guest, a couple of crows, the unwelcome guests.
For dinner I defrosted the deer back chops that Alan sent me home with on my December trip to Juneau. The BBQ was ready and I took the plate out with the four chops on it, went back in the house for something… came back to find three chops rather than four and a couple of squawking crows in the alley… Tokyo Dave found the fourth chop sitting on top of a fence post half eaten. And yes, I washed it off and put it on the BBQ with the others.
Thought you would find it assuming that crows here in the city have such good taste.
Before, the crow eaten chop:
And the fine meal after.
Finished the evening with a little soak in the hot tub before draining it since I’ll be out of town for almost a week – no need to run up the electric bill, and it was time for the water to be changed anyway.
The third and final train trip in this month’s rail adventures – The Coast Starlight.
Arrived 15-20 minutes late on The Southwest Chief – unshowered and unshaved but at least my teeth were brushed. First stop…wait for it….The Metropolitan Lounge on the second floor of Los Angeles’ Union Station.
This lounge has only been open since December of 2013 when I was through on my way back from Santa Fe – when it still smelled new. It’s sort of hard to find…to the right of ticket counter and left of the Hertz desk, then up an elevator and then to the left. Signage is a little lacking.
Plain from the outside:
Snazzy on the inside:
Juice, soda, coffee, espresso, sweet rolls, and a conference room with this really great photo of the previous era Coast Starlight:
Craig and I track side for one of the best “Platform Memories” yet – well, the photo is the best quality – and I should be as he’s a professional photographer.
We got to hang out for twenty minutes or so – and I got to give him a tour of the sleeper car. He wants and invitation the next time I want company on a train trip.
First order of business – even before the train left the station was a shower. I really should have done it on the Southwest Chief, but live and learn:
It much easier to shower when you aren’t bouncing off the wall of a moving train.
Greek Salad for lunch in the Parlour Car (this one from 1956) which alternative dining option to the Dining Car. Much more limited menu, but you generally don’t have sit with other people though not in my case as there was another single dinner – so much for my plans for reading USAToday while I ate.
Spent the afternoon working on the Southwest Chief post, jotted down a couple of ideas for future posts on weeks I’m not travelling. So much for getting anymore of the book I started on the airplane completed. The book (Crow Planet: Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness) is the required reading for all incoming Evergreen Students for the fall semester. Yesterday I took one of those silly FaceBook quizzes on what your spirit animal is…and I got crow. Go figure.
I took dinner in the Parlour Car as well, with the same single gentleman as at lunch – and with each interaction it’s feeling odder and odder. It doesn’t help that his roomette is right across the hall from mine.
The main reason for the Parlour Car again for my meal was the Red Wine Braised Lamb Shank – which I’ve had before, and liked enough to track down the recipe which I posted in a previous entry. LINK.
The lighting is a little funky, but you get the idea. Luckily my “less than ideal” dining companion gets off at Sacramento around midnight.
After dinner I got text from Lunetta – apologizing that they wouldn’t make it to the platform (which I hadn’t expected they would) –his plane ran late, and he and Onyx were still at dinner. Nice of them t text – guess they enjoyed the last “Platform Moments”.
My last FaceBook post before I got out of range was “Bedtime For This Bonzo”.
After the weirdness of lunch and dinner I opted to have coffee and breakfast delivered to my room at 8am. How civilized. Mostly they provide this service for mobility limited people (like my mother who always gets the handicapped room downstairs) but anyone can request the service – though the last morning on the Southwest Chief you’d probably have to tip the room attendant in advance. But here was my breakfast:
Scrambled eggs, pork sausage patties, home fries (which I mostly didn’t eat – and I requested to biscuit/croissant either).
And for Swanda a “footie”…
For the rest of you a slightly maniacal “selfie”…
Had the burger (again) for lunch, again using Newman’s Own Two Thousand Island dressing as the “secret sauce”. Damn tasty, sorry, no photo – it disappeared too quickly.
