The day that I had been anticipating for well over a year (returning to live in Japan for a year) finally arrived. It seemed as though it was always just a dream and something would prevent it from ever actually occurring, but somehow this day did come about. Needless to say, I didn’t need an alarm clock. I was up well before dawn due to excitement. After a shower, some more cleaning of my already clean, empty house, and other time passing activities the sun finally rose.

The above picture is of that last sunrise (for a year anyway) over Ashland, Oregon.

It was a beautiful morning in both Ashland and Medford, where our first plane was to depart from. The clouds were in fine form.

The above photo is from the “new” Medford airport which is a major upgrade over the old one. The former airport terminal is completely gone now. We had breakfast in the only restaurant past the security check point in the place, and this was the view. The old airport didn’t have any place to eat once you got past security which was not a good thing. I found that out on 9/11/01 when I was boarding a plane on that fateful morning. Needless to say, that plane wasn’t permitted to fly and many of us were stranded in the old airport.

My kids were as excited as I was. They’ve grown a lot since last year.

The fourth picture down on the preceding blog entry link reminded me of something about my daughter’s stuffed animal flight companion. She packed her “stuffy” in her backpack on this trip too. Her raccoon stuffed animal had a hard time making it through security. Security required her to take it out of the bag and then sent it through the x-ray machine again as if it was loaded with drugs or a weapon or something. We all had a good laugh over the treatment this piece of fluff received.

The scene from the air was no less stunning. I had a window seat on this flight. No such luck on the flight from SFO to NRT (Narita). The river you see is the Rogue River and the bluff is Table Rock. I’ll show you more photographs from the air tomorrow.

Posted on August 15th, 2009 under Oregon. Tags: ashland oregon, clouds, Oregon, people, skywatch. Comments: None

There is some Japan content in this two-part series on Static-X after all. Koichi Fukuda is the guitarist for Static-X shown here. Koichi was born in Osaka, Japan. Next to him is Wayne’s wife, Tera Wray, who appears to be nearing some sort of wardrobe malfunction.

Wayne saluting the audience. Nearly every movement Wayne makes is some sort of pose. He is very easy to photograph because of this. Notice that he and his wife have matching t-shirts. Aren’t they cute?

She is actually smiling here, something she should have done more often. Most of the night she looked a bit down. Wayne was in great spirits all night though.

One last shot of Mrs. Tera Wray Static for those of you hoping for something a little more close up. It’s a major crop as I wasn’t very close to the stage, but this was the former porn star’s look on her face most of the evening.

Let’s wrap up this two day run on Static-X with the only video I took at the show. The video quality isn’t too bad, but the audio is horrible. I’m not sure why it is so bad as the concert sounded great from this location right next to the mixing board. My LX3 let me down on the audio portion of this video. Turn the sound down on the first one and up and the second. Hit the HQ button just below the video as soon as it starts for slightly better quality.

Posted on May 10th, 2009 under Oregon. Tags: metal, static-x. Comments: 1

Today’s entry has nothing to do with Japan or Travel, but since I’ve blogged about other concerts on here when I was traveling, I figure I can squeeze this off-topic post in anyway.

Static-X is pretty much the only non-local act that comes through town on a regular basis. Most bands skip Southern Oregon and play a show in San Francisco the night before Portland or vice versa with no stop nearby in between. Not so with Static-X. Last night, at the Medford Armory, was the third time they’ve played in Medford in the past four years or so.

This is the first concert I’ve taken my LX3 to. I didn’t go specifically to take pictures so all of my shots are from the same spot, not very close to the stage, but they came out decent anyway. The LX3 was easy to sneak in. I have a coat with a double pocket. I put the LX3 in the inner pocket and my wallet in the outer. When security asked what I had in that pocket I showed them my wallet and in I went.

Wayne Static is a newlywed. His wife, Tera Wray, was on stage the entire night. She is apparently a retired adult film star. I wouldn’t know.

If you don’t like Static-X, but like porn, I suppose you could have enjoyed the evening as well. I’m guessing you’d like to see more of Mrs. Static so I’ll make this a two-part entry; you’ll have to come back tomorrow to see the rest.

Posted on May 9th, 2009 under Oregon. Tags: metal, static-x. Comments: None

Let’s wrap up our mini, Portland, Oregon week with a view of part of the interior of Voodoo Doughnut, made famous on The Amazing Race. If you want to see more of Portland, check out my other blog.

Voodoo Doughnut was quite an experience. I don’t know if it was just because it was Spring Break or not, but the place was crazy packed. There was a line going out the door of 20+ people. The people lined up outside were getting soaked too as it started to pour rain just after we got inside.

Today’s view of Voodoo Doughnut includes the wacky chandelier and part of the motto, which was the clue on The Amazing Race, “The Magic is in the Hole”. If you look closely you can also see a donut holding a piece of bacon. They actually make and sell donuts with bacon (and many other strange things). You can see a picture here.

Posted on March 30th, 2009 under Oregon. Tags: food, portland. Comments: None