“I think of it as competing for beer money; this keeps me steady on course. My purpose is to make what I write entertaining enough to compete with beer. Not to be as great as Shakespeare or as immortal as Homer but simply to write well enough to persuade the cash customer to spend money on one of my paperback reprints when he could spend it on beer.”
— Robert HeinleinJust because it's sacred...
…doesn’t mean you can’t have fun.
One common place you'll hear -sama used outside of set expressions
At the airport, when airline employees are calling customers up to the counter for checkins and upgrades.
A touch of class
Not all of our adventures were outdoors. One wonderful evening was spent at Gion Hatanaka, with a Geiko and a Maiko. Great fun, and I absolutely smoked the maiko in a traditional drinking game. Sadly, while the customers had to drink a beer if they lost, the maiko merely handed over a pair of souvenir chopsticks.
Down the Hozu again!
I still want to take this trip in the Spring, with white-water and cherry blossoms, but I was not the least bit unhappy to see it again in Autumn, especially since this time we took the scenic train up-river first.
The road less traveled
There were a lot of people at Hikone Castle (more on that later…), but when we came down the hill after seeing it, there were two paths, and the lady at the booth tried to dissuade us from heading off to the right. Not because of a problem with our tickets, or because it was off limits, or even just a longer walk, but because the other way was more popular. I’m glad we didn’t listen, because we ended up having the place to ourselves, making this the only popular tourist site where we didn’t have to worry about people getting in our pictures.
"Had a great time, wish we were there."
I’ve barely started looking at the pictures we took, but this makes a decent vacation postcard.
