I Like Pigeons Because Nobody Else Does

Things are moving along in our process of extricating ourselves from this base. We’ve got 3 sayonara parties to attend in the coming weeks and I am going on one last birdwatching trip next Sunday…the day after the sayonara party. That might be rough.

Volvo contacted us and the car is being constructed at this very moment. We even have a VIN number. Unfortunately, the most important thing has yet to materialize: our actual departure date. Not surprisingly, that lies in the hands of the government, so no wonder it’s delayed.

It’s been hot, but we’ve had relatively low humidity which is rare for these parts in the summer. This is the time of year when the kabutomushi or rhinoceros beetles are active and it is with that enormous insect in mind that I set out this morning. I saw one last year when I was walking home from Japanese class at about 10pm. Of course, I see the most spectacular beetle in the country outside of a pet store and I don’t have my camera. That always happens – like when we went to Australia. We saw a cassowary and I didn’t have my camera.  Kabutomushi are native to Japan and are much much larger than their US counterpart, the eastern Hercules beetle. Kids keep them as pets and their images are on t-shirts, lunchboxes, notebooks, toys and anything else you can think of.

Here’s a video of them at night:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hO3IduOlDSM]
I found an aodougane (アオドウガネ, Anomala albopilosa albopilosa) which is a type of scarab beetle. Many scarab beetles are brilliantly colored. This is due to the beetle’s ability to reflect polarized light. And for the real science nerds out there, they don’t simply reflect polarized light, but reflect it in a circular manner with chirality. Most species of Scarabidae show left rotation of reflected light. These two unedited photos illustrate the difference.

The photo on the left was taken in bright, but not direct light. The next is the same beetle in direct sunlight:

 Coloration in insects and other animals is usually a tradeoff between camouflage and sending a message either to potential predators or a mate, so it is still a mystery as to why these beetles have evolved such complex color spectrum manipulation.

This is a species of longhorned beetle, but I am not sure what since my insect books are in a shipping crate somewhere on a boat in the Pacific:

You really need to click on that photo and expand it to get the full effect of those eyes. Unfortunately, this poor creature was only a shell of his former self. Literally.

 This is what was left of his carcass after it had been consumed by something else. I’ve seen huge hornets here chewing away on large beetles so this is possibly the work of one of the giant Godzilla hornets.

Think of the next two photos as symbolic of the closing of summer rather than allowing the gross-out factor to overpower the poetic signifigance this might otherwise have. A cicada succumbing to the inevitable end-of-summer death and a carrion beetle and its larvae feeding on an earthworm:

 And lastly, an unidentified beetle that Gene and I saved from slow death by ants:

The Soma Nomaoi festival started over 1000 years ago in the year 973 when the founder of the Soma family, Taira no Masakado, used wild horses in a military exercise in which he released them on the plains for his cavalry to pursue and capture. In the following years the custom was passed on to successive clan leaders as an homage to the clan and also Shinto deities.

We left Yokosuka at 3am. I looked around at the other passengers on the bus and was shocked to find myself the only one not sleeping. How on earth anyone can sleep when going to a new place is beyond me. It gets light here at 4:30am and by that time we were heading out the north end of Tokyo, leaving the concrete behind and entering into the countryside. It was so nice to get out of the city - even if only for a day – and breathe fresh air.

We arrived at 9am and I paired up with a really cool chick named Nathalie. Not wanting to be seen with a group of loud Americans, we quickly bailed out and made our way to the parade or ogyouretsu お行列. We found seats on the curb, but that didn’t suit the trio of ojiisans (grandpas) behind us who insisted we sit we sit in the shade with them as soon as they rearranged themselves and made room.  I’m always a hit with the old men here as soon as I start unleashing the Canon camera equipment.

I’m a fan of Akira Kurosawa movies and what I saw coming down the street made me feel as if I were in Ran or Seven Samurai - legions of samurai on the backs of horses of the highest athletic caliber, complete with swords at their sides were making their way down the street. Nathalie and I stood there agape for the entirety of the parade. The reason they looked real was because this was about as real as it gets without access to a time machine. I read in my festival guide that the armor, helmets, swords and horse tack are all original and not reproductions. Most of them have been passed down through the years from father to son.

The festival spans 3 days, but we were there on the second day which has the most action.  After the parade, all 600 riders filed into a racetrack area and prepared for kacchu-keiba 甲冑競馬, or race of 10 riders and horses at a time. Ten horses and riders gathered at a starting point and raced once around the track or 1000 meters.

