sapporo, day 6

On the sixth day, some of my Japanese friends who had joined us in Sapporo left to go back to their schools and jobs. The rest of the team split up to do some sightseeing, and I joined a group of twelve who went to visit some museums and hot springs.

We took an hour-long train ride to the small town of Shiraoi where the Ainu museum was located. The Ainu, Japan's indiginous people, had set up a reconstruction of one of their villages, and we spent a few hours walking around there and learning about their history, and watching some traditional performances.

This is a statue at the entrance to the Ainu village.
These are some of the artifacts we saw in the museum. There was also a lot of interesting clothing there; the Ainu do not believe in depicting nature realistically in art, so all of their designs are abstract. While at the museum we also watched some Ainu singing and musical demonstrations, and tried to learn how to play a tiny wooden instrument kind of like a mouth harp. For lunch we ate at a noodle shop, and I had tempura ramen - a bowl of ramen with fried batter-dipped shrimp in it. It was delicious!
After the Ainu village, we went to Noboribetsu, a tourist-y town just a few train stops away. Because of the large amount of volcanic sulfur springs in the area, the region is called Hell Valley, and there are statues of all kinds of demons and ogres all over town. There are also a plethora of onsen, or community baths where Japanese often go to relax and treat their skin with different kinds of mineral water. Above is a statue of an oni, a kind of ogre.
Here is the sulfur springs just before sunset. We hiked some trails through the springs before some of the braver group members went to try out an onsen. The scenery was beautiful, but the smell was nauseating.
This stone marker was near a volcanic cauldron-like crater on one of the trails. The posts were scatterd around the park.

This is a statue in downtown Noboribetsu. The Spiderman figure was placed there by our coach. He always takes Spidey with him when he travels, and photographs the figure in strange or famous places.

sapporo, days 4 and 5

I didn't take any pictures on these days because we were rushing all day to get to performances in different parts of town. Some of the highlights involved dancing for a large audience on a baseball field in front of the Royce' chocolate factory, attempting an odori-style version of our song (dancing in a circle around a platform tower, and dancing our routine six times in a row parade-style on live TV.
We celebrated being the first American University team to be invited to the Yosakoi Soran festival at an after-party the night of the fifth day. We started at our hotel by watching the finals of the competition among the big teams on the TV in our hotel's lobby. Then we ate a dinner provided by the sister of one of our members, who worked at a family restaurant a ten-minute walk away. Then we went to a bar for drinks and food, and even after that some people were still awake enough to go out for karaoke, but a couple friends and I took a taxi back to our hotel to get some sleep. Five performances each day was enough to completely wear me out.

sapporo, day 3

On our third day in Sapporo, we moved from the hostel to a business hotel near Susukino, the downtown entertainment district of the city. Below is a picture of our hotel from the back. From the front it's just a concrete building; I didn't even notice the aqua and red paint until I was walking on the street one day.


After we checked our baggage into the hotel we walked about five minutes to a large open park with a view of the city. We had intended to practice there for our upcoming performances, but since we hadn't been able to officially check into the hotel until afternoon, we weren't able to change into practice clothes. Instead, we spent the morning attending an open house at the University of Hokkaido, a lengthy walk away.
The first thing we did at the open house was try to find lunch. All the different international student groups had stands set up, and everyone wanted us to try theirs.
This is where I was introduced to Japanese "advertising." While American student groups might yell out that they had fresh or hommade food, these vendors would walk around in costumes, carry signs, dress in costumes and practically sing and dance to get people to buy their food. I was accosted by one girl who wanted me to buy her ice cream. She literally grabbed my arm and started jabbering in Japanese. When I said 'wakarimasen' (I don't understand), she switched to English. "You like sweet? Yes? You buy our ice cream!" I didn't want the ice cream, so I settled for taking a picture with her, then moving on.
I actually ended up getting chicken shwerma for lunch. I never thought I'd have my favourite Lebanese food in Japan.
This is an elderly woman doing a watercolor of one of the historic buildings on the university's campus. We actually saw quite a few elderly people doing this scattered throughout the campus.

Later in the evening we went to watch some of the bigger yosakoi teams perform on the big stage in Odori Park. This was what we had come for. It was so cool to be in an environment where everyone knew what Yosakoi is, and where competition for the top spot is as competetive as a major US sporting tournament.

