Your Square Life: March 2008

Monday, March 24, 2008

Being the first annual "Deathmatch" and that we were generally making it up as we went along . . . and that there wasn't much rolling to be had on the snow, the rules grew naturally from the ferce spirit of competition that boiled up as the eggs were tossed about.

We began with the rolling. Alex threw the cerimonial first egg as I lit the fire, signaling the beginning of the Death Match proper.

No eggs were damaged, so we stepped it up a bit.

We began throwing for distance, but the soft snow cuddled our eggs, leaving them unscathed. Alex, ever the inovator, began the "William Tell" portion of the event, in which the eggs were thrown at the cerimonial egg which was cradled in an outstretched hand. Note: Eggs thrown with force at a wrist bone from twenty paces feel like a rock being thrown at my arm from twenty paces . . . indistinguishable really.

The eggs were still unmolested, so we just threw them as hard as we could at a flower pot, with extra points for making the eggs into the flower pot. Two competators eggs remained undamaged and the true Death Match began.

The final two faced off, carefully walked out 10 paces, then turned and threw their Easter egg at their competitor. And thus, the Egg Throwing Death Match concluded for the year.

Egg Throwing Death Match 2008!

This Easter marked the 1st Annual Egg Throwing Death Match (and slide show), inspired by my wife Alex's Scottish tradition of throwing (read: rolling) eggs on the lawn on Easter afternoon with her family and friends. It's was kind of gentlemanly bocce ball game, in which the last egg intact won. It really wasn't much of a stretch to turn it into an egg throwing battle of wills and fortitude. And so it begins . . .

Friday, March 21, 2008

Japan Travel Diary: Day 2 pt. 2

The first real day in Japan. It started with a bullet train to Kyoto from the airport hotel in Tokyo. When we got off the train, we were in the basement of a large department store. We wound our way up to a grand entrance/exit and then I saw it, a statue of Astroboy, the patron cartoon character of Kyoto. While in awe and begging for my wife to take a picture of me and the statute, we were approached by a small band of Japanese school children, all wearing the same ill-fitting yellow baseball caps and equally gangly red back packs. In broken English, peppered us with questions, they asked our names, what sports teams we liked, how we liked Kyoto, then their hands shot out with folded paper crane as a gift and one of the children, standing the furthest away, took our picture with disposable camera tied around his neck with a piece of twine. They then asked us to sign in their little signature book. All very cute.

However, as we walked parallel to the building towards the cab to the hostel, we were approached by wave after wave of school children, so quckly that I couldn't get my camera out before another wave asked if we liked soccer and forced a paper crain on us. The kids were running at us by the end, from all directions. Before we got in the cab I remember seeing a teach mouth "I'm sorry" in English with a slight shoulder shrug.

The rest of the day we got to explore the real Kyoto of the Gion district, filled with tea houses and geisha, litterally. It was rather daunting. We couldn't, and still can't read any Japanese and were jet lagged form the trip. Because all the tea houses had only Japanese signage, we started slightly starving. I filled my belly with some street food, which was barbecued mochi, with sweet soy sauce. Picture a firm marshmallow with barbecue sauce. I liked it, Alex . . .not so much. Because of our culture shock, we retreated not to our traditional Japanese room, complete with futons and tatami mats, but an Irish Bar(!) staffed by a frenchman. It was a cool place burried as most swank places in Japan on the 7th floor off a narrow, windowless building. In Japan, it works. Just ask the other places we saw like, "Club Boob" and "Atomic Cock Tattoo".

*The Yona Yona was a canned barleywine that was delicious and the Yebisu was the less Budweiser-y alternative to the ever present Sapporo and Kirin.