FALL COLORS ARE GETTING BETTER

A frenchie wishes you a Happy Thanksgiving, which is not celebrated in Japan with a turkey meal. However, more and more families do get together to express some thanks. With Japanese food. However, Kentucky Fried Chicken has become a Christmas tradition here.

In 1970 Takeshi Okawara opened the first KFC outlet in Nagoya.
In his fourth year, he launched a Kentucky for Christmas (KFC) campaign.
My Old Kentucky Home complemented party barrels of chicken in gatherings,
This practice has so much taken over that unless you advance order KFC days ahead of time, you will be left in the lurch.
Looks like I'll now need to fit-in a KFC meal before I leave Japan.

Our Japan train trip has shifted from lazy and disappointing to wow. Part of the reason has to do with the two Sheraton hotels in Hiroshima and Kagoshima, which are excellent. We also are eating a lot better because of these hotel breakfast and executive club. Plus we actually had an outing, a fabulous one to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, where we are finally now seeing more and more Fall Colors. Today I'll focus on our train rides and hotel scenes, and fully feature the Atomic Bomb memorial tomorrow.

A very sparse train meal of a tiny arabiki sandwich, sochu and beer, which all came (stolen?) from the Marriott Associa Hotel.

We whizzed by mountains that are beginning to change color.

Also passed by Himeji Castle, the largest such structure in Japan.

They have a trash bag lady on the train.

We checked into the Sheraton Grand Hiroshima.

View from room of the train station.

The meal served here in the Club Lounge was good. Minestrone soup and assorted appetizers, with scotch on rocks, red wine and sochu.

We got to talk to two Americans, Chris and Sarah. He is a naval officer stationed in Nagasaki, while, after an earlier high tech career, she is now just living it up. They do a lot of driving in their BMW throughout Japan.

Walked 8435 steps today.

Nice sunrise, followed by breakfast.

Two step breakfast.

Our hotel is adjacent to Hiroshima Station, and so close that I could hit a lob wedge shot from my table to the bullet train. Next to all the standard juices was this very large dispenser of KALE juice. Never saw that anywhere else before. Called Aojiru (green juice), it was developed way back in 1943, and popularized in 1983. It is also famously unpleasant to drink. Sometimes young barley or komatsuna leaves replace the kale.

In 1990, actor and former baseball player, Nobuo Yana was hired to make a commercial with the tagline, Horrible, I'll have another one. While high in vitamins and minerals, you need to be careful about reaction to certain medications.

So we said goodbye to the Sheraton Grand Hiroshima's Christmas tree, and walked to the train station.

My train bento lunch with sochu on ice and beer. All the drinks are confiscated from our hotels, and this particular box cost around $8.

Kagoshima Station.

The Sheraton Kagoshima is only a few months old, and provides a shuttle bus service. Went to their executive club and had a spectacular view of Sakurajima. That white puff is not a cloud, but is spewed out from this active volcano.

Notice the fancy toilet had a washlet, but something also to clean the toilet seat

So, again, Happy Thanksgiving.

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These a...

OSAKA EXPO: Day One

Well, the day finally came for us to go to the Osaka Expo. We were told ahead of time that the long walks would be fearful, giant lines will need to be tolerated just to get into the Expo, with those ocean breezes, it would really be cold, and so forth. Maybe it was pure luck, but we avoided all the above warnings We had a grand day, and are looking forward to Sunday, our second day at the Expo. So come along for an enjoyable ride. Our hotel is adjacent to the Tennoji Station, a very large one with several lines. We upgraded our Suica card and caught the Misosuji red line towards Umeda. Transferred to the Chuo green line at the Hommachi Station. This Osaka Metro train took us to the Yumeshima Station at the Expo site. It was a very large mob leaving the train and heading to the entrance. Took only a few minutes to get to the entrance. This mob was multiplied by at least a factor of ten of those already waiting to enter. However...

WHY YOU SHOULD CONVERT TO A JAPANESE HIGH TECH TOILET

Did you know that Oktoberfest in Germany is mostly in September? The very first day of Oktoberfest 2021 was supposed to be today, September 18, extending into October 3. Well, as in 2020, Oktoberfest was cancelled. So why is it called by that month when it is held mostly in September? The first celebration in 1810 was in October. Did you also know that Oktoberfest is held only in Munich? These days seven million drink more than a liter ( about three typical cans ) of beer each, costing around $11. Except for my wife and I when we followed the crowd to board the S-Bahn to the fairgrounds near Old Town. It was drizzling a bit. We bought a large pretzel outside of a typical barn where beer is served. We did not know that you needed to get this inside the hall. So no one came to serve us beer. After a while we decided to have lunch, and the restaurant we settled on only served wine. Thus, we might have been the ...

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