The shinki-sodatsusen 神旗争奪戦、or flag scramble, started at 1pm with an explosion of fireworks directly above the grass field inside the racetrack. Out of the explosion fell two flags which the boiling throng of horses and men were waiting to catch. The triumphant knight who catches the flag breaks from the scrum and charges up the hill on a path winding through the spectators to claim his prize.

This was definitely one of the coolest things I’ve done here and I am so glad I didn’t let the early departure dissuade me from going.  The festival has been designated as Important Cultural Property and seems to have some notoriety outside Japan. I saw a crew of western filmmakers there, but I couldn’t tell what kind of white they were. I’d love to know what they were all about but they were busy filming the action and I didn’t want to bug them. Besides, I had my own photography to take care of and wasn’t in the mood to waste time socializing. Their t-shirts said “Soma 2007 Documentary Film Crew” or something like that. So if someone sees anything about this on TV in the coming years, please let me know.

I guess the really appealing aspect of this was the history. Being American means you probably don’t have too deep of a cultural history. Half the people there don’t even know what their real family names were before they were butchered and abbreviated when coming through Ellis Island. I just can’t imagine having such a deep and old history like this. It must be so cool to be such an integral part of a country and its land.

The samurai festival was simply unbelievable. It may have been the coolest cultural event I’ve seen here, but I am really interested in samurai history. To see people you’ve only read about in history books, as if they just stepped out of a time machine, was something I’ll never forget. I am busy today and most of the day tomorrow with lessons so I don’t have a whole lot of time to do a write-up right now. I took over 500 photos and I need to sort through them and do some editing. So check back for a decent narrative and photos later this week. Here are a few in the meantime:

With the frenetic zeal of Lancastrians scurrying to the grocery store on a bread and milk mission, the Navy jokers shut the whole place down yesterday in anticipation of typhoon Man-Yi. And then nothing happened. The storm broke up and all we got was some heavy rain. Hardly even any blowing. By 5pm I could look across the bay and see the sun shining in Chiba. I was hoping for some exciting extreme weather, but was sorely disappointed.  The typhoon did some serious damage on the southern islands, but had petered out by the time it moved north to Tokyo.

I went to a BBQ at a friend’s house on Saturday, but the party was kept indoors by the heavy rain from the approaching typhoon. As you can see from the photo, we were limited to grilling yakitori from the patio door.

I have a couple of things going on in the next week. One of my students, Mr Hanzawa is an accomplished musician and I am going to one of his practice sessions on Sunday and then joining the group at an izakaya afterwards. Next Tuesday I am going on a base-sponsored bus trip to Fukushima, about 6 hours north of here, to a huge samurai festival called the Soma Nomaoi Battle Festival:

Soma-Nomaoi is a Shinto ritual annually held for 3 days from July 23 to 25 in Minami Soma City, Fukushima Pref. In this historical event, 500 mounted horsemen in traditional samurai armor ride through the towns and head for the open field, where they scramble for shrine flags of the three Myoken Shrines in this region and pursue unsaddled horses to capture as offerings to a Shinto deity. Soma-Nomaoi has its origin in a military exercise done more than 1,000 years ago by General Taira no Masakado, the ancestor of the later holders of the Soma clan, in which he released wild horses on to the plain for his cavalry to pursue and capture. The residents of ancient “Go (an administrative territory)” act as samurai horsemen, and each “Go” belongs to one of the three shrines of Nakamura Shrine, Ota Shrine, and Odaka Shrine. Soma-Nomaoi was nationally designated as an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property in 1978.  

I’ve never travel with groups of Americans here because so many of them are on American-style behavior and it’s embarassing, but this is a photography opportunity that was hard to pass up.  The other problem is the logistics of the trip – the bus leaves at 3am!!! and returns at 11pm that night. Which will be painful, but at least I’m not driving.

My friend Kazu Shinoda, field trip coordinator of the Japanese bird club Ornitho, emailed me last week and asked if I’d be interested in coming on the July trip to Mt Fuji and a nearby spring not far from Yamanakako, the largest of the 5 lakes in Fuji’s shadow.  We arrived a place called Okuniwa which is the fourth rest station on the way up the mountain at an elevation of about 2200 meters (7217 feet).  If you look at this map Mt Fuji is clearly visible as the grey circle. We were just a few kilometers west of the “702″ road number indicator. The lake on the right side of the map is Yamanakako.

