Space Crusade & planning the trip

..well, playing Space Crusade, thinking of planning the trip yet consuming alcoholic beverages instead.

Yeah, that's how these things usually go. I bring a pile of printed maps, red marker pens and a head filled with ideas and enthusiasm. 15 minutes later I give up since everyone else is drinking (and playing Space Crusade, wtf?) and telling me to quit nerding at the computer. So much for deciding the schedule & islands we're gonna hit. So, instead you have yours truly blogging (despite the rest of the gang yelling at me) here while knocking back shots of Pepsi infused with vodka.

Personally, I can't be arsed to try out Space Crusade myself (the rulebook just doesn't seem that inviting during these nights), but I have to admit, it makes one hell of a spectator sport. Let me get this straight. The game itself doesn't seem that interesting (I assume it's due to not knowing or playing the game myself, I expect someone to tell me an unsophisticated fool such as me doesn't understand the depth of this game's fineness. And hell, they'd probably be right), but surveying the players even without having any knowledge of the game itself is like watching the fights in the middle of hockey games. Priceless.

The quarrels about the rules that aren't stated clearly enough in the rulebook, the explosions of rage when someone throws a double 2 three times in a row, the epicaricacy of when someone fails miserably.. The entertainment value of this game is almost infinite. Make that infinite to the 4th power when the players are intoxicated. 5th power if you as the spectator are. Infinite to the n:th power if all the participants are under the influence of alcohol.

Seriously, this should be a sport in the Olympic games. The winter and the summer Olympics.

I'll get back to you once they settle out the scores. Unless I'm too focused on the beverages by that point.

Anyway, ttfn.

Return of the dumbasses

So, it's that time of the year again huh?

Spring is on its way, along with all the allergies, gastric flus, and of course, travel fever.

Despite the recent events, it's about time we did one of our recurring trips to Japan. We figured this would be as good of a time as any, and if nothing else, we could at least try to give our local friends in Tokyo something else to think about for a moment. Such as worrying about two drunken Finns with a high accident proneness and no instinct of self preservation whatsoever.

Anyhow, since we will have no business going to Sendai or Fukushima (nor probably Hokkaido or the northern parts of Honshu), we thought we'd spend that extra time somewhere else, and opted for the Ryūkyū Island in the south. We're still in the process of narrowing our options of islands down to three or four (since we won't have more than 1-1,5 weeks for the purpose), though we've almost made up our minds. I'll come back to the matter of islands of choice once we're actually there.. which is about three weeks from now. I can barely restrain myself.

That's basically it in a nutshell. I won't go into detail about the rest of the destinations, but you may at least expect diving, climbing and scootering around. Hinting too much there? Perhaps, but the locations might still be a surprise! Cold can be hot, scooters can be turtles, and even if the water boils it doesn't mean the paper is burning! Father, I'm a frying pan!

..right, I'm rambling again.

Off I go then.

Happy New Year

So, it's officially 2010, what'd you all do the past year?

TampioTravels chose to celebrate Suzuki-san's last day as the manager of Samurai Cafe while trying to put all the mistakes of last behind us, and afterwards we went to Sensôji temple to do the first prayers of the year around 4 in the morning. Hell, I even bought a kimono for this rare chance.



Ahh right, I almost forgot. Earlier the same day we went to relax with the help of some games at the arcade, and Pekka, being the baseball star that he is, wanted to practice his swing:

Monja-yaki & Karaoke

Yesterday we cooked some Monja-yaki, Okonomiyaki, pork intestines and some miscellaneous (assumingly) edible things.

As always, we needed a few demonstrations before we get things done right.




Afterwards it was time for karaoke, and yours truly managed to find some Korpiklaani and Turisas on the songlist. The result was this:



We're truly sorry you had to see this.

Xmas dinner

For Christmas day dinner we couldn't get our hands on a ham, so instead we went for yakiniku at Gyukaku.

Not knowing what we should start with, we decided to try out most of the appetizers before going with the plate with 4 kinds of meat, including tongue, some shiitake mushrooms and zucchini. The appetizers included things such as chilled tomato, kimchee, poached egg, seaweed soup, and of course rice.

The dinner didn't seem that heavy or big, but it slowly started to fill us up afterwards. The price wasn't that high either, though it wasn't one of the lowest either. All together 6450 yen for the food + 3 beers, and you could easily leave the appetizers out of the picture and get more meat to grill instead. Also, there are eat all you want/drink all you want offers available, so if you're hungry, those might be your best bet.

So, that's it for our new neo-traditional Xmas meal, I have a strong feeling we'll be going back there.