At Eugene I texted the boys (Travis and Leo) saying the train was on time and that I was in Eugene:
Got a quick response back from Travis saying it was doubtful he was going to be able to make it after all. Sigh. Such a photogenic guy. And then Leo was stuck at the post office – a total bust for “Platform Memories” other than..
We were thirty minutes early into Portland, which means probably 30 minutes early into Seattle – meaning a compressed dinner schedule. I was surprised when I got a 6:20 reservation…the last seating.
I finally remembered to take a picture of their “Signature Cooked To Order Steak”:
Shared the table with a lovely couple from Stockholm who were headed to Seattle to catch the Norwegian Cruise Line boat to Alaska – thereby achieving their goal to see all 50 of the United States. How many citizens of the US can claim that. I can, but I’m definitely in the minority.
Caught a cab back from the train station and dropped off my Junior Conductor hat with Casey, one of the Evergreen Grad neighbors that moved in a couple of months ago – I think it looks better on him than me.
[217.6] Better than I was expecting – only a 3.8# weight gain after 5 days of 3-squares a day via Amtrak.
Checked out a couple of minutes before eight. Used the last of my paper money ($5) to settle accounts before heading to the airport. The run from Ballarat to the Melbourne airport is 90 minutes with only a couple of morning congestion points. Need to put that in the revised directions for WorldMark as well. Rental car was a snap — held up the contract and she said I was good to go. And the International Terminal in Melbourne is right across the street from the rental cards.Surprisingly few people in the check in line — had the full two hours to try and spend my $3.45AUS… $1.20 for the paper, and the rest in the Salvation Army can.
Had a little pre-lunch — half a chicken wrap and a gin and tonic in a bottle (look for that on Twango in a day or do) before the second screening that is standard on all flights going to the US these days.
An hour flight to Sydney — and, guess what, a plan change — turns out our airplane is going to SF and I have an hour and a half in the waiting lounge for the LA flight. Annoying, but time to check email and update the blog.
At least the movies look good for the flight home (well, except for number 3, Happy Feet). #2 is a Russell Crow flick — A Good Year. #1 is about a News Commentator (Robin Williams) running for President who wins, possibly because of a computer glitch, and #4 is Casino Royale, which I saw on the flight to Melbourne, but missed 5 minutes while I was in the loo. Which I slept completely through this time.
More from LAX where I’ll track down the Alaska lounge for a couple of hours of computer time since I have to got through security again anyway… might as well do it twice since there is something like a six hour layover — and still no news on my first class upgrade which means it sort of like pissing in the wind. Of course, to use the Board Room, you have to go from Terminal 6 to Terminal 3 (7 minute walk), get a pass from the ticket counter (since my boarding pass says United and they don’t fly from that terminal), and then go through the strip search (I mean security).
Three vodka and cranberrys, a shave, and my teeth brushed, it’s all worth it.
Wonderful is picking me up at the airport — might stay for a simple meal if I’m up to inviting him. Might just try and get twelve hours of sleep tonight.
Nothing like nitrous oxide on a stomach with 4 cups of coffee in it. Cleaning is done — final crow placement in a couple of weeks. Nice — a couple of weeks without pain.
Discovered a strange little park this morning — pulled their to finish my dog from Uli’s Meats in the Market. I had the lamb with everything (mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup, and kraut). Nice lunch for $5.40 — but they aren’t quick since they are grilled to order. Anyway — the park is between the Coast Guard and the Princess Cruise Line terminal. It was just two post office trucks, and me. No tables, but water access (about a street wide length).
Left the house at 12:45pm after packing up all the supplies for camping at the condo. Three steaks, asparagus from the market, salad from my garden, with raspberries from my vines. Tanqueray Rangpur and tonic for pre-dinner drinks, Curt is bringing wine, Chris is bringing coffee and cash for camping at the condo with Curt — OK, it was just too tempting.