About 1 km beyond Okuniwa is the fifth station which is the highest point accessible by car and is the embarkation point for hikers on their trek to the summit crater. Is is also the treeline beyond which is a moonscape of black rocks and gravel, completely devoid of life. The fascination with climbing Fujisan eludes me but many foreigners living and visiting Japan hike to the top every summer. I considered climbing it at a few points over the years, but finally admitted to myself that I really have no interest in torturing myself. It’s not a pleasant undertaking in any way; the lack of oxygen gives most people a splitting headache, it’s crowded, it’s not pretty, the fifth station accomodations are less than ideal and it’s simply just more trouble than it’s worth…in my estimation. More importantly, out of all the Japanese people I know (which is a lot at this point), only one of them has climbed Mt Fuji and that was 20 years, 25 pounds and 7500 packs of cigarettes ago. If the natives don’t care, then neither do I.

Okuniwa is a good spot for watching birds because it’s at the highest elevation possible and still within the forest…if you could call this otherwordly scene of stunted, gnarled trees a forest. There isn’t much that could be considered soil, so the trees do what they can with what little resources are available and all of them are species that are adapted to harsh conditions. There are a variety of lichens and mosses growing on the rocks and trees that soften up the angular, rocky landscape.

About 30 feet from the entrance to the lodge is a small pool that attracts a variety of woodland birds summering on the mountain. The tiny pools also attract legions of birders and photographers. There were 8 people in our party, but we were joined by a bird club from Chiba that was quite large, maybe 12 or 15 people.  Okuniwa is a comfortable birdwatching site. Visitors can sit inside the lodge on tatami while enjoying a bowl of soba and watching the birds.

We spent most of the day on Mt Fuji, and then late afternoon drove down to Yamanakako to visit a spring that is frequented by birds of an entirely different ecosystem. We saw a nice variety of birds there and then left at dusk to have dinner at a restaurant on the shore of Yamanakako.

I’ll probably join the bird club again for one last outing before we leave Japan. I’ve been on a lot of trips with this group and they’re about as nice as people can get, so I am really fortunate to have met them. Japan birding is extremely difficult due to the extraordinarily difficult terrain (the mountains here are sometimes completely unnavigable) and lack of English in prime birding locations. Most of the good birding sites are only known to locals and are hard to find. Shinoda-san is fluent in English and frequently hosts birding foreigners.

Here’s a list of yesterday’s sightings:

Japanese thrush
Blue and white flycatcher
Narcissus flycatcher
Varied tit
Coal tit
Grey tit
Japanese white eye
Bullfinch
Siberian bluechat
Barn swallow
Goldcrest
White-throated needletail
White-rumped swift
Japanese pygmy woodpecker
Brown-eared bulbul
Japanese accentor
Siberian blue robin
Japanese bush warbler
Arctic warbler
Thick-billed crow
Nutcracker

Baby crows have blue eyes. They turn brown as they age.

The crows are too smart. Maybe smarter than the power company.

Mikoto Odagiri, an official of the Tokyo Electric Power Co.

There’s a lack of communication here. Crows send many signals. When the salaryman going to work or the mother with a baby goes under a tree with a nest, the crows give nasty cries to say, ‘Please leave our living circle.’ But city people miss the sign. It’s a problem for the crows. They are perplexed, and they send more signals that are ignored. The only thing they can do is be more aggressive.

Michio Matsuda, ornithologist and author of “Why Crows Attack”

Last night Gene and I were walking across a parking lot on base on our way to dinner when I saw a fully-feathered juvenile crow doing his best to hide underneath a bicycle parked under a tree. We moved closer to the bird and were immediately overtaken by a cacaphony of squawking in the overhead branches. It was the bird’s family. The best policy in these situations is to leave the juvenile alone because all passerine birds spend some time on the ground after fledging and learning to use their wings. The parents continue to monitor and feed the grounded babies until they manage to get airborne.

But I knew something wasn’t right when returned from dinner an hour later and the bird was in the same place. Despite the parents’ agitation, I had no choice but to have a look at their unfortunate offspring. He was very thin and his plumage showed evidence of having been on the ground for some time. There seemed to be nothing wrong with him…and then I saw his leg. There was a piece of blue plastic wrapped around his left leg that had clearly been there for some time. The plastic was wrapped so tight that it had ligated the lower portion.  His foot was swollen and damaged beyond repair. I surmised that the parents used the string for nesting material and it became entangled around the bird’s leg as he moved around the nest. Immediately I decided to take him home and have him euthanized the next day.

