It's the simple things in life that make it worth living right? Right. The following little treasures were amassed for your reading/viewing pleasure. Sometimes the English is funny, sometimes overly serious, sometimes incomprehensible. Enjoy. :)
I love kindly feeling.
Yummy... fresh brain... 
Not sure what to think, but I do love dogs!
At the Karaoke bar:
Or else!
We were out on a day trip to the mall with a friend when he asked, "So, you guys want to come to the Dragons game with some of us?" Uhm, yeah! So we threw in our money for two tickets with the gang and head out on a Sunday afternoon to see the Dragons at their home, the Nagoya Dome.
Before getting in, we stopped by the mall (literally next door) for a little pre-game lunch and beverages. I had ramen. I missed the hotdogs and peanuts a bit, but I suppose we can't have everything. Then we met up with everyone and walked the 50 yards from the mall to the entrance. We filed in as security checked in our bags and punched our tickets.
We walked up to the appropriate section. A ways up but between home and first, so not a bad view. After having one of the Japanese members of our group ask a nice couple if we couple swap seats with them so everyone could be together, we settled in for the game. Below is a look at the dome.
I have to say, it was a pretty uneventful first half or so of the game. No one from our team was really scoring or even making bases. The crowd, though, kept up the energy with small plastic bats of sorts. They would use two of the bats together as noise makers and clap and chant in unison. There were the usual beer, coke, and food vendors there. But, if I remember correctly, they didn't holler as they walked up and down the aisles. Then, after the 7th inning break - which, by the way, wasn't the 7th inning stretch that I was hoping for - the game got much more exciting. It was like the team was just waiting until then to really play. 
As you can see, the Dragons hit 5 runs in during the 7th, and another run in the bottom of the 9th to finish the game. All in all, it was a lot of fun and the company was good, so I'd definitely go again. And, since it's in a dome, I don't risk the usual sunburn I get from going to the ballgame!
Almost one month ago, we had a long weekend. It was Japanese Golden Week. This means that practically the whole nation has a four day weekend. Many spend it traveling around Japan or short trips elsewhere. We decided to hop over to Inuyama. Inuyama is home to the oldest original wooden castle still in existance in Japan.
It took us a relatively short ride (40 minutes) on a local train to get to this city. The weather was great, so we were certainly lucky there. We got off the train and asked a local (well, she looked like a local to us) to point us in the direction of the castle. It's fortunate we asked, because right out of the gate, I think we would have gone the wrong direction. But anyway, we walked the 12 minutes or so over to the location of the castle. 500 yen got us tickets to the castle, a small but nice museum, and another small but nice Kabuki theater museum across the street.
The castle itself sits at the top of a rather large hill, and the stone path / stairs leading up to it are less than smooth. Before you can go inside, you have to take off your shoes and carry them around with you in a plastic grocery sack. Sacks provided. I have a theory that the city workers ask tourists to do this for 2 reasons. 1 - It's important to show respect for the construction that still stands, and 2 - To bet on how many tourists will fall down the polished and extremely steep wooden staircase inside. It was more like climbing a ladder with two-way traffic. At the uppermost staircase, people could not even go up and down at the same time. This led to a traffic jam or two.
The view from the top of the castle was really great. The top floor had a viewing platform around the outside of the building. While this area didn't scream safety, we still felt comfortable. I can't say so for the couple who were in front of us though. They were scooting around the outside of the building, backs to the wall.
After checking out the view, we headed over to the two small museums. Spending 5 minutes in each was totally enough time to get the scoop. I mean, the museums were super small. Really really small. In one were cool parade floats that are all lit up, and of course, wooden as well. Once checking out these, we decided to head back home. We'll have to go back to Inuyama again sometime. I hear that there is a nice Monkey Park to see. I'm assuming there are a lot of monkeys, but I'll withhold judgment for now.