The condo is about 2500 sq. feet with a hot tub and BBQ on the deck that stretches 60 feet along the front of the complex overlooking Birch Bay — your basic 180 degree view, but we are only on the second floor (rather than third), and there is the main drag between us and the ocean — we are even with the upstairs deck of the Blue Crab restaurant.
Doing some telecommunications testing before the boys get there. The Sprint EVDO card is getting -85db EVDO Rev A and -94db on 1xRITT. Lower is better.
With the paddle external antenna, the numbers are -84db and -91db. With the 3-watt booster on it and the antenna in the same place — a whopping -43 and -51db. The final positioning is in the window by the hot tub — pictures to follow of the installation and the condo.
Chris called a half and hour ago frustrated and stuck in traffic south of Everett (where I got stuck as well). Curt said 5pm — so I was surprised when the desk called at 5:20pm and said he was here. Chris may be another story — he was ready to turn around when I talked to him.
What a relaxing weekend. The only downside of going with friends is that the time I get to spend with Chip and Linda is minimized. Guess that means I’ll have to go back!
Got out of there at 11:45 and got home around 3:15 or so.
Too bad I couldn’t go as the crow flies — it would have been much quicker.
The house was a wreck when I returned — it was a wreck before I left, so it wasn’t much of a surprise, but with company coming for dinner (Curt and Feng) a little cleaning is in order (and closing the door to my office!)
But before I can even think about cleaning I have to get my new mattress out of Swanda’s apartment — it’s rolled up, but still is 5 feet tall and a foot and a half across. That and cocktails takes me to 6:30 back at home, with Curt arriving minutes after. Luckily by the time Feng showed up around 7 the coals were going, the salad was made and the table set (and the house straightened).
I gave up my bed so the boys could play around. Damn, I’m a gentleman.
Well – I was out of the condo at 11 – I should say we as it was all of us.
After a little traffic snarl I was to the airport around noon. Check-in was easy – and off to the terminal go I.
Free Wi-Fi courtesy of Carl’s Jr. in Terminal Two – remodeled since I was here a year ago – which Rich was here to see this. I have access to a VIP Lounge via my Chase Ink card but chose not to use it since the departure hall is so nice.
The only glitch was when I was boarding and she scanned my boarding pass and I got a big yellow message – Secondary Screening – in theory random, or so I thought. Here is what you will see on your boarding pass before the poo hits the fan – notice the SSSS (Secondary Security Screening Scumbag is what I translate that to):
Lovely Homeland Security stamps on there – OFFICIAL, not just the usual check point stamps.
Here is the description of the trip I posted on FlyerTalk when I went to look up what “SSSS” meant on a boarding pass:
Out of the blue on my return trip from 5 days in Cabo San Lucas my ticket is branded with SSSS. This for a Nexus/Pre/Global Entry traveler.
On the way down it was Pre in SEA, on the way back, didn’t realize the code on my boarding pass, but soon guessed it. In Cabo they swabbed everything down and put the pads into their portable nitrate readers… with no response — dead batteries (saw them swapping them out as I boarded). Boarded OK. In LAX running 15 minutes behind, used Global Entry though the passport reader wasn’t working… but there is a manual way to input flight info — fingerprint worked and I was on my way to be screened again for the LAX-SEA (a process I find annoying — just put officers in San Jose like they do Dublin, Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, etc)
And then the fun began — a) no pre- line b) the freaked look on the initial check person, c) no communication between staff and they almost let me go through the just metal detector line rather than the back scatter which I TOLD them they wanted me in the back scatter line, d) trying to test my McCormicks Montreal Steak Seasoning (Costco size) with liquids to detect god knows what — and she didn’t seem to know how to use the liquids or what to look for. Heard comments about “having to call it in” and some phrase “shielded” or something — took it to mean to not let me out of their site.
Bottom line — 30 minutes lost that I could have been happily eating and drinking in the Board Room (Alaska flights).
