X-Radiation

Last night we went to a hunters izakaya in Kyoto. The taisho, Aoki-
san, hunts the game himself, picks the mushrooms and grows the
vegetables. It was an amazing dinner.

Here is the menu:

Wild boar
Steamed bear shoulder
Bear rump
Smoked goose
Miso yaki veg
Grasshopper
Bees and bee larvae
Wild shitake mushrooms
Grilled tofu
Black snake whisky
Red snake whisky
Okinawa snake whisky
Giant killer bee whisky
Wasabe leaf salad

Someone was streaming live video of Santa from Tokyo! The captured streams and some more pictures are on-line here:

http://blog.jibunya.com/?eid=1126484

 

My friend Santa Trevor has posted his pictures for your enjoyment! You can see the rest of his pictures at Trevor`s  gallery

 

There`s something special about little girls drinking big bottles of booze.

Santacon Tokyo was great! I didn’t bring a laptop so there is a delay
posting pictures while I wait to get on one.

Cheers,
-X

Somehow, after all the rerouting and a two hour delay in the Tarmac,
possibly caused by security cocern over my bag tags that didn’t match my itinerary and the fact that they tried to stop me boarding because even though I had a boarding pass it wasn’t in their system, I and my luggage arrived at the same time. Oyabun Santas luggage arrived a few hours later, having made a short side trip to Australia.

Cheers,
-X

Due to booking with frequent flyer miles, my original itinerary flew to
from SFO to FAT to LAX to NRT with no padding for late flights. The
first leg got pushed back 30 minutes after I had checked in so they
booked me on a direct flight to LAX and need to transfer my bags. Now I
can only pray that the Baggage Gods smile kindly upon my travels. I
don’t know what Oyabun Santa did to piss them off but his bags were lost
enroute to NRT yesterday.

A group of friends got together for a whisky pairing tasting menu this evening. Each guest brought a dish to share and a bottle to pair with their entree. We started with a bit of Finlaggan just to wet our whistles before diving into the tasting menu. Click on any of the pictures to enlarge.

The Kitchen and the Lineup

The Lineup

(more…)

I just booked my tickets for Santacon Tokyo 2008. I’ll be in Tokyo from Dec. 19th-31st. Join us for the 6th annual Santacon Tokyo on Saturday, Dec. 20th. Santacon Tokyo is always the last Saturday before Christmas. Santa meets at noon at the Hatchiko statue in Shibuya Station. There are sure to be lots of other fun things going on after that as well. If you’re in Tokyo let me know. 

Japanese readers can find the link here- http://www.magarisugi.net/santa/

or see the google translated version here- http://tinyurl.com/6apdmn

CGTantra, the Indian computer graphics web portal, just published an interview I did with them while visiting Mumbai and Pune in September. You can check it out here:

http://tinyurl.com/xraytantra

You could also get to it from the main page at http://www.cgtantra.com

This 1978 Ardbeg is even better. Casked before the shuttering of the original distillery which was subsequently bought and reopened by Glenmorangie. There is actually a very clear taste line between the Still Young Ardbeg and this 1978 expression, though the 1978 has much more iodine than the younger whisky. What a great night of tastes. Thanks Michael and Tim!