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Showing posts from December, 2018

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. 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 ...
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” ― Heraclitus

Home as an exotic destination

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In previous years we have spent Christmas in Panama, Peru, Hawaii, and Nicaragua. This Year's Christmas is a bit different. We aren't in some exotic locale, or perhaps we are are. We are home in Duluth GA and went to our home Church for Midnight mass in Norcross, GA. We are busy making plans on spending more time in Southern California.
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The view from our apartment in SoCal. Segerstrom Concert Hall is just across the street.
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We went to Los Angeles for Angie's Birthday.

So Cal Adventure

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Southern California is a different kind of place. Although it may not be as different as you may have thought. Compared to Silicon valley, houses are "affordable". Although again, the word affordable may be known by a different name in other place in the country, like maybe "crazy, but obtainable for some". I find myself looking for the unicorn (again) in the housing realm. I have done it before. I suspect I will do it again here, but with a totally different set of parameters. Actually, we are getting close. The weather is very nice. We had some serious rain the other day, some flooding but mostly sunny and in the 60s F. I was out in Newport harbor today. There will be a parade of boats with Christmas lights later in the month. https://www.christmasboatparade.com

Mojave

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I was out in the Mojave Desert in California. A lot of aviation history has been made and IS being made out this way. In the grainy long-distance pic of the airliners you can see a Boeing 747SP. It is a unicorn for plane spotters for sure. It is only the second one I have seen in my life. The other one was in Narita Japan in 1985. I think the one here might be the one owned by the NASA Armstrong (Dryden) Flight Research Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747SP