Narita Airport, Japan

With out Thanksgiving, Narita went straight to "Hello Kitty" Christmas. There were two trees set on opposite sides of the shuttle tram lobby. Garland was strung across the world clocks map.

It was a little too cute and a shock having just leaving the tropics where Christmas was the last things on our minds. Heck we had just seen the Happy Thanksgiving banner only four hours earlier in Guam.

Kaday Stone Path, Yap, FSM

All of the villages on Yap have men's houses which you get to by walking a stone path. The one at Kaday is the best that we saw, so we visited it one last time on our last day in Yap.

This is a picture of the path. All paths, most roads, and most boundaries in Yap are lined with Yellow or Red plants. The path is stone and you can see the worn part down the middle. It is the duty of the residents of the village to clean the plants out of the rocks and remove fallen trees or other debris.

You usually have give a tribute to the village to walk their path, $3 is common. You also need to ask permission to take people pictures, but when you do they stop what they are doing and pose with a smile. So no pictures of people doing common things.

We are in Guam at the moment, sleeping for 6 hours until our flight back to Japan, then Houston, and finally Dallas. The longest Thanksgiving ever! See y'all soon.

Yap Caverns & Magic Kingdom, Yap, FSM

This was a picture taken by Ron Ledgerwood on our final day of diving. This was an absolutely incredible day with which to end our trip. These two dives were outside the reef, so there was a rough boat ride in the swells to the dive site. All hands made it with no sea sickness.

The first dive was the Yap Caverns. These are not caves, but rather a three-dimensional labyrinth. There were a few swim throughs with a covered over head, but most were open to the surface.

On the second dive, Magic Kingdom, we saw several schools of trigger fish and parrot fish. L found a tiny starfish, which we will post when we get our underwater film is developed. We also saw three sharks, small white tipped reef sharks. No danger, but a thrill anyway. There were also many schools of tiny fish in all colors.

We had dinner this evening with the owner of the credit union here and then returned home. We are so drained, that we are heading to bed early. Tomorrow, we will have a short tour and will then pack for our flight out at 7:30PM. We will be in Guam at 9:00PM. We fly out first thing on T-day morning to Japan, layover 5 hours, and then leave for the Houston at 5:20PM.

We arrive in Houston 12 hours later, but at 2:00PM --before we left!!??!!?? brief layover then on to Dallas.

Colonia, Yap, FSM

Just uploaded this morning...new video. On our dive yesterday, Ron filmed the manta as it crossed over us. To set the seen, I was laying on my belly looking up at a "cleaning station" places that the manta know there will be fish to clean their skin of parasites. Leslie was to my left. I felt the dive master tap my leg and turned to look at him. He pointed off in the distance. I tapped Leslie and she looked too. We saw the manta "flying" towards us. I rolled over on to my back to watch. The manta flew right over the top of me, no more than 10 feet away.

In this video, the first stream of bubbles you see are mine and the second are Leslie's. The video is here www.justusconsultants.com/manta2.mpg.

It looks like we may dive again on Tuesday.

Many Different Places, Yap, FSM

Today was a full day that could have ended at 1:00 and I would have been completely satisfied. This was our second day of diving. The first dive was uneventful. We were diving at a second site know for mantas. We did see one breech, or jump out of the water as we boated to the dive site, but did not see on under the water. The picture here is from Ron Ledgerwood.

Many cool pictures were taken by my brother-in-law Ron ledgerwood. You can see some of them on his blog entry and here, and here. We took some, but alas it was with a film camera and we will not be able to see them until after we get back.

Our second dive was to return to the same place as the first dive and we waited for about 15 minutes, then a manta appeared. It swam towards us, in fact it swam directly over my head, not 10 feet away. It is late and I do not have the words to describe it. Perhaps tomorrow.

Not to diminish the other activities today by a short description, but in short we saw some World War II canons and a search light, the wreckage of a Zero fighter, the wreckage of Continental Airlines plane that skidded off the side of the runway in 1972, and a second Japanese plane that was likely a cargo or transport.

We had a traditional Yapese lunch, watched a traditional Yapese ceremonial dance, and then attended a banquet for the Yap Visitor's Bureau.

