Honshu and Okinawa

-
Image
I am back. I spent 10 days in Japan, 5 days for work on the main island of Honshu and 5 days of solo adventure in Okinawa. Travel is so invigorating dispite the uncomfortableness. Jetlag, anxiety, crowds, and other discomforts aside, it is mind-expanding and rewarding. Work went well. I flew a new airline (Skymark) from Tokyo to Naha. I am always wary of strange discount airlines and all the traps they set. However, I had a great expereince with "Sky". I was actually shocked. Super easy checkin at the airport, no extra fees even with extra luggage. The primary mission in Okinawa was to visit the Peace Park and the suicide cliffs of Okinawa. From what I understand, at the end of WW2 the inhabitants were encouraged to commit suicide rather than surrender to the Americans and get tortured and eaten. Besides other types of suicide, they jumped off the cliffs at the Southern end of the main island. If you have seen the original color footage taken at the time, I am sure you ...
Post a Comment
-

Weather hold again. This time we made it to the shuttle van to go to the ice runway. I heard that it is between -40 and -70 degrees F at Taylor Dome and the heater is not working in the living module. I am ready. Getting my ECW on and taking it off is a pain in the neck. A small price to pay. There is a possibility we will fly this afternoon.

Here is a really nice picture of an adelie at Cape Evans.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

-
Image
Today I am supposed to leave the pole at 11:30 AM. Delays and flight changes are common. It is all part of the deal. They announce to the whole station when a plane takes off from McMurdo, when it gets to the last checkpoint and when it lands. So it is pretty easy to be there when you need to get on. All the LC-130s (hercs) unload and load hot at Pole. They do not shut the engines off. I have to say it is the first time I got off a running airplane. It is windy and there are a lot of fumes with those 4 big turboprops. I still have a lot to do when I get back to McMurdo. The first thing is to take a shower. Showers are restricted to 2 minutes twice a week at pole. At McMurdo I can take as long as I want, but conservation is encouraged. In the deep field camps showers are basically impossible. It is so dry it really doesn't become a real problem. I got this picture yesterday on my way out to the RF building. It is a piece of the C-130 that crashed here in the 1970s. They are di...
Read more
-
Carmen Publishing's FrameMaker Site rick@frameexpert.com Well the news is out. I am leaving Performance Technologies, Inc. and taking a new job as Publications Manager at Raymond corp. in Greene NY People ask where Greene NY is and I find the best answer is the two pronged answer...."It is the middle of nowhere, or central to everywhere." How true. It is outside Cortland. NY, if such a thing is possible. I will be challenged at this new job. That will feel good
Read more
-
Image
I have been in a bit of a rush to finish getting the solar collector installed. I don't care much about the ditch work, but I have to get it done before winter. This system should take care of all my hot water needs. It won't heat the house, but getting a nice free source of hot water will be nice. I haven't put much technical stuff on the blog about the system yet. I am waiting to see what works and what doesn't.
Read more
-
Are Asteroids History's Greatest Killers? It is really neat to see how "planetary impact" has really become a good science in the last 20 yrs or so. I remember the stuff we were taught in 5th grade about stuff that in these few years has turned out to be dead ass wrong (DAW). A good example of DAW teaching was that all biological life depended on the sun. That turned out not to be true at all, after the discovery of biologics near volcanic vents at the bottom of the oceans.
Read more