I was hoping to get home and find that he was weak, or refused to eat, or something would happen to  make this situation a little easier to deal with when I took him to the vet. Instead, he began eating and after a few mouthfuls of bird formula that I mixed up, some tomatoes and cherries, he had regained strength and was ready to explore our apartment. With the proper veterinarian and environment, this bird would most likely thrive and eventually be returned to the wild where he belongs. The leg would have to be amputated, but an urban perching bird – and especially a bird as resourceful as a crow - might carry on quite well.  However, if there is no chance this bird can be returned to the wild, the only alternative is euthanasia. Some people arrogantly think that they can provide for a wild captive animal, but they are wrong. No matter what humans do, they are woefully deficient in providing wild animals with everything they need.

The problem with raising wild crows is meeting their social needs. Crows are one of the few birds that don’t chase away their offspring. Instead, they live as an extended family and members of the family that don’t leave to start their own, hang around and help with the next clutch of babies. They’re long-lived birds and since they spend so much time learning from their parents, it’s really tough to raise them equipped with the proper social and survival skills. But at the same time, they’ve got intelligence in their favor and seem to find a way around any situation. Research regarding crows and ravens has trickled in slowly over the last century at a pace much slower than that of information regarding other birds. They’re difficult to study because of their obscure nesting locations in high trees and remote locations. And they are so smart they can see you coming a mile away. It’s hard to outwit any member of the corvid family, much less one with the ability to mimic human speech.

The crows here in Japan are very different from the ones in the US with regard to behavior. The bird I have right now is a thick-billed crow (Corvus macrorhynchos). I was shocked when I first arrived here to find them so gregarious. These birds will approach anyone with food and hang out at picnics, McDonald’s and even on our porch to collect the goodies I leave out for them. In contrast, the crows and ravens in the US are completely unapproachable. My guess is that this behavior discrepancy is due to the fact that some idiots in the US hunt them. They’ve been so persecuted over the years that they’ve developed a complete and total aversion to humans.

Obviously, in this area there are no guns and no hunting so the birds have little fear of people. Japanese citizens must go to great lengths to protect their garbage from these marauders until it is picked up by the sanitation service. The local gang of crows immediately shreds any uncaged or unattended bags. I have heard that crows in Tokyo know the garbage pick-up schedule and are one step ahead of the collectors in their route.  They’ve also been known to drop nuts or other items needing smashed onto the street for cars to crush. But they don’t just drop it anywhere. They’ll put the item in the crosswalk and after it’s been crushed and the cars are held at bay by the next red light, they’ll walk out into the crosswalk with the pedestrians and collect their food.

So as I type this, he’s sitting on the floor looking around, occasionally at me. He makes s soft squawk when he’s ready for his next feeding. It’s a good thing he isn’t able to know he’ll be dead in a few hours when I take him to the vet. This situation is so frustrating for me. This bird would have a very good chance of a decent life if I had the resources, but there isn’t anyone around here, firstly, capable of doing surgery, and secondly, with any inclination to help him. Obviously, we’re leaving in 2 months and a 2-bedroom apartment on a miserable Navy base is not the place for a bird. He’d have to go to a proper wildlife facility and there are none here that I know of.

The whole situation is so sad on so many levels – the fact that more human bullshit (someone’s trash) has caused the death of yet another animal, the fact that there’s nobody to help, and the fact that I am so desperate for animal companionship and I have to kill this bird. Humans are my least favorite animals and the last two years without non-human animals has been the most difficult part of this whole adventure. For this reason alone, I am completely 100% ready to return to the US where I can reclaim my dog and go to the shelter and get a few more. I’m sick of this shit.

I’m finishing this post and getting ready to head out to my English lesson and drop the bird off at the vet. I have my iTunes music library playing set on “shuffle” and Wayne Newton’s Bye Bye Blackbird just played. Weird.

UPDATE, 3:39 pm: I dropped the bird off at the base vet this morning at 9:30 and told them I’d be back around 1pm to retrieve the pet carrier. I just went there and they had still not euthanized the bird because the military dogs kept them busy all day. So the bird sat there all day with nothing to eat just waiting to be nuked. The whole point of this exercise was to alleviate suffering, not increase it. It takes a whole 5 minutes to gas the bird and stick him with a needle. Had I known this was going to happen I’d have kept him here at home and at least fed him until it was time to drop the guillotine.