Colonia, Yap, FSM

Today we did the tourist thing and visited galleries, gift shops, and attempted to visit the governor who enjoys meeting people. As his office is across the hall from L's brother-in-law, this was not difficult. Alas, he was busy in a staff meeting.

We moved on to tour the national legislature and meet two senators from the outer island. They are friendly and warm folks. L later met the governor in passing and he gave her the key....to the restroom in the building. In the spirit of good relations with Texas, he instructed his assistant to lend out the private stock of TP. I guess that make her an ambassador. I missed out.

We spent part of the day watching the launch of a traditional canoe from the port area. There was a Japanese film crew filming a documentary and we were able to snap a few pictures.
Tomorrow, day two of diving. We are doing a light drift dive first and a second dive to see sharks. Should be cool.

Oh!, On Thursday's dive Ron took a video using his digital camera of the Manta ray we saw. It is a large file, but if you have a high speed connection it should load fairly quickly. If not and you are on dial up, it may take about 10 minutes: www.justusconsultants.com\manta.mpg.

Colonia, Yap, FSM

After having been here for five days, I have an general observation to make. This is not the typical island that most people will imagine. It is completely surrounded by a coral reef that is between 1-4 miles off shore. The waves break out at the reef and the water in between has small to no waves. Between the reef and shore the water is shallow--ankle to knee deep in close and waist to shoulder deep farther out (of course this all varies with the tides.

If you were on the beach, this means that you need to swim a mile to get to water suitable for snorkeling or plain swimming. It makes it quite a work out. We passed on snorkeling the first four days because we were too tired/lazy to swim that far. The waters are not as clear as I have seen in Caribbean, but the opportunities for fish, mantas, and wreak diving make it a great place to dive.

We have one more two-tank dive planned and maybe a sunset dive. We have a single-use underwater film camera that we brought and will post those pictures after we get back. I will try to post some pictures from my brother-in-law's underwater digital camera shortly.

60' below surface, Goofuaw Channel, Yap FSM

On our very first recreational open water dive, we entered the water at 8:30 and by 8:50 were at a depth of 60 feet watching a manta ray with a 12 foot wingspan at a "cleaning station" where smaller fish clean off the barnacles and parasites from the mantas. The picture here was taken by Ron Ledgerwood.

See the short video that Ron filmed at www.justusconsultants.com/manta.mpg

Not bad for a first dive, huh? We had a 20 MPH current to contend with and I lost a fin while waiting to descend (it was recovered). Beyond that Leslie and I did very well. I then we made 35 and 40 minutes respectively on that dive.

The second dive was to a maximum of 40 feet. It was a "macro dive". It is called that as it is best suited for close-up photography. We saw all kinds of fish, foot shrimp, a large starfish (one foot across), and giant clam (one and a quarter feet wide).

Dammit, I was kind of hoping one of us would freakout and we would never dive again. Alas, we both loved it. I will be taking a second job when I get back so that we can save for our next dive trip.

Bechyal Village Beach, Yap, FSM

Leslie's brother's wife, Danka, has a business here in Yap. Part of our day trip was to get pictures of Stella in authentic Yapese dress. I got to join in on the photo shot. This is one of my better pictures of the shoot, when Stella was joined by her nephew. He is dresses in a Thu and she is dresses made with dyed hybiscus fibers, a coconut fiber lei.

Yapese women are traditionally topless. The locals here often wear t-shirts in town. The outer island women may not do that. They are topless and wear a Lavalava which is a colorful wrap-around skirt tied at the waist.

Both local and outer-island men are topless and wear thus. The h is silent in thu, so it sounds similar to the number two). The Yapese thu covers the front completely but shows the man's, shall we say, lower cheeks. The outer-island thu is worn a little different and covers the majority of the behind. In formal dress the Yapese men would wear three thus, a white, then blue, and then red. This is followed by a coconut fiber sash.

Stella's Home, Bechyal Village, Yap, FSM

This was a day for local experiences. We met and had lunch with a local family. Stella's father, recently passed away, was the chief of Bechyal. We ate lunch at her home with her mother, sister, and 18 month old nephew (see photo, www.q-pics.blogspot.com).

