Saturday November 19

Today, as a reward for my 2nd place finish in a golf tournament, I received a) 20lbs of rice b) mushrooms) c) salad dressing) and d) 7 bottles of vegetable oil. The oil and dressing were part of a "gift set", nicely boxed and wrapped like a present. What a country.

Had my first ever eagle today, on a short par 4. The hole has a big left dogleg, but you can cut the corner if you can get over the trees in front of the green. I said to my playing partner on the tee "1 on, 1 putt", though not really believing I could do it. I hit a perfect high 7-iron, which dropped about 12 ft short of the cup and then calmly sank the putt. Tiger Woods fist pump. Like, 5 of them.

Japan seems rather obsessed with putting rather flowery English (sometimes grammatically correct but often not) on random things, especially food labels. Heres one from a cookie wrapper yesterday that caught my attention. "I am everyone's popular person. The child and all adults love me. It eats me of a sweet cookie." Check out www.engrish.com for hundreds of these.