Details: round-trip paid ticket, free upgrades. Yes, I like bulkhead aisle in First Class (apparently another flag). Personal not business trip. Carry-on only (another flag — 5 days to holiday vacation and no checked luggage?)
All that said — the renovation of Terminal Two in Cabo is GREAT — free Wi-Fi from Carls Jr. with the wifi code: areasmexico
Oh, and there were TSA Agents at the gate in Los Angeles just in case I’d made it through all the gauntlets.
The only bright side to this travel day was a lovely man whose name I learned later was Eric. I saw him in my brief visit to the Board Room in LAX for a quick drink, cup of soup and a couple of newspapers. I found him sitting in front of me in First Class on the flight to Seattle:
He is a Seattle boy living in LA – probably older than he looks since I saw crow’s-feet around his eyes – returning home for the weekend to cave crawl with old friends – probably not in that outfit. I commented on shoes talking custom shoes – his are stock and tight (I like mine loose) because he tends to do acrobatics – as I would with that body. Too bad I’m way too lazy to maintain mine.
Stopped at Safeway on the way home for groceries I might need – and lots that I didn’t but can use, like a dozen or so of stuffed olives at 50% off.
Actually weighed myself at midnight to see how bad the vacation was on my weight – turns out, not bad.
Julian works until 8 tonight (usually 9) so that was the reason for the late train to Nagoya – and it takes him 35-45 minutes to get from school (he teaches English) into Nagoya. Nagoya Station is crazy busy, even at 8:30 at night:
Bright lights in the big city…
But Julian is there at the appointed time (8:50) and at the appointed place (under the Gold clock at one end of the station, not the Silver clock [with gold trim] at the other end):
Yep – he wears a tie to work, even with the preschoolers. He teaches MANY different age and abilities. Off to dinner we go…
where you can order from their massive menu at a screen at each table.
I must have been hungry because there are no food shots, nor the beer and sake…
One the way back to his apartment – which is in Komaki, an in-the-sticks suburb according to Julian because it takes two transfers to get anywhere – I saw this nice bank of vending machines. Even in residential areas you will find them basically on every corner:
Guess I should get a day shot of this!
Welcome to Julian’s Dorm Room – technically a studio apartment, but it being furnished, it has the feel of a dorm room….
Past the door is the kitchen, toilet, shower, washing machine. Even the outside of the building looks industrial:
Stayed up too late catching up, (as we did in Portland as well,) luckily we don’t have an early day tomorrow.
Breakfast this morning:
Miso soup with a side of coffee.
The main reason for the timing of this visit is to see the HÅnen Matsuri – the fertility festival held each March 15th in Komaki. You can read the whole Wikipedia at the link to the left, or here is the “bite-size” bit:
HÅnen Matsuri (豊年ç¥?, “Harvest Festival”) is a fertility festival celebrated every year on March 15 in Japan. HÅnen means prosperous year in Japanese, implying a rich harvest, while a matsuri is a festival. The HÅnen festival and ceremony celebrate the blessings of a bountiful harvest and all manner of prosperity and fertility.
Luckily we aren’t headed there for the entire ceremony, just the final procession.
As you can tell by the English on the sign – LOTS of Westerners (gaijin) attend.
Yep – there was a parking lot full of us:
What parking lot, you might ask?
That’s when I realized this was going to be a long day. Yep, a looonnnggggg day of drinking, luckily with no driving:
So I joined the fun and picked up this fun little number….
Until I did a little research on this bourbon (Heaven Hill), I didn’t realize that it’s from the producers of my favorite bourbon, Evan Williams.
But enough about drinking in the middle of the afternoon, let’s get onto the phallus shots. Yes, even the candy they are selling is phallus shaped:
That would be Jacob – a good-old-boy from the south end of Alabama (and English teacher). Nice veins on that candy…
Yep, that’s a big one! But it doesn’t stop there, the grounds of the temple are “littered” with penis:
When you make an offering to this:
you ring this:
Gives new meaning to the phrase: Ding Dong.