I believe this is the team that eventually won second place overall. Teams are judged based on their energy level, costume and makeup, costume changes and use of accessories. There are also requirements for the music. This group did one of the more traditional performances.

This team didn't do a lot of traditional yosakoi moves which kept them from making it to the finals, but it was the most memorable performance I saw. The group were dressed as train conductors, and the music involved a lot of audial cues that were train whistles. The song had a lot of hip-hop influence, and the dancers were the most synchronised I have ever seen. It was unbelievable how together they were - almost robotic.This group was all girls, and did a flamenco-style routine.Another traditional-style group.

This team had a lot of accessories, especially the flags in the back. The taiko drummers in the front were really cool, and there were even two tiny kids doing taiko drums. When the drumming part was over, a dancer picked up the littlest kid and ran off the stage with him to make room for a formation change. In a few days we would be dancing on the same stage.

sapporo, day 2

(More photos on flickr - I seem to have removed my day 2 pictures from the computer. Oops.)

The second day in Sapporo we were a little more oriented with our surroundings, so it didn't take us long to walk to the nearby convenience store in the subway to find something for breakfast. I tried a sesame pastry and some juice that contained fruit and vegetables, notable radishes. That was the one drink I tried in Japan that I would rather not repeat. After breakfast we started practicing the dance routines we'd been working on for months. There was actually a little gym in our hostel so we practiced there. The TV crew came to videotape us practicing; it was a little intimidating, but we learned to ignore the cameras and just perform.
At lunchtime, we walked to the nearby 24-hour supermarket and got some food from its bakery. I learned that in Japan, what appears to be one kind of food is often another once you take a bite. I got a sandwich containing what I thought was a breaded fish patty on lettuce. When I actually bit into it back at the hostel, I discovered that it was some kind of creamy potato concoction that had been breaded and fried. While it was delicious, it definitely wasn't fish. We also got to sample white bean sweets, traditional dainty desserts.
In the afternoon we practiced again, and after practice the Sapporo TV crew took us on a tour of some of the city's attractions to tape our reactions.


This was the first place they took us, Mt. Moiwa. It is a small mountain that overlooks the city of Sapporo. They treated us to melon-flavored ice cream, a Hokkaido local specialty. We also spent some quality time in the mountain's gift shop, which abounded with cell phone accessories, Hello Kitty memorobilia, and trinkets related to the marimo, a strange type of local algae. Of course they had personified it into a living character as well, and there were numerous marimo puppets, dolls and keychains and things of that sort. It seems that every living thing in Japan can be characterised as a cute cartoon character. There were cartoon raccoons painted on the sidewalks telling children to look both ways before crossing the street. There were cartoon stuffed animals of every kind in arcades across the town. My personal favourite was a cartoon crying pudding in a job-searching advertisement. It had a giant animated tear running down its vanilla-flavored face, and sobbed 'Find me a job!'

The next intent of the crew was to videotape me and one of my friends eating ramen in a ramen shop, but when our bus passed by the shop was closed. I was relieved; in Japan there is an art to slurping ramen noodles that I have not mastered, and I'm sure the tape would have been interesting. Of course I'm sure they were counting on some amusing mistakes, but I was relieved all the same.

Instead, we went to a Yaki-Niku restaurant. We received plates of various raw meats in courses, and grilled them over a charcoal grill set into the table in front of us. The restaurant was called Gaja, and the atmosphere was very upscale. There was even live lounge music while we were there. The meats we tried were very good, and ranged from pork and ground chicken to squid, and even beef cutlets, an expensive rarity in Japan. For dessert there was a small scoop of ice cream with the ever-present cornflakes as a garnish.

When we went back to the hostel, we were too full to have an intense evening practice, so we just limbered up and stretched for half an hour to get ready for practice the next morning.

