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Today’s  pic­tures are from the trip to Hiroshima, Mya­jima, and Iwankuni.  They’re under the cut, and they are big. This is the Kin­tai Bridge, built by a samu­rai lord, Yoshikawa Hiroyoshi, in 1673.  It was washed out by a typhoon in 1953 but was rebuilt.  It’s high arcs and wooden struc­ture remind me of the spine …

I’m sit­ting near the open win­dow of my room on the ninth floor of the Aster Plaza Hos­tel.  The cool night air mixes with the lights of build­ings and streets light and with the sounds of traf­fic flow­ing over the city’s many bridges.  The clos­est bridge, Aioi Bridge, just out of the sight-line of my …

Whew!  What a day!  My dogs are dog-tired, dog.  This rest is under the cut. Type your cut con­tents here. We took the JR (Japan Rail­way) train from Osaka sta­tion to Kyoto.   We grabbed the non-express, so the stu­dents got to see twelve smaller sta­tions along the route, along with hun­dreds of small rice fields. Many …

We’re here, finally.  Our con­nec­tion out of Dulles was delayed due to mechan­i­cal prob­lems, but United held the flight to Osaka for us. I was amazed. It’s late here, and we’re headed to bed after a meal of cur­ried rice and pork, radish, and tea. Tomor­row, it Kyoto, where I’ll take pic­tures. ‘Til then.   …

Five hours from now, I’ll begin the full day of travel it will take to get to Japan.  Along the way, I will ride in a car, a tram, a prop, a sub­way, a jet, another tram, another jet, a bus, a bul­let train, and then, I will walk two miles through thou­sands of peo­ple …

This month’s Bill’s Best Books col­umn has been posted to the ALAN Online. Books Reviewed are: The Ghost In Allie’s Pool The Mid­dle Of Some­where Open Court Leav­ing Par­adise Girl Over­board Right Behind You Red Spikes True Tal­ents Harm­less Sammy Keyes And The Wild Things A Field Guide To High School Kat Got Your Tongue

The Dis­cov­ery Chan­nel has a show I’m sure you’ve seen or heard about, Dead­liest Catch.  It’s a run­ning series about a fleet of real-life crab­bers work­ing the Bering Sea.  The money’s is fan­tas­tic, the weather is wretched, and the chances of fish­er­men dying are pretty high. Dis­cov­ery Chan­nel has another series, Lob­ster­men, about a group …