Pictured here is the lunch we ate. It consisted of (clockwise starting at 9:00) a fried reef fish, fried breadfruit, swamp taro, fried bananas (edge of plate), boiled land taro, papyas, boiled ripe bananas (center). This was accompanied by a fresh coconut drunk out of the shell using a papaya stem as a straw. All of it was quite palatable the fish especially and the papyas. The rest of the items were all starches. The two types of taro, while good, were a little dry.

After a lot of conversation (and sweat), we explored their. We saw their men's house, a lounge type building for men only. Often used during the hot time of day for sleeping, it is also a place to hold meetings, plan, and relax with drink (tuba, fermented coconut tree sap) and chew betelnuts (mild narcotic). In an unfortunate turn of events, (I cannot believe I am going to say this) Bud Light is often the drink of choice.

Colonia, Yap, FSM

This picture is mainly for my brother and sister-in-law. As they have had the best luck growing Plumeria. You two have nothing on the real version. These children are playing in a small plumeria tree. Yes, I meant small. We have seen then the size of some trees in the states--10-12 feet tall and maybe just as wide. 

Arngel Beach, Dalipebinaw, Yap

We arrived in Yap safely. We have achieved internet access, but it is late on Monday evening and I will have to come back and flesh this post out later (and correct spelling).

The short of it is that after a tour of the main island, we ended up at a farewell celebration for a doctor that was returning to the Philipeans. We ate many tradition Filipino foods.

The picture is of two children on a fishing raft, think Tom and Huck.

Tokyo-Guam-Yap

This was a day for travel we were up at 5:00 and then cleaned up, finished packing, and checked out of the hotel. Once again we choose a hotel express bus to the airport. Though we enjoy using train systems whenever we are outside of the United States, the thought of maneuvering our luggage and persons through rush hour on the trains and changing lines three times kept us away.

We met an Englishman on the bus from Northampton. He was traveling on business and headed home. We talked international politics, as well as British. We touched on the two other important items beer and football (soccer). It was an interesting and enjoyable ride despite the time of day.

The Narita Airport was little frightening. The mass of people is beyond what you would see in any US airport. Imagine the last major sporting even you been to, like a Cowboys game. Then imagine all those people drawing towards one of three departure terminals. In our terminal there were about 20 ticketing counters with about 20 stations in each. Over %70 were in use with lines three to ten people deep.

After that, all these people went through one of two security checkpoints. Ours had eight x-ray stations; I would assume the other had just as many. Past that was customs and immigration. Here there were about a dozen to 15 lines, twenty people deep.

Despite the mass of humanity, it remained orderly and I really do not remembering waiting in any one line for much more than 10 minutes. We checked in, checked bags, passed security and made it to our gate with less than 30 minutes of wait time. Having said that, we were at the airport 3 hours early and did have to wait for the ticket counter to open up.

The flight from Tokyo to Guam was uneventful. Being a U.S. Citizen, we went to different lines than the other travelers from Japan. We were in and out of customs and immigration in less than five minutes. As we were "in transit" and our bags were checked straight through, we went right back into the terminal. Our layover there was for a little over three hours. We weighed the options of leaving the "secure area" and trying to see Guam for about 90 minutes. But we decided that finding transportation getting somewhere and getting back would not be a good use of time. Besides, it really looked like rain.

In Guam the quotation marks are needed when referring to the "secure area". It is demarked by nylon webbing like you would see in a bank line. Three is one main hallway to the airport and all arriving flights are directed walk the "secured" side of the hallway down to customs. There are crossing guards to stop the already outbound pedestrian traffic from intersecting with the un-cleared inbound traffic. Anyone could duck under or leave a bag sitting to retrieve it later.

One loud and obnoxious traveler I just watched leave a gate on his was to immigration, exclaimed out loud--loud being operative syllable--that it was stupid that he had to walk all the way to customs as his flight out was right back here. He said it to no one in particular, but the five of us in the area who were subjected to his rant tried to ignore him. He seemed to get louder with every sentence.

Have you heard people talk about the "obnoxious" US traveler? It is easy to spot them. They are the ones that are loud, always talking at a volume just below a yell. They expect to be catered to, taken care of, and allowed special privileges. As a country we adopted the term "America" at some point to describe our geographic origins: "I am from America” as opposed to "I am from the United States". Most everyone does this, myself included.

