Thursday night I played softball at U.S. Cellular.

No, not that U.S. Cellular. (The above photo is one that I took when I was in Chicago last summer.)

Just up the road from where I live, U.S. Cellular sponsored the building of what may be the finest public sports facility in the country. It just opened a couple weeks ago, and last night was my team’s first game on the new field.

We played under the lights on the championship field which has fences 315 feet from home plate. Lucky for us we weren’t on one of the other fields, all of which have the fences 300 feet away as the other team hit about four balls that would have been over those fences. We hit only one that went more than 300 feet.

It was the closest game I’ve ever been in. We went 10 innings and finally won 7-6. That was the first time we led all night. We battled back from 2-0, 4-2, and 6-4 deficits to come out victorious and improve our record to 3-0. The game was far more exciting than what can be said in writing so I will just leave it at that.

The above picture isn’t from our actual game (nor did I take it), but it does show the surface of the field. The views around the place are actually much better than what you see in this photo. Maybe I’ll take some better ones when we play our next game.

The sports complex is easy to spot from I-5 between Medford and Phoenix, but not so easy to find if you want to drive there since it isn’t on any maps (yet), nor are there any signs pointing the way. To get there you need to be on Highway 99. Between Lowry and Stage is an unnamed road heading off to the east. That is the road you take to get to the new softball fields.

Posted on May 30th, 2008 under Oregon. Tags: baseball, Chicago, directions, jackson county, pictures, recreation, rogue valley, softball, US Cellular Community Park. Comments: None

How can I possibly have pictures from Copenhagen already when we don’t arrive for another three and half weeks? Well, thanks to information provided by Copenhagen Insider, aerial photos are possible even if you are on the other side of the world. So I took a few pictures to share with you of our future lodgings and the neighborhood.

Although I’m not 100% certain, I’m pretty sure part of the above is our apartment building. We are on the 4th floor. There appears to be a nice courtyard, garden, green area, whatever you want to call it, behind the place. We will be in a part of town called Norrebro. According to one of my guidebooks, Norrebro “is a lively, multicultural part of the city with plenty of bars, cafes, and alternative shopping centres.” In this part of town is the Assistens Kirkegard which is a famous cemetery. My guidebook goes on to state that “it is a wonderful place to relax or take a romantic walk. The churchyard is beautiful and is located in the trendy Norrebro district.” Sounds good.

My other guidebook says, “Norrebro is one of the most delectable nightlife destinations in the city and it is also a cutting-edge fashion centre.” It also provides more details on the famous, leafy cemetery including who is buried there. I will be living in the same neighborhood as the remains of Hans Christian Andersen and Niels Bohr. Cool. In Paris I’ll be in the same neighborhood as Jim Morrison. Last year, on our trip to Japan, we were next to Tokyo’s most famous cemetery as well. Ending up close to famous grave yards seems to be an unintended commonality on our travels.

Less than a block from our apartment is a reservoir called the Sortedam So. You can see people walking along it in the above picture confirming what my guidebook says. “You can lounge along their grassy banks or enjoy the scenic view from the bridges that cross them.” I’ll post that scenic view from the bridge for you here in a month or less. Stay tuned.

A short walk over the bridge will have us spilling into the Botanisk Have (pictured above from a bird’s eye view) which my guidebook describes as “among the prettiest outdoor spaces in the city, these gardens are studded with lakes, bridges, and lovely flowerbeds. Climb the winding staircase for a great view of the exotic trees below. A geological and botanical museum are also here.” Needless to say, I can hardly wait.

Posted on May 30th, 2008 under Denmark. Tags: famous danes, hans christian andersen, kobenhavn, living in copenhagen, norrebero, norrebro, trivoli. Comments: 1

In yesterday’s blog entry I may have made it sound like we found the place we will be staying in Paris completely on our own. While we may have found it on our own, the truth is that it was also recommended to us by our good friends the Bestors who own a travel store in town. So it’s not just the internet photos and descriptions we based our reservation on, and we are pretty confident we will enjoy the place. 

But the question that is probably really on your mind is what does the title of this post mean? The answer is that the very same Bestors asked me to write about an experience we had on our trip to Japan last year for their travel newsletter. I subsequently posted that article to the internet here, and wanting to do more of the same ultimately led to the creation of this blog.

I was in Travel Essentials last week to pick up a few items for our trip to Denmark and Paris, including the books and maps mentioned in a prior blog entry. One item I purchased really stands out so I thought I’d share. I’ve tried book lights in the past with poor results. Bob recommended the Petzl Tikka Plus LED Headlamp & Book Light for its quality and flexibility (as you can use it not just on planes and for reading in bed but also while camping, etc.). I picked one up and have been exceedingly happy with it.

Posted on May 29th, 2008 under Japan, Oregon. Tags: accessories, travel related goods. Comments: None

Paris isn’t cheap. We knew that going in, but we were a bit surprised by just how expensive it is to stay in Paris at even the “less expensive” places. So we did lots of research for our Paris trip this coming August, and I will share our findings with you. Perhaps it will save you a few hours in finding a place for, or few hundred Euros on, your next trip to Paris.

There are two main factors that cause Paris to be expensive in our case. The first is that the U.S. dollar is very weak at the moment. If a dollar equaled a Euro (like it did eight years ago) then things wouldn’t be so bad. As I write this, however, a U.S. dollar equals just over .6 of a Euro which means that things are more than 56% expensive in U.S. dollars that they were eight years ago due to the weak dollar. This doesn’t even consider inflation. As recent as 2002, a U.S. dollar equaled 1.15 Euros which means things have actually become more than 70% expensive in just six years (not counting inflation)!

