Ah, I wish I could go home early and play DragonQuest.
I keep daydreaming…
The Japanese baseball league will finally be starting up again. This year’s curve was really strong. The winning lineup of locally raised players was impressive. All eyes are on the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters and Shohei Otani, but I’m rooting for the man who gets things done Tanaka. I’m looking forward to some good matches.
I’m not presently involved in any cheering of baseball teams, but back in college I was a fervent fan.
Once in college: A group of friends and I were rooting for The Giants (pretty typical...). During the winning match we were all glued to the TV while chatting with one another. As the game progressed the chat got more and more exciting, with me ending it with: “Alright, here I go.”
...
Before I knew it I had taken all my clothes off, had two cans of beer in my hands, and was standing in my unit bath. Even still, yelling at the top of my lungs would have been embarrassing, so in a reserved voice I said “Congratulations on winning the series!” and dumped the two beers over my head for fun.
Faster than the actual players.
The feeling of joy was unexplainable.
And then...
My eyes hurt. Beer definitely seeps into your eyes. Lately players have been wearing goggles, and I completely understand. I doubt I’ll ever have a chance to do that again, but I wouldn’t mind having a bubbly champagne fight sometime, or so I imagine from time to time.
Up until now I was playing Dragon Quest 10 on the 3DS but recently switched to the PC version. The graphics are much better, but more than that the smooth movement has me very impressed. I am totally hooked.
From Naotyn
Coming out of a sweltering summer, this year’s fall has been full of typhoons and long-lasting rain continuing straight into October. During what is usually a great day for Travel, October 1st, we here at Akiba Die Casting set out on an employee day trip. This time around I was appointed the position of lead planner for this year’s events, and spent months with the other members getting ready for this day so the weather had me very worried.
This year we planned two stages for our fall event, [Free-time in Kamakura] and a [Boat tour of the Yokosuka Naval Port]. For us Gunma people, just a glimpse of Kamakura’s ocean view is enough to get everyone excited. The weather I was so worried about was called at cloudy with a chance for rain the day before, and we did get a little rain in the early morning, but it stayed at just a cloudy day for us until the end of our trip. The temperature was just right for walking around.
The free-time in Kamakura left deciding where to go up to everyone and was a bit of a relief for us planners. This time we were all required to meet back up for lunch however, so I was a bit worried whether some our more free spirited employees would make it back alright or not.
Along with a few others I was able to visit Kotoku-in, Hase Temple, and Yuigahama before gathering back with everyone for lunch.
Putting Kamakura behind us we set out of the Yokosuka Naval Base. Here we got to experience the Yokosuka Port bot tour, where you can see the naval militia up close. The microphone performance of the tour guide was a lot of fun, and the 45 minutes was over in no time.
I give my sincere thanks the tour guide staff and our employees who participated in that we had no sickness, injuries, or problems throughout our fun trip.
The 15th of October will be our companies 60th anniversary. We are planning a small party for our employees, and I hope that our safe travels last week lead smoothly into a good time at the ceremonies next week.
From Pumping both wheels
Time is an illusion. You may believe that the past proceeds the present, and that the future is yet to come. With physics we understand now that the past, the present, and the future are all actually coexisting.
But we very clearly perceive time do we not? What we actually experience is a rapid shifting between billions of realities many times per second. Every instant we observe is a moment in one reality. Our brains are wired to order those observations linearly, creating the illusion of time.
Each reality that we experience is different than every other in some way. Which reality we experience is based on the vibrations that we most easily align with. These vibrations are primarily decided by our emotional and mental state, letting us experience a reality in where our car gets broken into, or a reality in which we win the lottery, depending on our state of being.
All the great teachers of history taught that acceptance combined with positive action would lead to an increase in happiness. Regardless of your situation, the people around you, or your experience, the less you resist, the more freely positive action can flow from you. The more your fight, complain, or despair, the worse your world becomes. This is also called the Law of Attraction, which says: what you put out is what you get.
Our brains are built to feel as if they are experiencing the outcome of unseen forces, but in fact we are continually attracting experiences to ourselves that best fit our state of being. Some realities have already destroyed Earth with war. Some realities have already turned Earth into a paradise. Which “now” you move towards is up to you and your state of being, not your present situation.
From Postman
A clear blue sky, and resplendent green grass. A cart running across that grass. A view like that of some foreign resort’s golf course. These things I dreamed of over twenty years ago.
Back then caddie bags were put on carts which were driven by the caddie while the players walked.