EVERYBODY turns up at this festival, not just the foreigners… from guitar-toting cowboys…
to she-males….
Yes, even the bananas are suggestive…
And yes, I had one. And bought lots of cock souvenirs.
Before we move on, I have to share one video of the ceremonies:
To show how far we slid by the end of the afternoon (and because I think Jacob is cute):
Needless to say – we needed food after all this (other than bananas and penis pops)…so off we went to a place close to Julians.
We were a decent sized party of over eight….and ate we did…
and the disaster we left…
Another long night, because we were out of booze at home, so we swung by the local mega-store for some mega-booze. At this point my feet were KILLING me, and Julian and his girlfriend were kind enough to wheel me around the store….
Just for reference, that is a shelf of 4 Liter booze bottles. To compare sizes, we have this illustrative photograph:
1.5 liter Coke Zero, 700ml Suntory Whiskey, 4 liter Suntory Black. The four liter bottle was $24, which my EuroFaerie friend Karl pointed out is only .15 per unit of alcohol. That should keep me through my visit, with plenty of leftovers for Julian. Of course, that might be the ONLY thing in Japan that is cheap.
Another long evening…but this time we have to be up and out by 9am because we have a 10:30am reservation at the Asahi Brewery. Feeling the effects of last night we take the wrong train, leading to a 20-minute walk to catch our connection…and then catch the express rather than the local and have to turn around and catch a local back, and realize that the “10-minute walk” from the station is more like 20+ minutes….and surprisingly we were only 15-minutes late for our Japanese Language tour of the plant. We arrived at the same time as a bus filled with seniors – but to our amazement, an English-speaking tour guide came to our rescue!
Here is an aerial view of the complex:
and our tour guide:
and us enjoying some pre-noon free samples.
We were both hobbling on the tour, Julian from his recovering broken leg, me from some swelling at the ball of my left foot – she enquired if we’d like a cab back to the station in Japanese. Had she said it in English I would have said “hell, yes”, but alas – we walked back the 20 minutes.
Then I broke my own rule (for the second time this trip) – no more than one tourist attraction or event in one day.
Off we went to the SCMaglev and Railway Park to continue on the transportation theme of this trip. We were beat by the time we got there – at the end of a train line through the industrial heartland of Nagoya.
It was a cool museum, though Julian spent a good hour sleeping in one of the train cars. Sorry, no picture. HUGE museum with lots of displays:
What I found interesting was the interiors of the previous generation of Shinkansen trains…
And yes, they did have a huge diorama/model train set-up as well…
Caught the train back into the city and killed a little time before meeting up with the girlfriend and other friends for dinner – this time, a cook-it-yourself kind of place:
By the time we got home, we were totally beat – and Julian has to work tomorrow, though luckily not until noon.
As for me – I spent the day hobbling into the city center of Komaki to do a little exploring, a little shopping and indulged my “once-per-international-trip” US fast food stop:
In the same department store of Ronny Macs, there was this “odd” display of which I am clueless, but it did warrant a picture:
Like some bad 50’s dream…but I did come back with the fixings for dinner:
That would be stir-fried pork and chicken bits with a couple of kinds of pickled vegetables with a bowl of rice (that yes, Mr. Low Carb ate).
Here are some of my random “wandering around town” shots…
My favorite part of the above picture is the crow drinking water out of one of the flower vases…
The final meal of the Komaki leg was with another of the English teachers at Julian’s school, and one of their older students. We went out for more conveyor belt sushi – this time with little trains to deliver your special orders:
Grab from the line, or special order on the touchscreen:
And it comes on a different little train that stops only at your table:
This is the stack of plates for the four of us…
And when you are done, you slid them into the slot in the table where they are automatically counted and added to your bill:
Other than pouring down rain (a BIG thanks to Julian’s student who gave us a ride home) it was a perfect cap to an evening – and we even put a pretty big dent in that 4 liter bottle of whiskey…
Out of the house a little before 10 to catch the train to the airport for my 2:45pm departure for Narita, connecting to my flight to Seattle.
