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Coco Crisp leads off as Barry Zito delivers the pitch at AT&T Park
Today’s photo has nothing to do with the subject line (other than the fact that the A’s were involved), but that is only because I didn’t have a camera when I went to the A’s game on October 15, 1981 and Krazy George started the first wave. I was only 12 years old at the time, but I remember that game well.
Busan from cablecar (ropeway? cable car?) that departs from Geumgang Park (금강공원)
居酒屋おたやん甲府中央酒場
Tucked down one of Kofu‘s many alleyways (Nishiki Dori was the name of the street) this place looked like a lot of fun. The food was good, but the patrons and employees weren’t nearly as entertaining as the place I had just come from (Ajimi or 味魅).
Ajimi was a random find. The just as random salaryman (サラリーマン) who sat down next to me came up with the name of my boss (Shibuya San) from 20+ years ago in San Francisco when I couldn’t think of it. Weird. It’s a small world.
Smartly-dressed Japanese gentleman at bon odori
I loved the hat on the dancing man in the middle of today’s photo. I took this picture at the Nishikubo Hachiman Jinja Summer Festival (西久保八幡神社例大祭[夏祭り2013]) in Tokyo this past August.
Yasuhiro Ogawa
Yakult Swallows
The Yakult Swallows had the worst record of any team in Japanese Professional Baseball this year despite amazing seasons from two players. Yasuhiro Ogawa (小川 泰弘), pictured above, went 16-4 with a 2.93 ERA for a team that went 57-83 overall. On the offensive side, Wladimir Balentien batted .330, with 60 home runs (a new record for NPB), and had a ridiculous 1.278 OPS. By comparison, the best OPS in MLB this year was Miguel Cabrera at 1.078. I really don’t understand how the Swallows lost 83 games with performances like that from Ogawa and Balentien.
Mudeungsan (무등산) creek
Whenever I tried to get others to climb around on Mudeungsan with me they would cower at the thought of hiking for hours on end. While one of the hikes I took was quite rigorous and long in both duration and distance, many people just get off at the bus stop and wander a few hundred feet to this creek. Compared to the city of Gwangju just 20 minutes away, this is like a whole different world. There is a relatively easy hike that goes along this creek for a few kilometers if you aren’t up for a hike to the top of the mountain.