I haven’t been too busy, just haven’t had anything nice to say lately so I figured I’d better not immortalize my negativity in cyberspace. When Gene’s free and clear of the Navy I’m not going to hold back.

I went to the second installment of kimono class yesterday and am one step closer to being able to dress myself in Japan’s traditional costume. Everyone freaks out over a gaijin in a kimono, but I think you really need to be Japanese to do justice to it. Somehow it just looks better with shiny black hair and a diminutive physique. Not the straw that sits atop my noggin which sits atop a busty Anglican body. 

As I’m learning to wear this complex thing I always wonder how on earth such a stylized garment came into being. I got a book and am now reading a little bit about the evolution of the kimono. But it’s getting close to bedtime here so I think I’ll write about that tomorrow. Here are a couple of photos for now. Keep in mind that we had guests over for dinner the night before so I was slightly hungover (which is what accounts for the pallor) and there was no air conditioning in the room (which is what accounts for the hair/straw pasted to my head).

I had some time this morning before a lesson and walked up towards the weather station to see what insects were out and about. Found more weevils, a large caterpillar, and a click beetle…more than that actually but those were the only ones whose photos were worth showing.

Meet the mukade 百足, Scolopendra subspinipes, a skin-crawling fact of life here in Japan.  This is not a beloved creature and a whole array of anti-mukade products and devices are available in stores. A mukade is a very large centipede that feeds on small insects, spiders, earthworms, and other arthropods…and occasionally a child. Just kidding. It has a powerful venom that it uses to dispatch its prey but if that venom is injected into a human being who unwittingly rolls on top of one in their futon during the night, the reaction can range from slight swelling of the immediate area to massive swelling of the affected limb. This happens all the time here. I’ve seen lots of these things around, but they move pretty quickly in dark, damp areas and their speed coupled with low light makes photographing them quite difficult.

On my last insect foray, this one ran right across the road in front of me. Adults of this species have been reported to reach body lengths of 15 to 19 cm (about 6 to 7.5 inches). This particular individual was about 6.5 inches long. These creatures are most active at night but during the daytime can be found under rocks, logs and in leaf litter. When weather conditions become unsuitable for them, they will move into homes and seek shelter in shoes, under futons and in cracks and crevices. I’m glad we’re on the ninth floor for this reason alone. Clearly, I like creepy crawlies, but I draw the line at mukade.

Not long after this mukade crossed my path, I decided I had enough mosquito bites and started off for home. It has happened to me more than once that when I make up my mind to pack it in and give up for the day, I oftentimes make the greatest discoveries. That’s what happened yesterday when I saw this incredible gem in lying in the road 

And you were thinking a cool stinkbug? She truly is a geek. Well, shame on you, naysayers, look at that photo again. Is that not one of the finest stinkbugs you’ve ever seen?! This is Poecilocoris lewisi, アカスジキンカメムシ or the stunning red-lined metallic stinkbug. My prize for being such a bug-lover was this dead specimen that is now on a pin right next to my computer. I don’t kill insects, so like scavenging vermin, a dead bug in pristine condition is a great treat for me. Over the last two years I periodically ran across these nymphs 

but nobody seemed to know what they were.  I found on the Internet that these are the nymphs of this particular super-cool stinkbug. Some insects undergo a type of metamorphosis in which the juveniles are smaller forms of the adult rather than a worm, caterpillar or maggot. A smaller, juvenile form of the adult is a nymph.

Here are some other photos of insects encountered yesterday. It was a good day for getting lucky in the bug world.

I went to kimono class today but this bug porn was in the queue first, so I’ll post photos from that next time, maybe tomorrow.

 I went on my usual weekend insect outing here on the base today. It was a good day for beetles as you can see from the photos.

The first thing I found was a ghoulish scene; a large sinister Reduviid bug sucking the life out of a small beetle. Kind of an apt metaphor for this base and me.

I’ve got a good story brewing. On Wednesday I will attend the first of 4 weekly kimono-dressing classes. I bought a kimono a couple of months ago and it turns out I got quite a bargain. I paid around $100 for it. The woman I bought it from runs a secondhand clothing shop, but this kimono had never been worn. The sleeves were too long for most Japanese people, but they fit my long gaijin arms perfectly. Some of the undergarments needed altering, so I gave the kimono and all its accoutrements to my friend Atsuko for some tailoring. She’s somewhat of a kimono expert and upon inspecting the garment, found that it had had its flowers handpainted and that it was custom-made in Ginza in Tokyo. In other words, someone most likely paid several thousand dollars for it at one time. I think that it was rendered  unsaleable by its long sleeves and the woman at the clothing shop had a hard time getting rid of it.

