Big Waves, Golden Rice

I woke up pretty early this morning and watched/listened to Daisuke Matsuzaka pitch a total stinker against the Orioles, who in turn spanked the Red Sox. Not an ideal way to start the day, but oh well.

After lazing around for the morning, I finally motivated on out of the house around 1 this afternoon. My intention was to head down to the beach and do some kite flying, but when I got to the beach there wasn't enough wind, so I ended up taking a nice walk along the shore. The waves were up pretty good today, and there were a few surfers in the water, but it was very sloppy, and these guys weren't very good, so I didn't see many actual rides.


I may have discussed this before, but this area is called the 'Coastal Community Zone.' It consists of a few hundred yards of beach, and behind that is a pretty extensive park with BBQ pits, beautiful open fields that are begging for someone to play frisbee on them, and a course on which to play this game:


I'm not sure what this game is called, but it's a combo of croquette and miniature golf. Players use wooden mallets to hit balls that are a bit larger than golf balls. They hit them off tees, but the ball basically skims/rolls along the ground. There are flags and holes, which seem to be a few hundred feet in length. I noticed that it was mostly old folks playing, but this game looks like it could be kind of fun. None of the frustrations of actual golf, and all the fun of mini golf on a bit larger scale.

The road down to the beach takes you through some pretty vast area of rice fields, which I always think about taking pictures of every time I go through them. Today I finally pulled over and snapped a few shots because the rice is taking on a really nice golden color. All through the spring and summer the rice is incredibly green, but this time of year there's a noticeable change. I'm not sure if it's because they've stopped irrigating the paddies ahead of the coming harvest, or if the trend towards golden brown is due to the color of the actual rice kernels (if that's what they're called).



I've also noticed a lot of the rice has fallen over in places, as if someone has walked through the paddies to tamp down the plants. I asked Chieko about this and she said its just from wind and rain. I guess the plants are quite top heavy at this point, so it doesn't take much to collapse them.



And if you've ever wondered what rice looks like before it goes into the box, here you go.




So while I didn't get any kite flying in, it was still a nice afternoon of wandering around.

I'm excited that the Patriots are kicking off their season today. They'll be on in about 3 hours, which unfortunately will be 2 in the morning here in Japan. I'll record the game using the Slingbox and try to watch it tomorrow evening after work. All signs are pointing to the Patriots destroying everything that gets in their way, but we'll see how the season plays out.

The football schedule is much less accommodating for me to catch games here in Japan. Most baseball games start around 8 a.m. here, which is perfect. But since most football games are on in the afternoon, it means they fall during the middle of the night here. The good news is that after this week I have the next two Mondays off, and I will surely be staying up until all hours to watch the Pats. With my luck they'll be playing the Monday night game one of those days.

Time for bed. Enjoy Sunday, go Patriots and Red Sox!