Wedding Reception (August 19, 2006)

Former Mt. Abe students (l to r) Frank, Sara, Dan, Yong-nam (honorary), and Travis.


Former Mt. Abe field hockey players (l to r) Jen, Kate, and Dana. There's also a pretty strong SLU connection going on in this picture.

Wedding Reception (August 19, 2006)

Wedding Reception (August 19, 2006)

Yong-nam and Frank trying to balance things out.


Mr. and Mrs. Welch during the early hours of the party.

Wedding Reception (August 19, 2006)

Wedding Reception (August 19, 2006)

Anna and Scott.


Mama An and Kayla reunited!

Wedding Reception (August 19, 2006)

Mama An sitting with Grandma and Grandpa.


The house that Grandma and Grandpa built.

The River

In front of Bartlett's Falls (New Haven River).


Just above Circle Current (New Haven river) in Bristol.

The River

Vermont

The Vermont Teddy Bear Factory in Shelburne, Vermont.


Church St. in downtown Burlington, Vermont.

Vermont

Hunting Dolphins in Japan

I didn't realize that the government here in Japan was complicit in the culling of large numbers of dolphin every year. I had always assumed that it was a private, somewhat localized practice.

However, it seems that the practice is alive and well, and despite the government's involvement it is still getting little coverage by the media in Japan. Many of the people that I have talked to (who have either grown up, or spent many years, in Japan) had no idea that dolphins were being hunted. This makes me wonder how it could be such a time-honored tradition in Japan (as government officials have claimed) when few people seem to know about it.

TPR has posted a video of the yearly dolphin hunt that is narrated by Joaquin Phoenix, so I recommend clicking on over there to watch it (if you just ate, I recommend waiting a couple of hours before viewing the video).

I wrote a little something about the subject of dolphin hunting last January, so click here for a related post from this blog (sorry, the articles linked to at the end are from three or four years ago).

Hunting Dolphins in Japan

How to Survive a Marathon in Tokyo

This photo was taken near Ichigaya station, and you can see how wet it was. A lot of folks have elected to run in ponchos (Tokyo Metro handed out literally thousands of them). The main pack of the race is just starting to enjoy some elbow room, so there were still lots of smiles at this point. We overheard one woman yelling out to a supporter, "Cho tsurai!" (which, loosely translated, means this sucks!) However, she too had a smile on her face.

While heading from Ichigaya to Mita to catch the race as it headed toward Shinagawa station, we noticed several marathoners jogging across the metro platform inside the station. They were all headed in the same direction, so it took us a while to figure out what was going on. It all became clear once we saw the runners go back the other way after a few minutes; the lines at the port-o-potties were pretty long (and cold!), so a couple flights of stairs are a small price to pay for a warm, dry toilet in the subway station.

How to Survive a Marathon in Tokyo