Honshu and Okinawa

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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. At the end of WW2 the inhabitants were encouraged to commit suicide rather than surrender to the Americans and get tortured and eaten. They jumped off the cliffs at the souther end of the main island. If you have seen theoriginal color footage taken at the time. I am sure you were moved with mothers holding their babies jumping to th...
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Its Tuesday Morning here. I was up top of Crater Hill a couple of times yesterday. Crater Hill is part of T-site (kind of). It is the larget peak adjacent to McMurdo. It is a restricted area for most because of all the transmitters and what not. It is actually quite nice. There is a crater on top as shown is the first picture. There is a nice little pond that is frozen solid. I suspect it is deeper than 10 feet. The ground is difficult to walk on. it is very irregular. Some of it gives and some of it doesn't.

The second picture shows what is left behind from the Ice Runway. Early in the Season the Ice Runway (which is on sea ice very close to town) handles all the air traffic. Once the sea ice starts getting a little soft they move primary flights operations to Williams Airfied (willy) some miles from town on the ice shelf. There is also another ice runway on more solid sea ice called Pegasus which gets the C-17 flights from Christchurch.

Mt. Erebus is the active volcano near McMurdo. Some days there is a little steam and some days there is a considerably more. It burps out bombs and ash fairly regularly.

The last shot was taken with a level camera out the window of the Pisten Bully. The hill up Crater hill so so steep you cannot get up it with a wheeled vehicle or a matt track. Only a pisten buly or a dozer can make it. The lines in the photo are the defroster lines in the side window of the Pisten Bully. The hill is so steep if feels that teh Pisten Bully may flip over backwards on the way up.

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