You just don’t throw on a kimono. The last time I wore one it took 2 and 3 people almost an hour to dress me so I have no idea how I’m going to handle this when I get back to the States…if I ever end up wearing it. But, if I don’t at least I’ll know how and I don’t know too many people – including Japanese! – who can properly truss someone up in a kimono. You just never know when that kind of knowledge might come in handy.

I’m kind of coming unglued. I’ve had yet more run-ins with the security people on this base and it’s really bumming me out. Well, not really bumming me out…just making me really toxic and cantankerous. Gene maintains that it is partially my fault and that I bring it on myself. Which is not entirely untrue as much as I am loathe to admit it. I told him today that some people just aren’t meant to be caged and, unfortunately, I’m one of them. I’m thinking about moving off-base into a cardboard box out on Monkey Island.

English-speakers, there is nothing wrong with you computer. This is in Japanese. 

ごめんなさい、　私は　長い時間　日本語を書きませんでした！　このごろ　　非常に忙しかったです。

二週前に　私のアメリカの友達は　日本に　来ました。　友達は　日本で　素晴らしい　時を過ごして、　日本人が　とても　優しいと思いました。私たちは　日光と箱根と東京とたくさん面白い所に　行きました。週の末に私は疲れました。　でも　素晴らしい　時間を過ごしました。

先土曜日に　Geneと私は　東京に行って、　ニュウ　サンオ　ホテル　に滞在しました。ニュウ　サンオ　ホテルは　アメリカの軍用のホテルです。　

たくさん　ともだちは　私の相撲の写真を誉めました。賛辞をありがとう　ございます。私は日本の文化の経験を感謝します。

今日　写真を撮るために　しょうぶ園に　行きました。

We’re having some unusual weather – low humidity, blue sky and puffy white clouds. Rainy season is just about here, so I guess we’d better enjoy the low humidity while we can.

Here are some miscellaneous photos. More from sumo and some insect photos I took last week. The guy with the lump on his head was one of the sumo judges. I was told that when he was a young aspiring sumo wrestler he did not meet the height requirement and somehow produced that lump on his head to add height. The guy who told me this wasn’t laughing when he said it so I don’t think he was kidding, but it seems almost unfathomable that someone would go to such ridiculous lengths…but then again, look at all the breast implants in the US and I guess it’s not such a stretch after all. I really wonder how he did it.

The New Sanno (the US military hotel in Tokyo) has a package deal where you can get a room on the weekend if you eat at their restaurant, Wellington’s. That’s pretty much the only way you’re going to get a reservation on the weekend, but nobody has to twist our arms to dine there. The food is fabulous and very reasonable for a quality restaurant in Tokyo.

We decided to drive since we had to carry decent clothing for the evening and it was a piece of cake. I had some unfounded trepidation about driving in Tokyo, but it was no problem at all and only took about an hour. We dropped the car off at the hotel and took the train downtown to a German beer festival in Hibiya Park. It was a lively festival made even more spirited by the enormous glasses of hefe-weisen being consumed en-masse by the people in attendance. The food was pretty good. I had a soft pretzel and a plate of potato pancakes…and a lot of beer which was kind of a mistake. Everyone knows that hot sun and beer are a lethal combination.

They had three bands scheduled, one of which was a polka ensemble of two German guys. While waiting for them to play, we were subjected to probably the worst singers I’ve ever heard. They were a couple of old American guys playing blues songs and they were simply awful. We moved to the tables as far away from them as possible with the intent to distance ourselves from the din and also to minimize any association to these tone-deaf Americans. The funny thing was that all the other Americans and Europeans in attendance were equally repulsed and soon everyone with round eyes had polarized themselves from the band and were sitting in our area. The auditory train-wreck didn’t seem to put a damper on the festivities of a particular group of Nihonjin because they were really whooping it up.

The Emporer’s palace was a short distance from Hibiya Park so we walked over there to have a look around. Pretty cool. Then we went back to the hotel for a desperately-needed nap and our sumptuous dinner in the hotel restaurant. We came back to the base this morning after a large breakfast. I’m tired of eating and it’s time for some exercise.