Domo Arigato Japan

Tom and I had a great time in Japan last week. I flew up on Thursday and stayed until Tuesday, so we had a nice block of time to do some exploring. Since Tom had to be in a recall distance to the ship, we spent most of our nights in Tokyo at the New Sanno Hotel. For those of you out there with access to military hotels, the New Sanno is the equivalent of the Hale Koa in Honolulu, a very nice place in a very expensive area for very affordable prices.


We did have one overnight outing to the mountains. Tom was lucky to find an available reservation at an Onsen Ryokan (traditional Japanese Inn at a natural hotspring). It was a beautiful place, and fun to stay in a traditional room. Dinner and breakfast were served at the inn also, I have never eaten so many things that I had no idea what they were before! The server at dinner did not speak any English, and well, our Japanese is not quite at the level of useful. She would just talk and talk to us, and we just stared back at her, then ate the food. Most of it was good, some of it was odd. Some of the food tasted good, but had a texture that I could not really enjoy.


Oh, and the best part, aside from the amazing natural hot spring baths, was that as soon as you arrive you change into a cotton robe, called a Yukata, and you don't get dressed again until you check out.


Here are some shots of the inside of our room, the view from our room and the view along the river.

Our room is the corner room on the first floor of this building.

After that outing, we stayed in Tokyo for the remainder of the trip. I always thought that all of Tokyo was bright lights and tall buildings, but it is not. When traveling, I much prefer smaller towns to big cities (Rome was my least favorite part of Italy). We were able to find some small neighborhoods in Tokyo away from the flashy, neon Shinjuku area.

We visted the Imperial Palace Gardens. Unfortunately, you can not go inside the inner moat to see the Imperial Palace, but here is the view from the closest place you can get, along with a few shots of the city over the top of the gardens.

We lucked upon two street festivals in different neighborhoods. One was just a nice little celebration at a temple and down the surrounding streets. The other was a festival of the "fools dance" called Awa Odori. We stood in the pouring rain watching a parade of dancers in traditional costumes. There were 10,000 dancers in the three hour long parade. We only stood in the rain for a little over an hour to watch, then left. I don't have pictures because of the rain.

So, that is pretty much the synopsis of the trip. As I said, we enjoyed exploring and seeing new things. Even though I never thought I wanted to go to Japan, I would recommend it to anyone, especially if you are already on this side of the world.

Since I got back late Tuesday the only exciting thing that happened was a visit with two former shipmates from WILLOW. One is now on MORGANTHAU and they had a port call herein Guam. The ship left homeport in Alameda in April and is not due back till October. Now that is a long deployment! The other is the CO of KUKUI now, and they are in town covering for SEQUOIA during the drydock. It was good to see both of them.

Well, I should probably do something with this lovely Sunday afternoon. My plan is to organize my closet, but the sunshine looks so inviting, I don't know if that will happen!

This weekend sponsored by the number 5...

I had quite a weekend! On Saturday morning I ran in a 5K race. I started running again a couple of months ago, and this was my first race in Guam. I did not place in the finish, but I did run the full race and I had a decent time for me. I will have some pictures of the race to post soon.

After the race, I headed down to Inarajan, near the south tip of the island, for day one of a two day yoga workshop. So, after running a 5K I did 5 hours of yoga on Saturday. Whew! I was quite tired at the end of the day, and slept well. Needless to say, I was a little sore this morning when I got out of bed, but I had 5 more hours of yoga to attend.

The yoga workshop was wonderful. Here is the view I looked at for 10 hours over the course of two days (that is, when I was not upside down and backwards).

and here is the spot where I enjoyed my lunch today...

I am very happy I did the workshop, although my body is feeling sore and tired. The teacher was a woman named Ki, who is based out Seattle, but travels quite a bit internationally to teach workshops. If she ever comes to your neighborhoods, I highly recommend her workshop.

Finally, two pictures in what I would like to call my "Clouds of Guam Obsession" series.

Aren't they amazing?

I have a big week coming up. On Tuesday I have a seminar to facilitate and on Thursday I am flying to Japan to spend time with Tom. I will be there from Thursday until next Tuesday so it will be a nice visit.

Still more new places...

It is hard to believe that after fourteen months on a tiny island there are still places I have not been, but it is true. On Sunday I drove to Ritidian Point which is the northern most point on the island. Many people have told me that it is one of the nicest beaches on the island, and it is true.

As you can see in the picture the sand is wide and actually sandy, rather than all coral and rocks. The beach is on a wildlife preserve so it is quiet isolated. It was a nice day trip, and it actually took a whole hour to get there!



Other than that, I have mostly been working and readjusting to Guam time and living alone with Sylvester.

Tom made it back to Japan just fine, tired and weary from travel, but fine.

To VA, PA, NY and back again...

I am home safe and sound from my two week trip to Virgina and Pennsylvania and Sylvester is very happy to see me. It is nice to be welcomed home and loved, even if it is just by a cat.

I had a great trip. Week one was in Virginia for a conference which Tom attended also. We got to see Joe, Katie and Robinson, Kristen, and Kelly, Matt and Jimmy, along with some other folks we have not seen in a while.



After the week in Virginia, Tom and I parted ways. He headed to New London for a leadership class and I to Pennsylvania to spend time with my family after a brief stop in Westfield, New Jersey to visit my oldest friend, Marcy. It was a lot of fun to see my sister Jennifer's girls and just relax at home in Browndale.





I was also lucky that Karen drove all the way up from Northern Virginia with six-month old Krishnan to see me while I was in PA. Here is a pic of baby Krishnan and one of me and Karen.



As a final treat before returning to Guam, Jennifer and I drove to New York and met Marcy and Joy to see RENT on Broadway. The show closes in September, and I was very happy to get to see it again before it closes. It was fantastic, of course.

So now I am back in Guam, recuperating from the journey and preparing to return to work tomorrow (blah).

There are many more photos over on Flickr