sapporo, day 1

There are no pictures of my first real day travelling to Japan. That might have something to do with the 3:50 a.m. alarm before a two hour trip to the airport, followed by a flight to Chicago, then to Tokyo, then finally to Sapporo. On the plane I was either sleeping or talking to the people sitting next to me, who were both around my age, travelling abroad as well. One was returning home to South Korea after backpacking around Europe; one was meeting some friends in Tokyo before heading out to backpack in Thailand and Nepal. When we arrived at Chitose airport in Sapporo, everyone in the group was ready to nod off for the night, but we still had an hour bus ride and short subway trip before arriving at our hostel. When we did finally get there, there were reporters from Sapporo TV there to interview us for a documentary they did on our Yosakoi group, since we are the first American team to ever perform in the Sapporo Yosakoi Soran festival. We settled into the hostel, which was actually very nice, found a nearby convenience store for some food, and then turned in for the night. My photo-taking started the next morning.
This is the bell tower of a Buddhist shrine near the hostel that we ran across while looking for somewhere to eat breakfast. According to Buddhist tradition, you ring the bell to wake the god living in the shrine, then deposit some money in an offeratory box, say a prayer, clap two times, and bow before leaving.This is more of the temple at the shrine. There were other statues and a small garden there as well.This is the vending machine in our hostel. While in Japan, I never saw any vending machine with food, but these drink-dispensing machines were on almost every corner. They had all kinds of drinks ranging from beer to coffee to juice and soda, and even an interesting concoction called a pudding shake that tasted fine, but had a slightly repulsive texture.We finally found a place to eat after checking out all our options. In Japan, breakfast is quite different from the U.S. There are no sweets like the pastries or pop-tarts we might have, and cereal is almost unheard of. A typical breakfast might consist of miso soup, some kind of potato, or salad. This is a rice burger from MOS Burger, Japan's equivalent of a Starbucks for burgers.The MOS in MOS Burger stands for Mountain, Ocean, Sun. This particular one was a very short walk from the hostel, and offered more standard burgers as well as parfaits and coffee. This is a dish called doriye, which I had for lunch. We ate at Victoria, a western-style sit-down restaurant complete with forks and spoons, and a salad and soup bar. The food, though, was uniquely Japanese, and so were the drinks. Soda in fruit flavors like melon and apple are common in Japan. This doriye contained shrimp and squid in a white sauce over wheat noodles.
Later in the day we went to rehearse for the opening ceremony of the Yosakoi Soran festival. This is one team getting ready to rehearse. Across the street is the back of the bleachers where the spectators sat facing the main stage. Announcers and TV crews sat at the top of the platform to film the stage.
After our first performance, we all went to eat dinner at an okonomiyaki restaurant. Okonomiyaki are cabbage pancakes, and we got dishes containing the ingredients for the pancakes, which we cooked ourselves in a small stove set into the short tables we sat around. The tables were only about a foot off the ground, and we sat on cushions around them. There were several other things we could fry as well, such as shrimp and vegetables or spiced rice.
This was dessert. The cup was filled with strawberry milk and cornflakes, which we fried together with the whipped cream and fruit from the top.
Ours turned out a little runny because we added the milk too soon, but it tasted good all the same. It was fun to get to cook our own food and hang out as a group after an exhausting day of getting used to Japan, and ready for the rest of the festival.

coming soon

First, some changes to my format under the assumption that simpler is better.

Also, I'll be recounting my trip to Japan, along with some pictures I took while I was there. All I can say is Sapporo was awesome!

i'm off

Well, I'm off to spend the night at a friend's house, before carpooling to the airport at 4:30 tomorrow morning. There won't be posts for the next two weeks (but you're used to that, right?) Hopefully I'll be able to put together a summary of the trip and some pictures when I get back.

Sayonara!

six days...and counting

I am actually going to Japan.

Now that it's within a week until I jet off to Sapporo, it's actually starting to sink in that I will be spending 11 days in a country that one year ago I never would have dreamed of traveling to. There are lots of things I'm looking forward to, like:

- Yosakoi community. We're actually going to be interacting with hundreds of groups who do the same thing we do! Here in the U.S., the typical reaction when I say I dance Yosakoi is "You do what?" or at the very least, "Oh, you're in that Asian dance group." When we practice in the student union, we've been mistaken for the ballroom dance club (which meets next door) and a karate demonstration. It's going to be fun to hang out with people who know what yosakoi is.

- East meets West. It will be interesting to see the combination of Western technology and development with Eastern art and thought. Where else can you see Shinto shrines set up next to skyscrapers?

- The food. I don't claim to be an expert on Japanese cuisine, but eating food that is so different from what I'm used to should be a cool experience.

And then there are some things that should prove interesting, although a little uncomfortable. Among them:

- Community bathing. Enough said.

- Japanese style toilets. You have the choice between traditional Japanese style, and modernized Western style toilets, both of which are a bit intimidating. Luckily, the internet abounds with information on exactly what they are, and how to use them. Interesting articles here and here.