The problem with that, from a global perspective, is that the Americas consist of North America, Central America, and South America. The term America applies to all of those regions. Our using that to describe where we are from is like Germans using the term Europe for the same purpose. This leads to the other tricky phrase, "I am an American." From the perspective of the a U.S. citizen, this is a normal phrase that equivocates to I am a U.S. citizen. People not from the U.S. do not always understand why we do this.

While it is usually obvious that I am from the states, I try to be quieter and try to present my self better than the image of the "Obnoxious American". While it is likely an insult to Canada, I take it as a complement when people ask if I am Canadian before they ask if I am from the U.S. I see too many of the "Obnoxious Americans" when I travel. While they may be a small percentage, they do not reflect well on the rest of the country. It used to be that saying I was a Texan was an instant antidote to being from the states, but our sitting President is from Texas and he does not "sit well" internationally.

Back on topic, our flight to Yap was fine, we arrived on schedule. I will write later about the arrival at the airport and the home we are staying in for the next 10 days.

Electric Toilet

Two words you do not want to hear after a night out drinking Sake: Electric Toilet. When one has been drinking, one should be careful where one looks for support. One the up side, I have now experienced a bidet.

Marunouchi, Tokyo, Japan

We ate lunch in the Financial District today. We walked around above ground only to find that the restaurants were underground. Most restaurants have wax or plastic models of their food, so it makes it easy to understand what is on the menu. The problem...Once you pick a restaurant they may not have a English version of their menu.

This was one of those. As luck would have it, the waitress knew some English and we ordered off the menu you see here. What did we get?

Chicken on Salad for L and Sashimi for K. Plus Rice, Miso Soup, tea, orange juice, and pickled vegetables.

Marunouchi, Tokyo, Japan

We had hoped today to see the Imperial Palace Gardens, but as usual we did not read enough or ask enough questions to find out ahead that the Gardens are closed on Fridays.

This is one of several buildings across the moat. The gardens are behind it, out of sight.

Sensoji Temple, Asakusa, Tokyo, Japan

L, here. I tried to post this yesterday, but the computer ate my entry. Bummer.We started the day in conference with the concierge. We were having trouble deciding what to do. She gave us many booklets, pamphlets and maps and told us about a water taxi between here (Hinode Pier) and Asakusa, one of our desired explorations. She advised us to take the subway one direction and water bus the other. Plans established, it was off to find breakfast.

At her advice we went to a small cafe in the lobby of an adjacent building. I'm certain what we ordered was intended as dessert fare, especially when it arrived topped with a scoop of ice cream. But really, how different is crepes with warm berries, pears and almonds, from our own pancakes and syrup at home. Anyway it was delicious. Took the subway up to Asakusa, and here's what we found. The picture, taken by K is of the outdoor shopping street that started at the exit from the subway and led all the way to the temple and shrines. I'm pretty sure that's the back of my head in the lower left corner of the picture. More later. Time for breakfast and new adventures.

Back Alley, Asakusa, Tokyo, Japan

After our tour of the temple, we stopped for lunch a corner noodle house. The basic concept is soba noodles with leafy greens and tempora vegetables covered with broth. "So why is the picture of two Kenyan warriors here?" Because they are two warriors that starred in a soon to be released movie and are on tour in Tokyo.

They were fascinated by two non-Japanese eating soup with chopsticks. Through their interpreter, they asked what we were eating and I said Soba noodles. The one facing the camera in the picture smiled and waved. The second interpreter, explain to us that Soba sounds like the Kenyan word for good morning.

Asakusajinja Shrine, Tokyo, Japan

They called this a five story pagoda. I believe it is part of the Sensoji Temple, but it is best seen from the shrine. It was built in 1979. Most buildings and temples are rebuilt as close to original after each earthquake.

Takeshiba, Tokyo, Japan

We landed in Tokyo at 3:30 p.m. local time, and cleared immigration and customs fairly quickly and without incident. We then stopped at a traveller information booth and learned that we could take a bus "Hotel Limosine" to our hotel for only 3,000 Yen each. Don't panic, that's only about $25 USD. Good news considering we knew from our research that a taxi or 'hire car' would cost at least 17,000 Yen. And even better news, we found a bag storage service that would keep our heavier "Yap" bag for four days, so we wouldn't have to haul it into Tokyo with us, which is about 60 km due West of the Airport. I'm just hoping we can find it again Saturday morning. ;-).

