BACK HOME AGAIN IN INDIANA...

Home at last. But one of the perils of overseas travel is jetlag.

I've been trying to fight the good fight against "the tired" as I've been calling it, but it definitely caught up with me today.

I was so tired at work, that when I left the office today, I fell asleep on the couch the second I got home. I woke up a few hours later, only to move to the bedroom to sleep a few hours more. Now, I'm wide awake when I really should be sleeping.

Other than the jetlag, the trip was really great. As I posted in my Japan entry, the track is first-class all the way. They had a party at the Twin Ring Hotel and served some of the best Japanese food I've ever eaten. The sushi and sashimi was the best I've ever had, the Kobe beef was very tasty. And I had curried fried rice instead of the soy sauce fried rice.

Other than the bus ride to the race, there wasn't much time to sightsee. I spent a lot of time wandering the streets of Utsonomiya, which is the equivalent to the "Anderson" of Japan. Plenty of things to do. Just in the middle of nowhere.

On Sunday, we went to the Nikko Shrine. It was really beautiful and built in the 1600's by the family which first united Japan.
Pictures to appear on smugmug soon. We hiked around, and ate a very good lunch at a restaurant in Nikko town. It really helped that the brother of one of my co-workers and his Japanese girlfriend was there. He's an English teacher in Osaka, and has lived in Japan for 10 years, so it really helped to have someone like that around.

Other than that, glad to be home. Now if only I could sleep.

LAND OF THE RISING SUN

Note: I wrote a great long post in Japan, and through operator error and no Internet in the hotel, never posted the damn thing. Here it is, backdated through the miracle of technology.

Ohio Gozaimas (Japanese for good morning)

Well, I've arrived in Japan. I've been here before, but never outside of the airport. Twin Ring Motegi is a really beautiful track. It's located in the countryside of Japan in the Tochigi Prefecture (A province or state for the North Americans in the audience). Honda basically decided lop off the top of a mountain and build a racetrack. If not for all the Japanese signage everywhere, you'd swear you were in mountains of Tennessee or North Carolina.

So far, the trip has been a great experience. The people I work with from the track are very nice and our translators have been very helpful with the staffers who prefer to speak Japanese to English (Though their English is better than my limited Japanese vocabulary._ Lots of Japanese food so far, but there are some Western influences in the town where we are staying -- Starbucks and McDonalds -- which for the most part I am trying to avoid.

I've posted some photos from the trip here. They're from the Honda Collection at TRM. All the photos with me are on someone else's camera.

More later,

Arni

HAPPY EASTER

Well it's Easter Sunday. I hope every one had a good time with their families. I called my folks as I decided to stay in town for the Holiday weekend.

I'll be on my way to Japan in the morning. This is the furthest road trip I'll make for my job. We'll be in Motegi for the on-track stuff and staying in Utsonomiya. I'm really looking forward to the trip, but not the flight. It's 13.5 hours from New York to Tokyo. From there it's an hour bus ride to the hotel.

Still I'm pretty psyched for the road trip. I'll try to do a better job journaling on the trip.