- The language barrier. Although we'll be with a lot of people who speak both Japanese and English, I'm sure I'll run into a situation where I won't have them as an interpreter. I guess that's why I'm practicing my Nihongo now. Too bad my Japanese I class doesn't start until next semester.

All in all, I'm looking forward to the trip. Now if I could just get all my packing figured out...

summer reading, a little cooking and passport woes

Finally, the last thing standing between me and an 11-day trip to Japan is my University post office's ability to obtain and hold onto my incoming passport. It has been a nerve-wracking series of events that has taken place over the past three and a half months.

It all began in late January, when I decided that I actually was going on my Yosakoi group's trip to Japan, and that getting cleared for international travel was going to be a necessity. Apparently if you are going to do that, you need one of these:

I applied for mine of February 22, apparently the beginning of the busiest season for obtaining passports. The new laws about needing passports when traveling to Mexico and Canada by air are making this pretty much the hardest time ever to get such authorization. However, "You won't need expedited service," the man at the passport office told me. The trip being months away, and wanting to save an extra $60, I took his advice.

It is now two weeks until I leave for Sapporo, and only this morning did I find out that my application was completed and mailed. However, since I moved out of the dorm address where I was anticipating receiving the passport, I will have to have my university's post office hold the passport for me so I can come pick it up, because they do not forward passports, according to the National Passport Information Center. It's a relief knowing the application is actually processed, but until I hold the little booklet in my hand, I'm not going to be completely at ease.

So, other than waiting for my passport to arrive, what have I been doing with my one week of summer so far? (That is, besides not updating my blog.) I have been...

- Reading. It seems college has ruined my ability to read, or at least complete, a book for pleasure. So I am working to regain that ability. Right now I'm working on The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. So far, so good.

- Cooking. I made sushi and okonomiyaki (cabbage pancakes) for my family the other night, as well as some very tasty green tea tapioca-filled cupcakes. Yum.

- Working at a local college library, and searching for a second part-time job.

- Practicing my Yosakoi skills and running in preparation for the Yosakoi Souran festival in Sapporo.

I'm excited for the trip, but at the same time it's nice to be home for awhile.

finals week

I am still alive.

I guess the recent lack of posts has been because I'm actually getting some stuff accomplished, so maybe I can claim productivity over inconsistency.

Anyway, it's getting down to the end of my first year of college. It's been a blast. I'm really going to miss some things here during the summer, like:

- Making my own waffles for breakfast, and mixing in blueberries or chocolate chips whenever I want.
- My awesome room and the people who randomly drop by every day.
- Being within five minutes of Wal-Mart, a coffee shop and an Oriental grocery store.
- Being able to walk through the student union and hear five different languages.

But I'm also looking forward to some things I'll be able to do away from school this summer:

- Try out some new recipes on a real stove and a real oven.
- Read a book for fun - textbooks have practically killed my ability to do so.
- Go to Japan!....if my passport gets here in time, that is...
- See my friends and family from home.

I can't believe there's only a week left...

japan festival

Last weekend was the Japanese festival at my school. Japanese student groups (including my Yosakoi group), students in Japanese classes and the community came together for the festival, which turned out to be a lot of fun. A lot of preparation including advertising, setup and performance practices paid off.




Here is a giant fan with the word "matsuri," or "festival" written in Kanji. It was set up by the registration table.

This sign was set up outside a room where the traditional tea ceremony was being demonstrated. It shows the proper way to hold the tea cup.

Japan is famous for traditional flower arrangements called "ikebana." Here is one such arrangement.

This is a geisha doll in traditional dress.

Someone receiving a lesson on the shamisen, a four-stringed guitar-like instrument.

Yosakoi danced at the end of a two-hour series of performances including singers, a boyou dancer, and a storyteller. Here taiko drummers are performing a song on their drums.

I helped in the Traditional Toys room. In this game, you remove the hammer from the center of the stacks of blocks. Then starting at the bottom of the stack, you try to knock out the bottom block without knocking over the entire tower. I was really bad at this game, but there were some little kids who were really good.

This is another tricky game. You're supposed to swing the ball up into the air and catch it in one of the cups at the top of the stick. Then, if you're good, you can flip the stick over and catch it in the cup on the bottom of the handle. I never got past step 1.