When the economic bubble burst, golf changed, and now it’s almost purely self-play. Thanks to that the price to play has also dropped, so amateurs like myself can have fun a lot easier. There are plenty of low-priced golf courses, especially here in Gunma-prefecture. When the era of self-play first started you would push and pull your own cart around, but now we’ve moved back to the ridden type.
Yes, that cart that I dreamed of. There aren’t many places that will let you ride across the fairway, but some will during specific times.
Now is the time to enjoy that cart I dreamed of to the fullest! Or so one might think, but you don’t actually spend much time riding the cart.
From the tee grounds to the green, I walk as much as possible. This is the style of play I have adopted recently. My daily life is mostly deskwork so I don’t often get a chance to work much. Golf is a perfect chance to get some walking in. I tend to walk about 15,000 steps per round. When riding a cart I tend to walk about 10,000 steps.
It’s a chance I don’t always get. Skipping it would be wasteful.
From 3+
The “Takasaki Arena” that started construction here in July of 2014 is just about finished. With a great location closely linked to Takasaki Station this is a sports facility clearly intent on welcoming more international sports to the area.
The address is Takasaki-city, Shimowada-machi, 4-2-1, with 4 floors, 3 above ground
An event that takes place once every four years, “The 12th International Aikido Tournament,” will be taking place for 8 days at Takasaki Arena from September 26th through October 3rd. This big event is expecting over 6,000 participants from around the world.
Some people may not know much about Aikido but like Judo, Kendo, and Karate, it is a representative sport of Japan focusing on strengthening of the body and mind. Also, in Aikido there are no matches. The sport does not focus on winning, losing, or beating someone else and is widely practiced by youth, elderly, men and women alike. It is also more recently practiced as a method of self-defense.
Check it out if your're interested as it’s definitely an event you don’t get to see every day!
By the way, the parking lot for the Takasaki Arena will be closed to public use during the event so please be careful you park somewhere else.
From Aqua
Isn't food just wonderful.
An update from me who finds happiness in delicious food.
The more I think about it the more I realize, Gunma-prefecture is a land full of tasty foods. This time I’d like to introduce a specialty of Kiryu-city, “Himokawa Udon”.
Gunma is well known for its wheat fields which have led to the birth of many different styles of noodles throughout the different regions of the prefecture. Himokawa Udon is a household favorite in the area eaten by all. The most distinctive feature of the noodles is definitely their width. The width can change depending on which restaurant you go to, but in general compared to normal udon the noodles are much wider between 2cm and 10cm.
There are many different restaurants that server Himokawa Udon, but perhaps the most famous of them is “Furukawa,” which I would like to introduce. The restaurant is popular for its 10cm wide “tsukejiru” or dipping noodles. They are very wide, but thin noodles, with a smooth texturing going down, and a nice chewy texture when chewed. A luxurious dish for sure.
However, the noodles are indeed 10cm wide and can cause a bit of confusion as to how one should go about eating them. That experience too is part of the fun.
Whenever you pass nearby us, make sure to try some tasty Gunma delicacies.
From Creampuff Fingers
Has everyone been playing the smart phone game Pokemon GO? It uses the phone's camera and augmented reality sensors to make it appear as if the Pokemon you’re catching are part of the real world. I don’t have any particular reason why, but I myself am not playing it. So why do I bring it up? Recently I took my son out to catch bugs.
We went to the Gunma Insect Forest. It exists in an area of 45 hectares restored from an old village where you can see all kinds of bugs with just a net in one hand. (after inspecting the bugs you are required to put them back where you found them)
At first I thought it would just be fun for my kid and set out not really thinking about it, but it was a lot bigger than I expected with quite a bit of up and down that had me second guessing my own strength after a while. To add to that, as there always seems to be at these places (in my experience), the stamp relay (where you gather stamps on a collection sheet from different areas around the park) were all very far apart. The relay used the giant park to its fullest. That’s why the entrance staff said “it’s a bit rough” and the map says on it “if you can’t get all the stamps in one day, you can finish them on another day.”...
Somehow we managed to get to them all in one day, but my daily lack of exercise was felt in full. Still, it wasn’t just exhausting, but a healthy dose of nature for our hearts and a return to childish freedom for me as I tried hard to catch dragon flies with my kid.
It was a day of fun outside rather than in, which Pokemon Go also is promoting.
No matter what the reason, going outside to experience all the colors is always a good thing. Ah! That’s also why I didn’t have time to read a book this time, though that’s really just and excuse ^^;
2014 posts:
Oct-Dec