On the train, I finally found the transit map that I’d been looking for since I got here:
This map has all the various different company lines in both Kanji and English.
Only one transfer, but I’m on the slow train so basically it’s almost 2 hours, but I saved 340 yen by not taking the express and going the long way with fewer connections.
As is usual when I travel with Rache, he is up and out in the morning while I sleep in – though today, not as late as I’d like. Rache went to a Waffle House nearby, I opted for the free breakfast at the hotel. Nothing like biscuits and gravy to start the day!
Our first stop in Bowling Green, Kentucky is at the site of the “real” Bowling Green Massacre (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, CLICK HERE). The fake one was a Trump spokesperson’s talk of radicalized US Iraqi’s plot on Bowling Green. In a humorous twist of irony, click on this link: https://www.bowlinggreenmassacrefund.com/ — which if you go to donate, you are taken to the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) site to make a donation.
A massacre DID occur in Bowling Green – when a sink hole opened under the National Corvette Museum and swallowed nine pristine Corvettes – so our first stop is to the museum.
Lots of pretty cars….
And a few crumpled ones that the museum decided not to restore…
And here is the site of the massacre….
The yellow line is the cave outline, the red, the sinkhole line.
And you can even pick up your new custom ordered Corvette at the museum. The factory is on the other side of the freeway – sadly, factory tours are cancelled until 2019:
That was a fun couple of hours! And if you needed air for your tires, the Michelin Man was stationed in the parking lot:
In hindsight, I wish we pocked our head into the classic car sales lot next door:
Luckily, we tagged along with a tour that had started a couple of minutes earlier…
We got a tour of the engine:
The mail car:
The dining car:
There was also a sleeper car:
And the President’s Car (president of the L&N railroad):
Along with getting to see from the outside several other cars awaiting restoration, including a hospital car:
And what they call “The Jim Crow” car which was divided into Whites Only and Blacks Only seating:
The caboose is refurbished, and rented out for birthday parties and the like:
After the tour, we walked through the museum proper:
Once again, we are off schedule for doing the Corsair Distillery tour, and I need food! Biscuits and gravy only last so long. Hello Gerard’s Tavern:
Yeah! A full bar! Sadly, the bartender is the manager who said, “I’m the guy that hires the bartenders and I don’t put one on for lunch service.” But it wasn’t bad – the Old Fashioned that I have in DancingBear’s honor.
And the food was great – I had the fried chicken sliders, the right amount of food for me:
We were still early for the Corsair Distillery tour, so we poked around:
Turns out, we got a personal tour – as we were the only two on it:
These are the two still they use for their vodka and gin like spirits. All the bourbon production has moved to Nashville now that craft distilleries are OK in the city.
This is the mash bill for making their gin…
And warehouse storage:
And high-tech bottling line. All the labels are hand applied:
Fun tour, but now it’s time to head to Louisville…and sadly, a two-hour backup because of a big rig rollover…
Tonight, we are the Microtel Hotel on the edge of Louisville, Kentucky. Oddly, no photos. Not as nice as the Baymont, but it still had a mini-fridge in the room.
I DID get photos of our dinner at Mark’s Feed Store – a BBQ place:
Rache and I both got the same thing – the 6-rib basket. Comes with two sides. Sadly, we could have shared one order. We maybe could have skipped the fried pickles – but I always have to try them:
And the 6-rib meals…
Because we were first time customers they kicked in two slices of buttermilk pie (a little sweet for me) and a bottle of their mustard-based sauce. Too bad they didn’t have a full bar!
Back to the room and our usual routine. Rache in bed early, UncleMarkie watching TV into the night.
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