Most of the day I helped kids with three different kinds of top games. This little guy was determined to get the big tops to spin.

These are a variety of paper cranes folded by the people in the origami workshop. There is a Japanese folk tale that says if you fold 1,000 paper cranes, you will have your wish come true.

obi

I tied it myself! Granted, it took three tries and it came loose later, but at least I know how to tie an obi now. Putting on yukata is a lot harder than it sounds!

This week was international week on my campus, and my yosakoi group performed four times, last night being the biggest show. It was a really cool show - we got to have awesome lighting effects and perform on the most prestigious stage at our university. Plus, we got to see other international student groups perform: dances from Nepal, flute playing from Sri Lanka, a Hispanic maypole dance, music from India, and a singer from the Philippines.

And afterward, I got to go out for ice cream with my roommate and her family. A pretty sweet day, all in all.

new skin

Again.

I'm not sure I'm done. But Clowngirl was right; it was just too industrial. And the previous layout, too autumnal. And this one...too chintzy? I'm not happy with it yet. But it'll get there.

amusement amidst boredome

Tuesday morning in my Sociology class, I was extremely bored. There is nothing new about this, except that on Tuesday I decided to sit in the very back of the classroom so I could leave right away for my advising appointment. This meant instead of sitting in the third-to-front row where I may as well have been the only student in the classroom, I was sitting back with the people who were sleeping, surfing the internet, or doing calculus homework. (One boy did this throughout the entire class. He was so concentrated on his math that he didn't look up the entire class, and spent a good deal of it entering equations into his calculator. I was impressed.)

My professor and her TA were trying to hook up a DVD player to the projector to show a film, and while the screen was calibrating, it turned white and brought up a message:

[BLANK SCREN]

I found this amusing for several reasons:

1. My teacher and TA can't seem to get the DVD player to sit there and be ready to play. It has to be re-started every time.

2. The fact that whoever designed the initializing screen apparently didn't take the time to spell-check their work.

3. The simple irony that due to the huge message 'blank screen', the screen is not actually blank.

It's the little things that get me through the day...

echoes in a vacuum

Some days cyberspace scares me.

It's just so...BIG. To think that even a few people filter through the cracks and end up here, lingering long enough to post a comment often amazes me. Why do we do it? Blog, I mean. Do we do it just as a personal catharsis, or in hopes that someone might catch our words and holler back?

It seems that as the internet becomes a more integral part of society, we seem to hope for those answering calls. Sites like Flickr, YouTube and Vimeo allow us to post snippets of our personal lives - kind of like bait - and see if anybody bites. Sometimes the videos are boring home videos or stupid pranks. But sometimes they're touching portraits of one life, questions about humanity, or platforms for social change.

There are even some websites, like takenote.com that exist for the express purpose of posting a note that may be completely meaningless to anyone else ("What exactly is vegemite?" or "Dearest Lester, Why does it appear that your beard is stuck on with 'silly putty'?") Some of these notes, however, can be quite profound. ("Be the first domino." "Love, like paint, can make things beautiful when you spread it, but dries up when you don't use it.")

When I started this blog, I wasn't exactly sure how long I would keep it up, or what the purpose of the blog would be. I'm still not sure about either. I've probably used the blog mostly as a way to fire off random thoughts and see what happens. Most of the time it's meaningless stuff ("I have a lot of homework!" "I liked this quote a lot." "I suck at consistency.")

But at the same time it feels good to have a networking opportunity, as virtual as it may seem. Another note from takenote.com sums it up pretty well. Maybe the intrigue in blogging is not just to say what we've done, but to "meet" someone who's done that too.

"Hello Stranger,
Just like you, I love, suffer, and yearn. We're not very different."

musical prank

My linguistic anthropology professor showed us this video in class today, since this is supposedly the time of year when students begin to suffer boredom in class due to spring fever, approaching finals, etc. It was a lovely idea for a prank, and expertly executed. Brilliant!

Christ is risen!

By descending into Hell, He made Hell captive.
He embittered it when it tasted of His flesh.
And Isaiah, foretelling this, did cry:

Hell, said he, was embittered
When it encountered Thee in the lower regions.
It was embittered, for it was abolished.
It was embittered, for it was mocked.
It was embittered, for it was slain.
It was embittered, for it was overthrown.
It was embittered, for it was fettered in chains.
It took a body, and met God face to face.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took that which was seen, and fell upon the unseen.

