Between Christmas and New Years, I traveled to Aspen to get some great skiing in and see Third Eye Blind (3eb). You know, the "Jumper", "How's it Going to Be", "Semicharmed Life" rock band from the 90s and popular when I was a freshman in college. I saw them earlier in 2007 at the Fillmore for their 10 year anniversary. It brought me back to those Freshman dorm room days, first in Dickson with Johnny Hoffa, and then later in Sheldon with Stevie B and company. I got psyched up about 3eb after both the Fillmore show as well as Eric calling and emailing me from all the east coast shows. So the decision to travel to Aspen, ski, and see 3eb was pretty much a no brainer. I had tried to convince the 'rents to spend Christmas in Tahoe, but that failed miserably, so I needed another ski trip.

I didn't know much about Aspen before going there. Like, for example, that every flight is delayed our canceled and getting in/out of Aspen is beyond crazy. The flight on the way in was delayed, almost diverted to Grand Junction, and had some sort of mechanical problem. It was one of only a handful of flights to land, with the other 20 or so flights diverted or canceled. Sometimes you do get lucky. As we're descending, the mountain out the window is staying the same distance away from the plane. Basically we're following the slope of the mountain down to the town of Aspen. Finally got to Aspen with a few hours to spare before the first of two sold out nights at Belly Up Aspen with 3eb, a nice small club that holds about 450 people.

The first night was fairly long with about a 2 hour set consisting of all the goodies, including Motorcycle Drive By, 1000 Julys, God of Wine, and all of the regulars (Jumper, Semicharmed Life, How's it Going To Be, Losing a Whole Year, etc). Great set. The second night, Steven Jenkins claimed to be sick and said he needed the audience's help. The set was only 80 minutes long, and has less of the rarities from the first night. Some pics taken with my iPhone are below.

After the show, I went over to 39 Degrees at the Sky Hotel. It is known as being an apres ski place, but it seems to turn into a "hit or miss" ultralounge late at night. We apparently were there on one of the "hit" nights, with tons of beautiful Aspen-ites (who, of course, are not really from Aspen but from somewhere else like Chicago or Long Island). After people watching for a while, we noticed 3eb come in the door, Jenkins, Tony, the whole crew. They sat a few couches away from us, and a flock of girls immediately jumped all over there. Let's just say that Jenkins didn't look too sick with his drinks and his girls around him ;)

Anyway, back to the good stuff -- the skiing. The conditions were great and there were a ton of areas at Snowmass that we could track out even though the last snow was a day or two earlier. The temperatures were below cold; one morning it was -11 degrees outside. That's Farenheit. I thought about that for a second -- 43 degrees ABOVE freezing (75 degrees for those that can't do math) is warm and comfy. 43 degrees BELOW freezing is just bone-chilling cold. Think about instantaneous frost bite. After skiing, we had a beer out at one of the outdoor apres places, and I do think that my beer got colder once it was brought outside.

Then, of course, came the time to leave again from the illustrious Aspen airport. The snow was falling sideways and the visibility was about 5 feet in front of you. Flights eventually canceled and have to stay in Aspen for the night. Put on a flight the next day, and sat next to a nice lady from Minneapolis who relayed all the stars that she saw during her trip -- William H Macy, Felicity Huffman, Eva Longoria (apparently all the desperate housewives were there), and a ton of others that I don't remember. I realized that even if I saw most of these people, I wouldn't recognize them with the ton of clothes that will be covering them to keep them warm. Although I suppose William H Macy is fairly recognizable. But the problem with all of these people in town is that it was impossible to get a reservation to any restaurant. Everything was booked.

Overall a great trip, the skiing at Aspen was surpurb, and I'd definitely go back. Although next time I'd go during a different time, when it is less expensive and family crazy with the Christmas/New Year's holiday. I'm looking forward to watching the Winter X-Games, which are held every year in Aspen. Although don't think of visiting Aspen during the X-Games, supposedly they are more booked up than during Christmas.

Below is the last pic from Aspen, finally boarding the plane out of there. You can see the nice big snowy mountains in the background.

I mentioned the crazy drinking things in Kyoto in a previous blog post. Basically, as you're hiking up this interminable path with the orange torii taunting you every step of the way (serious, if they could build these torii all the way up, why is it so hard for a normal person to walk up 250m in elevation without water? such lightweights we are).

And just to make something clear--you do not drink directly out of the wooden spoon thing. You pour it into your hands first. Us Americans are silly and unrefined, we think you just drink out of it. No. You heathens!

Anyway, below, in order, are a few pictures. (1) is the main water supply at the bottom next to the temples. (2) is the sign above it that shows what you should do (in Japanese, of course). (3) is a picture of what the same thing as (1) looks like, just about 220m up in elevation.

The Berkeley crew went out last night for a nice dinner on the river in Kyoto (at a "Yuka" restaurant). We had kaiseki (more info here) which is expensive but good. I've never directly eaten an entire fish, very odd.

Before kaiseki, we took a tour of one of the Geisha districts with the guy that showed the "Memoirs of a Geisha" crew around in preparation for the movie (I haven't seen it yet). A great time and highly recommended tour.

After dinner, we went out to a couple of bars and met some new Japanese friends. A picture of our new friends is below.

Saw the lunar eclipse from the deck of a Yuka in Kyoto. Eclipse was at 19:00 in Japan and lasted well into 21:00. Details of the eclipse was impressive and will be posted soon. More details to come...

Eddie and I have an unspoken rule that you must be photographed with an "Ithaca is Gorges" t-shirt when visiting a foreign land. This is especially true when the foreign land does not have the best comprehension of the English language. "Ithaca is Gorges" is lost on people in the United States; try explaining it to a non-native English speaker (fun exercise). Below you'll find my obligatory "Ithaca is Gorges" t-shirt.

This picture was taken at the Fushimi-Inari shrine. The shrine is incredible, mainly because you don't know what you're getting into, and once you do, you're amazed that anyone would put so much work into it. You arrive by commuter train, walk through a small village, and then see a ton of temples. You'd think the fun would end there, amazed by temples built a thousand years ago. But no. Instead, I decide I'll take a walk through the woods. As I move further from the temples, I see some orange torii in the distance. I walk though them, taking tons of pictures, thinking they're very cool. As I keep walking, I realize that the torii don't end--they are now going up steps and seem interminable. I stop taking pictures, because at this point I'm concentrating on my health (keep in mind that it is 95+ degrees and 120% humid, and I'm walking uphill at 1pm). I keep walking for what seems forever, when I stumble upon an opening with a tea house and shop. Whew, I must have made it to the top. Nope. I'm now at the start of a loop--a loop that is about 5 or 6 kilometers long--that winds up the mountain. Walking up the loop, I see shrine after shrine on the side of the path (all still covered by torii, mind you) with graveyards to accompany each shrine. The top is about 4km from where I spotted the first torii in the distance in the woods. And this is just the beginning--I haven't talked about any of the weirdness that you encounter, such as the multitude of fox statues (who are there to dedicate the way to the god of cereal grains--yes, cereal grains) or the nifty drinking stations. I'm told that the shrine is featured in "Memoirs of a Geisha", but I've never seen it. I'm also told that some 3 million Japanese flock to the area over the 3 days that comprise the new year around Jan 1st.

Want to know more? I have a ton of additional pics to show when I get back.

Written at 8:37pm, Sunday August 26 in Kyoto.

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