Tomorrow we will row the last of the 180 km route around Lake Biwa that is the
2011 FISA World Rowing Tour, so far the people have been great, some of the food has been awesome (some has been incredibly disappointing - but none has killed me yet), the rowing conditions have been excellent... in the mornings, and sometimes treacherous in the afternoons. Here's a taste:
The start of day one, at the south end of the lake,
Seta Rowing Club & flags of most of the nations present (and some that were not, and some present nations' flags missing...)
The Swiss boat on day 6 (with 2 Aussies, a Dutchman and a Norwegian... only 1 Swiss) rowing by Takeshima island (the island of many views) in lake Biwa.
A delicious lunch for us on Mt Hiei... note the sign for us, please, I was dying of laughter for an hour I swear.
A silly photo I took of myself and Anne (Norway), in bow, during a water break... on day 3???
We were so famous in lake Biwa that the local paper in Moriyama (where we are stationed) had an article on the front page the morning of our second day rowing! That's my crew from day 1 pictured too - I bet you can figure out which one is me...
We rowed through this gate/shrine also, and this time Ursel (Dutch/Swiss) was in bow. Same day as the silly Anne picture, but apparently I can't remember which day we went through the gate. We have lots of seating changes in the boats on the water, and crew changes daily so that we interact with all the people from all over the world! FUN!
This was quite possibly the best tuna sashimi on the planet. It will be pretty much impossible to top this lunch.
Everyone warned that there would be vending machines everywhere, but no one warned what would be in them. This one clearly features the strangely named beverage "
Pocari Sweat". I don't know what a Pocari is, but I picture something like the
Alot and I was extremely skeptical about drinking its sweat. Naturally, with the prevalence of the product my curiosity took over, and it's actually pretty good! Sort of like the lemonade flavour vitamin water, only with more flavour, and possibly less high fructose corn syrup (I'm only assuming that since there's basically NO corn here that I can see, that sugar is cheaper to use in Japan...)
Finally, I couldn't resist snapping this before leaving this shop with my green tea soft serve ice cream, which was delicious by the way. The green tea stuff is everywhere, and I know from Kingston days that green tea mousse pocky is pretty fantastic. I'm not so sure that replacing the chocolate in Kit Kats with green tea is a great idea; and I could NOT identify what green tea "treat" was being sold under the hilarious name "
Collon"... but it did give me the giggles.
"treats!"
I started this meeting off with a geology field trip called "cycling the Mississippi Gorge", it involved learning local geology, riding bikes, eating really yummy yogurt, making new GSA friends, and learning local "fun facts" like: when Minneapolis was emerging as an up and coming mill city it was also the biggest producer of prosthetic limbs, and no, not peg legs (I asked), real jointed top-of-the-line-for-the-early-1900's prosthetics. There was also this random park with giant polished slabs of hematite in it. And giant mirrors glued to other rocks. It was a little weird...
I was not presenting at GSA this year, but instead going to enjoy the meeting and be flashed momentarily on the 2011 Hall of Fame screen.
Oooh - there I am! Don't blink or you'll miss it! Really there was a big fancy (and extremely nerve wracking) luncheon with presentations and speeches and things. The 4 of us getting awards and our "citationists" (the people introducing us) all had to eat lunch awkwardly on stage while everyone in the audience got to eat their lunch while NOT sitting on stage, which would have been far more preferable.
There was an amazing quilt that someone had (painstakingly) made of the geology of Minnesota. Unbelievable!
I finished off the event with another field trip, although I completely FUBARed the original plan. I was supposed to go on a relevant field trip, but stupidly scheduled my flight back in the middle of the trip. Amazing. So, since I realized this exactly 1 week before the meeting I could not get a refund and changing plane/hotel would have been too expensive, so I traded trips. Unfortunately this other trip involved much less learning and cool geology and fun facts. I did find a handful of fossils, which I gave to a guy from New Zealand who couldn't seem to find any himself and was far too excited about these run of the mill crinoids and brachiopods.
The start of day one, at the south end of the lake, Seta Rowing Club & flags of most of the nations present (and some that were not, and some present nations' flags missing...)
The Swiss boat on day 6 (with 2 Aussies, a Dutchman and a Norwegian... only 1 Swiss) rowing by Takeshima island (the island of many views) in lake Biwa.
A delicious lunch for us on Mt Hiei... note the sign for us, please, I was dying of laughter for an hour I swear.
A silly photo I took of myself and Anne (Norway), in bow, during a water break... on day 3???
We were so famous in lake Biwa that the local paper in Moriyama (where we are stationed) had an article on the front page the morning of our second day rowing! That's my crew from day 1 pictured too - I bet you can figure out which one is me...
We rowed through this gate/shrine also, and this time Ursel (Dutch/Swiss) was in bow. Same day as the silly Anne picture, but apparently I can't remember which day we went through the gate. We have lots of seating changes in the boats on the water, and crew changes daily so that we interact with all the people from all over the world! FUN!
This was quite possibly the best tuna sashimi on the planet. It will be pretty much impossible to top this lunch.
Everyone warned that there would be vending machines everywhere, but no one warned what would be in them. This one clearly features the strangely named beverage "Pocari Sweat". I don't know what a Pocari is, but I picture something like the Alot and I was extremely skeptical about drinking its sweat. Naturally, with the prevalence of the product my curiosity took over, and it's actually pretty good! Sort of like the lemonade flavour vitamin water, only with more flavour, and possibly less high fructose corn syrup (I'm only assuming that since there's basically NO corn here that I can see, that sugar is cheaper to use in Japan...)
Finally, I couldn't resist snapping this before leaving this shop with my green tea soft serve ice cream, which was delicious by the way. The green tea stuff is everywhere, and I know from Kingston days that green tea mousse pocky is pretty fantastic. I'm not so sure that replacing the chocolate in Kit Kats with green tea is a great idea; and I could NOT identify what green tea "treat" was being sold under the hilarious name "Collon"... but it did give me the giggles.
Against Santa Cruz - I managed to sneak through the pack and get lead jammer status a couple of times. Here's a sneak move, and no, I'm not hauling that girl back by her shirt! I don't know what's going on there.
That ref hand signal means "lead jammer", all that power and glory didn't make me any less tired though!
Against Angel City (LA) we had a super tight game that occurred only because of a major come back. The game finished 100-98, you can see the score here. Yikes! I also picked this photo because that's me over on the edge there bumping their jammer out of bounds.