O Death, where is thy sting?
O Hell, where is thy victory?

Christ is risen, and thou art overthrown!
Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen!
Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is risen, and life reigns!
Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave.
For Christ, being risen from the dead,
Is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
To Him be glory and dominion Unto ages of ages.

Amen.

- from the Paschal Homily of St. John Chrysostom

Happy Easter to all! Xristos Anesti!* Al Maseeh Qam!** Harisutosu Fukkatsu!*** And 'Christ is Risen' in whatever other languages you happen to speak!

* Greek (of course ;)
**Arabic
***Japanese

holy week

Today, He who hung the earth upon the waters is hung upon the Cross.
He who clothes Himself in light as in a garment stood naked at the judgement.
He who is the King of the angels is arrayed in a crown of thorns.
He who wraps the heavens in clouds is wrapped in the purple of mockery.

It's nearing the end of Orthodoxy Holy Week, the week before Pascha (Easter). I'm looking forward to going home tomorrow to celebrate the Good Friday lamentations, the Saturday morning liturgy, and finally the glorious Pascha service itself, late Saturday night into Sunday morning.

You can find out the basics about Orthodox Holy Week here.

gullible

Have any of you heard of a website called Peter Answers? It could be one of the creepiest but most convincing practical jokes anyone has pulled on me. If you don't want to put your closest friends through trauma that may require therapy to recover from, don't use it to pull the joke on them. If this particular problem doesn't bother you, then by all means use it to mess with their unsuspecting minds.

Let me explain.

Last night I was hanging out in one of my friends' rooms, talking and being bored in general. One friend, who I'll refer to as Tyler in order to protect the not-so-innocent, was messing around on his laptop. "Have you guys ever tried this Peter Answers website?" he asked us.

I peeked over his shoulder, seeing what looked like an answer-generator, one of those things you can type a question into and get a random answer that might be vague or amusing. Something on the level of fortune cookies and magic eight balls. Had I noticed the title 'virtual tarot' in the corner, I probably would have backed out right away. I'm not one to dabble with the supernatural. I don't even read my horoscope, just for fun.

Anyway, he explained: "You can ask it any question and it will give you a specific answer," he said. He demonstrated by typing in the question "Who is in the room right now?" The only stipulation? You had to first type "Peter, please answer the following question:..."

The computer answered, "Gretta, Becky and Laura."

Creepy. It was right. "It spelled my name wrong," I said, beginning to wonder if he was pulling a prank. He didn't seem to be typing anything besides the question, and nobody else in the room was sending him a message from their computer. He kept asking it questions, which it answered correctly - about articles of clothing people were wearing, things that had happened to us that day, and a noise outside the room. By this time, I decided it was best to leave the thing alone. I didn't know if Tyler was just messing with us, or if we were really getting into something we shouldn't be.

Then, in response to a question Tyler typed in, it answered with a question: "Are you scared, Orthodox Christian?"

That buzzed me to the core for a minute. Then I realised, why should I be scared? My faith is more powerful than anything that computer could have inside it. I was determined that I was not going to let whatever was going on get me upset, and just to stay away from it. By this time I was on the opposite side of the room, trying to ignore the questions it was answering about Becky, who was convinced it was some kind of trick.

A few minutes later, we discovered that the site was a hoax. Tyler showed us that when you type in the phrase "Peter, please answer the following question:" you first type a period. The cursor appears to type out that phrase, but you can actually type in the answer to any question you have decided to ask, then hit the period again. When you type in the question and hit enter, the answer appears.

So, I learned some things about myself. One, I should be quicker to rely on my faith rather than let weird circumstances mess with my head. Two, I am probably one of the more gullible people others might find it fun to pull similar pranks on. Regardless, I should probably be a little quicker with my practical reasoning skills. And stay away from time-wasters on the computer.

Looking back on it, though, I'm impressed by Tyler's ability to keep a straight face through the whole thing. I bet he found our reactions pretty amusing.

look!

On a bored whim, and the suggestion of my roommate, I joined Stumble (stumbleupon.com), a site that randomly generates sites I might be interested in, based on categories I selected that are interesting to me. These photos, and many more at Creative Photos by Chema Madoz are thought-provoking as well as aesthetically pleasing. Head on over for a gander, if you want.