I know I'm behind on my Kansai blogs, but I've been back up in Beijing for a bit and I've been racking up the miles on my bike... or kilometers as it were. 

I've been using my Nike+gps app (that I mentioned here) as much as possible too.  Keep in mind that this thing is designed for use by runners but I'm using it for tracking my bike rides.  I have encounter some bugs and problems  (apparently if the gps signal is weak at one point it stops measuring your progress and shows a warning window you'd only see if you weren't actually in the middle of exercising).... but despite that, its cool to see ones' progress measured and tallied -

Not too bad, it also compiles average pace and total run (ride) time and calories burned.  I wonder how many calories I've really burned since I'm not actually running. :-P


For those of us who are #'s obsessed, it has personal records too...  wow, 28:36 for a 10k, still slower than the world record for running! :-/


A few nights ago I took the long way home and enjoyed the nice night weather.... I even dared to viddy while biking... 

Tiananmen at night (last time was by foot, now by bike).

Long time etchy blog readers know I'm no fan of Mr. 'Double Guantanamo' Mitt Romney...   I'm also a big fan of James Lipton's "Inside the Actor's Studio".... and its parodies.   

Nice to see Lipton parodying himself and zinging Guy Smiley himself:

...he was too nice... :-P

Here's a fun Lipton parody:

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BwcCHyidMk

I can't believe its been 8 years since my first and only visit to Osaka Castle!    I found myself having a free day in Osaka so I went back to check it out.   



Osaka Castle's keep is unfortunately just a rebuilt concrete approximation of the original keep, which was burnt down and rebuilt a number of times.  The current version is made from concrete and steel and houses a museum devoted in large part to the castle's original lord, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, one of the Shogun who unified Japan in the 16th Century.


There's much more to a good Japanese castle than just the tower,  the best ones have a good system of fortifications... in this case very high walls and both an inner and outer moat.


Unforutnately going during the day, I was treated to an unending stream of noisy school kids from 6 to 16 years old...  kind of diminished my enjoyment of the museum....  stupid kids learning about history! :-P


Nice juxtaposition between old and new Osaka...

As this is a reconstruction and a museum inside, it doesn't have many windows on the way up,  the only view is from the top observation floor -



The tiger dolphin shark thing... the building on the right foreground used to be a military headquarters during the Imperial days (after the tower was burnt down before the end of the War).  Then it was turned into the Osaka City museum until a much newer, fancier building was built a few blocks away. 


Here's the "proof I was actually here" pic.   Less hair than my 2003 visit. :-P





Speaking of non-full heads of hair... a statue to Toyotomi Hideyoshi nearby the inner grounds.


Anyway,  check out Osaka Castle if you happen to be in the area.  Its worth the trouble to see the grounds and the museum... but of course is missing the most important part... seeing what a real castle looks like from the inside. :-P

I saw this one on the plane on my way to Japan a few weeks ago.  Its a crime drama / thriller based on a Japanese novel starring Oizumi Yo and Koyuki.   

Oizumi plays a private detective who is hired over the phone by someone to investigate a murder with Yakuza ties.    The key thing about this movie, and what I think I like most about it is the setting.  It takes place in and around the red light district of Sapporo in Japan's northern island of Hokkaido.   The setting makes it somewhat unique from a generic gangster type story (or one set in the default locations in Tokyo...) and rather than getting pushed into the ocean or dumping you in a shallow grave on some hillside (like they always do in HK movies...),  in Sapporo apparently the gangsters like to bury you under 20 feet of snow.

Photobombing Animals -