All that done, it was still only 4:20 p.m. and we went outside to wait for the bus, which promptly arrived on schedule at 4:50 p.m. With this being a fairly northern climate in mid-late Fall, we didn't have but an hour or so of daylight left. And that faded pretty quickly on the drive to town. But then Tokyo at night is really pretty. There are at least two, huge ferris wheels (giant sky wheels on our hotel map) which were lit with rainbow colors in a never-ending changing pattern. The most brilliant is nearby our hotel but we can't see it from our window.

After we checked in, got settled a little bit - found an episode of Stargate, in either Japanese or original English broadcast - we left in search of food. The concierge instructed us to "Please go to next stop" on the monorail line to Shiodome, for many options of inexpensive dining. We passed by "Drunk Daves", Chinese, Italian, and Indian places before daring to enter and dine at a sushi bar. We sat right in front the guy preparing the food, and behind him was a live fish tank. It was an interesting experiment in communication, but we managed to order some "most fatty tuna", a tuna roll, and shrimp roll. It was all very good.

It is now Thursday morning here and it looks like a beautiful, sunny day. So we'd best be off on our explorations. More later...

30,000 feet somewhere over the northern Rockies

We were up bright and early, around five, to pack the misc stuff, get ready, and then ride to the airport. Why five, no one sleeps soundly when there is an impending trip. The brain just does not turn completely off.

The TSA was quite thorough with our bags. They were either bored or German-Americans are the ethnic target d'jour. After opening our bags, the one officer (can I call them that?) swabbed the inside of every corner, nick, and crann of the bag and contents using twelve test pads in all.

She then proceeded to repack the bag enitrely different than we had it. It made me rething the choice of buying an older bag from good will for our SCUBA gear and non clothes. The well worn zipper looked tighter than we wanted, but some federal law prohibited us from touching, muchless repacking our own bag.

The first leg was uneventful--a good sign for a plane trip. The best luck is that this second plane--thirteen and a half hours to Japan was only HALF FULL! Leslie and i have three seats to ourself, and could have snagged 3 each, wanted to stay together for the first portion of the flight and most the set of three empty are taken by the travelers that know better. We leave at 10:30 and arrive tomorrow in Japan at 3:00--we miss and entire night of sleep.

Just After Take-Off, Dallas, Houston, Tokyo

Just a quick shout out to Dallas Destop Support and the rest of the crew at "the bank".

Dallas, Texas, U.S.

Getting ready for a trip can be exhausting. We had each of the families over that are checking in on our pupppy, Gigi. I "raked" the leaves Highland Park Style--gas powered blower. Tried to fill in the holes that Gigi had recently dug. Finish updating the Laptop with MP3s for the trip. Organized files I may want on vacation.etc etc etc ad nausium. Oh and packed, paid bills, and cleaned out the fridge of potential science experiments.

Both bags we packed weighed in at 50 and 60 pounds respectively. Below the 70 pound limit, but more than we wanted. However when packing for Japan in the early winter and Yap--we have summer all year--meant more clothes than usualy. Also included were items requested by Leslie's brother. Include in that mask, fins, snorkles, and related scuba gear and I was impressed.
Leslie went to bed at 11:30 and I followed at just after midnight.

Dallas, Texas, U.S.

Well it has been an interesting week getting ready to travel more than a third of the way around the world-the farthest L & I have gone from home so far. It never fails that when getting ready for a trip there are lists of things to get done.

Long ago a child, the list was wake-up and leave. Later that doubled in size to add packing. The older I have become that list adds things like make plans for the dog's care get the yard and house clean (why I do the later is a mystery to me).

For this trip the list grew to include: Scuba Certification, camera purchase (and other related equipment), Passport renewal, and checking into the need for shots (none required).

In an unfortunate turn of circumstances there were several high stress events that happened in my work and home lives including my working late last night turning into working until early this morning (a 20 day!).

So here I sit with less than 70 hours trying to get items crossed off my list while adding some to the bottom. L was wonderful and ran a number of errands Thursday that were slated for today. I would not have survived this week with out her.