Pick-A-Day

March 2024
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Kanayama Shrine – the local penis-venerating shrine of my choice in Japan

I’m spending tonight in Kawasaki, Japan – which means that I’ve skipped the South Korean part of my trip. That will be addressed later.

The reason I am here is that tomorrow morning – Easter in the Christian world – Kawasaki will be hosting Kanamara Matsuri – the festival of the steel phallus.

Yes, that […]

49 States… plus DC and Guam

Me at the Southern Most Point of the 50 United States.

One of my long-term goals is to visit all 50 United States.

Such a stereotypical photo of Hawaii, eh?

My 49th State was Hawaii – time zone speaking 12 (now 11) hours different from Germany. Honolulu was supposed to be a non-stop […]

Japan – I was there.

The end of my Asian trip was Japan – I flew up there from Guam. While I enjoyed my time in Japan, the trip was too brief with too many stops, which made for a trip that, while fun, was exhausting.

Originally I had planned to fly from Guam to Hiroshima, but a mere two […]

Visiting the Itsukushima Shrine

Posing before the famous gate.

In addition to the obvious attraction, Hiroshima is also well known for the Itsukushima Shrine, a Shinto shrine with a floating gate on the nearby island of Miyajima. Reportedly it is one of the three most beautiful sites in Japan.

The Itsukushima Shrine gate.

I popped over there […]

Gay Hiroshima

I did not set out to make this trip a party trip – this trip was, first and foremost, about seeing baseball games, while engaging in a bit of nuclear tourism. But that’s not to say I didn’t look up information about gay Hiroshima.

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of information about gay […]

Not to Carp, but I went to Hiroshima to see BASEBALL!

Welcome to Mazda Zoom Zoom Stadium, 3rd base side, 14th section, row 30, seat L231.

I will readily admit that the reason for my Japanese vacation is completely and utterly insane.

I went to Japan to watch the Hiroshima Toyo Carp play baseball.

At some point it occurred to me that I haven’t been […]

Hiroshima Peace Park

My first morning in Hiroshima was dedicated to visiting the Peace Park and related activities.

Monument in Memory of the Korean Victims

It’s a slightly odd, and convoluted, reason that I decided to visit Japan and, specifically, Hiroshima, this summer. While I actually had a number of choices as to which city I could […]

Planning the Journey: Things About Japan that Already Surprise Me.

At some point in the future I’m going to pop over to Japan for a few days vacation.

This will be the furthest east I have travelled (or west, but I haven’t ever crossed the Pacific, and Japan is certainly east of Germany) and there are a large number of things about the trip that […]

Echoes across space and time – Wyoming from Germany: My Wyoming Monologue

Below is my piece for the Wyoming Monologues, a performance put on at the University of Wyoming last night, March 8, 2013, following a performance of the Vagina Monologues. I owe a debt of gratitude to Ian, Stephan, Jay, Alexander, and Bonnie for their helpful comments during the writing process. Further, it would […]

Historical Perspectives

Last week, for the first time in ages, ICQ served up a random, interesting conversation, rather than its usual parade of “sexy” people who want me to click their links.

A teenager from Japan privated me. He was (is?) writing a paper about the Weimar Republic and found my ICQ profile, which lists “Weimar” as […]