The second factor is that there are four of us. Very few hotels in Paris allow four people in a single room (what are called quad rooms in Paris) which means that we’d have to get two rooms at more than 90% of the Paris hotels. Given that average room rates are near 200 Euro a night, we are talking about more than $600 U.S. dollars a night for something that isn’t all that fancy. Ouch! But there is a better, less expensive way.

Look not for a hotel but an apartment when you want to go to Paris. There are many advantages in renting an apartment in Paris over a hotel room.

1. apartments are usually bigger, in many cases much bigger
2. apartments have a kitchen (not only is this a matter of convenience, but it also means you don’t have to eat out for every meal–saving yourself some more money)
3. apartments frequently include a free-to-use washing machine (and compared to hotels more have free cable TV, WiFi, and phone calls) 
4. apartment neighbors are usually real Parisians instead of noisy tourists
5. apartments can usually accommodate 4 or more people
6. apartments cost much less than a much smaller hotel room
7. apartments usually have a big price break if you stay for a week or more

About the only disadvantage is you won’t have daily maid service. With the above discovered, we narrowed down our search to three places.

http://www.vrbo.com/171594
http://www.vrbo.com/79965
http://www.vrbo.com/117217

We ended up going with the middle one because the first seemed a little cramped for four of us, and the last one was booked the week we needed it. I’ll provide reviews and recommendations (or not) after we stay there in August.

To look for your apartment in Paris these are the two best sites:
http://www.vrbo.com/vacation-rentals/europe/france/ile-de-france/paris
http://paris.en.craigslist.org/vac/

Posted on May 28th, 2008 under Paris. Tags: budget, cheap, compare reserve trip, france, hostel, Paris, rentals, vacation. Comments: None

About a month ago, I decided to upgrade my previously mentioned なぞっておぼえる大人の漢字練習 for the Nintendo DS to the new version called Nazotte Oboeru Otona no Kanji Renshuu Kanzenhan (なぞっておぼえる大人の漢字練習完全版). The new version has about 300 more kanji and some other nice new features. For only a few dollars more than what I could sell my old version for on ebay, I figured it was worth it (and have been very happy with that decision since the arrival of the “game”).

Anyway, since YesAsia offers free shipping I decided to grab a manga while I was at their site since the only manga I can obtain locally are all in English, and that’s no fun. So I rather randomly selected this Kochi Kame one. (The full title is a mouthful, Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Kōen Mae Hashutsujo or こちら葛飾区亀有公園前派出所.) My selection wasn’t totally random as I figured my kids would like it given the cover (which turns out to be quite different from all of the other Kochi Kame covers).

For under $10 I wasn’t expecting much. To my surprise, it’s almost 200 pages in length. I started reading it this past weekend, and the content has exceeded my expectations as well. I laughed out loud several times. Apparently this series has been running for decades. I didn’t encounter it when I lived in Japan in the 80s, but I didn’t actively read, seek out, or purchase manga then either.

About the only manga I read in the 80s were a few books given to me. One was What’s Michael? (ホワッツ マイケル?). Another was Osamu Tezuka’s (手塚治虫) Buddha (ブッダ). And then I also had one or two Doraemon (ドラえもん) books that I think I found. Kochi Kame is actually the first one I ever purchased.

I was happy to find furigana next to every kanji which made for easy reading. I only had to look up, on average, the meaning for about one word a page. Kochi Kame stars Ryotsu (両津) who, although sometimes in his police uniform, has yet to do anything police related in the four episodes I read this past weekend. Instead, he has some money-making scheme in each that always ends in disaster and/or failure. Although the first few installments began to seem somewhat Scooby Dooish in their predictable outcomes, I can’t imagine becoming bored by them anytime soon, and the fifth episode (that I read today) had a completely different storyline that wasn’t formulaic.

My son finished learning hiragana this past weekend so he was very proud to be able to read real manga in real Japanese for the first time too. Now I just have to help him understand what the sounds coming out of his mouth mean.

Posted on May 27th, 2008 under Japan. Tags: akimoto osumu, anime, book review, Japanese Manga, Nazotte Oboeru Otona no Kanji Renshuu, まんが, マンガ, 両津 勘吉, 中川 圭一, 大原 大次郎, 寺井 洋一, 漫画, 秋本 治, 秋本 麗子. Comments: 1

I just got back from a glorious bike ride around Lithia Park. I didn’t have my camera with me, and it wouldn’t have done much good if I had since the weather is overcast. The weather made for great riding (not too hot), but wouldn’t have made for great picture taking. I do have an old picture or two of the park that I will insert below however.

The above (and you’ll need to click on it for a better view) is from last autumn. My kids are sitting at the upper duck pond which was green at the time. I noticed today that the pond has since been drained, and a new filtration system has been put in. The water is now too clear, as you can see the filtration pipes on the bottom of the pond. Oh well, at least it doesn’t smell anymore.

Lithia Park in Ashland, Oregon has a nice Japanese gardens section that is especially impressive in the fall.

Posted on May 25th, 2008 under Oregon. Tags: ashland oregon, japanese maple, lithia park, rogue valley, 鴨池. Comments: None