The Year of 52 Adventures

1月のAdventures

Brian here with a month of adventures.  4 weeks, 4 adventures.  The task (adventure?) of learning how to write a decent post is still unattained.  Awesome. I write more over at my regular blog, http://www.gaijinbash.com, click the links if you want to read more about each adventure.

1. Shinnenkai with my Motorcycle Riding Club

Shinnenkai is another excuse for people to drink in Japan. It roughly translates to let’s drink for the first time in the new year party. Hopped on the bike and headed down to the Izu peninsula. This is the one place near Tokyo where palm trees line the road and the beach, ocean, and sky aren’t all shades of grey. You can read more here.

2. Visit to an Abandoned Dinosaur Exhibition

Haikyo is the word for modern ruins in Japan. Mostly just hotels built during the bubble economy, these are the decaying reminders of overspending in a capitalist society. And they are totally rad! I have a fleeting interest in them, and make it out once in a blue moon. This time, I went to a dinosaur exhibition at a snake center. Read more about the dinosaurs here. And the freaky second part at the snake center here.  Be warned, photos of hella dead snakes.

3. Escort Pooey to Mt. Fuji

Pooey is the globetrotting mascot for the website advrider.org. The idea is simple. Take this litte guy on your bike somewhere cool, shoot a bunch of photos, post em on the site, and pass him on. He’s been to all 50 states, Australia, India, China, and now Japan. I took him up to Mt. Fuji. You can read more here. After the trip I took him to my High School and used him in an English lesson.  Hmmmm, maybe someday I could use 52 adventures in a lesson.

4. Help with an Article in the NY Times.

Yes, I have a website devoted to ramen. http://www.ramenadventures.com/ has been a big part of my life for a couple years now. It’s a passion that I haven’t taken much farther than eating bowl after bowl and writing my little blog though. So when NY Times write Matt Gross (the frugal traveler) mailed me to ask for help in an article he was writing, I was happy to do all I could. After a week with Matt, and another week with the photographer, the article is finally up. Check it out!

http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/travel/31ramen.html?pagewanted=1

That’s is for the first 4.  I’m predicting some interesting ones in February.  I have a ramen adventure just about every day, but I’ll try and keep it varied.  Run 20k in the mountains, learn basic motorcycle maintenance from a real mechanic, and buy a uniform for my fencing class are all on my calendar.  Does watching a bunch of episodes of 24 and Lost count as adventures?  Maybe not in America, but out here in the land of the big red sun, it’s some kind of challenging.