This is a Google Earth shot of the rest area in the middle of the interchange. What you can't see is the fact that there are about 3 layers of highway spiralling down from the top level. Very interesting.~jp
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Noodle Junction in Yokohama
This is a Google Earth shot of the rest area in the middle of the interchange. What you can't see is the fact that there are about 3 layers of highway spiralling down from the top level. Very interesting.~jp
Crazy Rest Area
During the trip to drop LCDR Velasco's bike off at the shop we ended up on the wrong side of the Yokohama Bay Bridge and decided to get off of the freeway to eat something and get going in the right direction.This Rest stop is in the middle of this rats nest of interchanges and elevated highways. I'll post a Google Maps shot of the area. It was very interesting.
~jp
Kid in a Candy Store
This is my supervisor, LCDR Velasco doing one of the things that he loves best, dreaming about his next bike. We recently drove up to Yokohama after loading his 1200cc BMW into his minivan to drop it off at the BMW shop. (It was not running at the time.)While we were there we purused the sales shop and he fell in love with this little lady. He said he pretty much had his min made up about the bike when he left there.
~jp
Another Photo Update
Please look to the right of the main body of the site, and you will note the link to my photo album. I'll change the date when ever I add photos. Please feel free to leave comments under the photos as well as on the blog itself.
~jp
~jp
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Gotenba '07!
Hello everyone! This weekend we went up to Gotenba. It was a great time. The food and drink were splendid, and company was fun, and I think for the most part everyone had a good time. All of that for under $200 for the three of us.
Something new for me was the onsen, which is a hot spring system. In this case it's not natural, but there are plenty of natural Onsens in Japan. It was a new experience to say the least, and it was very relaxing.
It was something like 8:30 or 9:00 the night we got to Gotenba, we had already gone to the Outlet Mall and we had just come back from our eating, drinking and other revelry.
We paid a mere ¥1000 per ticket and then we went up to the hotel that is part of the resort area we were staying on.
We checked in at the door and went up several flights of stairs to a locker room where there were lots of naked Japanese men wandering around with modesty towels on. (These are basically hand towels that you can drape over your groin region as you walk around.) After being shown an empty locker by the old lady who worked in the locker room (That was pretty weird, but you shrug and carry on.), we got undressed, locked our stuff up and went into the next room. This next room was basically covered in stone and marble tile with sit down shower stalls lining the walls. There were a couple of small pools on one side of the room and one large pool next to the outside wall, which was all glass looking out onto another pool which was outside on the roof of the hotel building.
So sitting on our little stools, we showered and made ourselves clean. Then we walked through another door outside. It was just a little chilly to say the least. But we made our way to another pool of hotwater and sighed as we sunk into the water. How nice it was. The pools themselves were pretty large, with enough perimeter length to accomodate about 15-20 people. Everything was steaming and with the sides lined with rocks, there was the sound of gently flowing water as the recirrculated and reheated hot water flowed over the rock facade as you would see in a natural setting. The perimeter of the pools were also lined with the rocks.
There was also a cold pool you could dip into once you were good and hot, and there was a sauna you could sit in to further your relaxation. We did everything. I sat in the hot tub for about 45 minutes, sat in the cold tub for 5 minutes, then jumped back into the hot tub, then went into the sauna for a while and then into the cold tub for another 5 minutes, and finally back into the hot tub for 30 minutes before calling it a night. It was very relaxing.
So if you are ever in Japan, I recommend visiting an Onsen.
~jp
Something new for me was the onsen, which is a hot spring system. In this case it's not natural, but there are plenty of natural Onsens in Japan. It was a new experience to say the least, and it was very relaxing.
It was something like 8:30 or 9:00 the night we got to Gotenba, we had already gone to the Outlet Mall and we had just come back from our eating, drinking and other revelry.
We paid a mere ¥1000 per ticket and then we went up to the hotel that is part of the resort area we were staying on.
We checked in at the door and went up several flights of stairs to a locker room where there were lots of naked Japanese men wandering around with modesty towels on. (These are basically hand towels that you can drape over your groin region as you walk around.) After being shown an empty locker by the old lady who worked in the locker room (That was pretty weird, but you shrug and carry on.), we got undressed, locked our stuff up and went into the next room. This next room was basically covered in stone and marble tile with sit down shower stalls lining the walls. There were a couple of small pools on one side of the room and one large pool next to the outside wall, which was all glass looking out onto another pool which was outside on the roof of the hotel building.
So sitting on our little stools, we showered and made ourselves clean. Then we walked through another door outside. It was just a little chilly to say the least. But we made our way to another pool of hotwater and sighed as we sunk into the water. How nice it was. The pools themselves were pretty large, with enough perimeter length to accomodate about 15-20 people. Everything was steaming and with the sides lined with rocks, there was the sound of gently flowing water as the recirrculated and reheated hot water flowed over the rock facade as you would see in a natural setting. The perimeter of the pools were also lined with the rocks.
There was also a cold pool you could dip into once you were good and hot, and there was a sauna you could sit in to further your relaxation. We did everything. I sat in the hot tub for about 45 minutes, sat in the cold tub for 5 minutes, then jumped back into the hot tub, then went into the sauna for a while and then into the cold tub for another 5 minutes, and finally back into the hot tub for 30 minutes before calling it a night. It was very relaxing.
So if you are ever in Japan, I recommend visiting an Onsen.
~jp
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Penguin Love
This is Ronan enjoying some quality time with some fake penguins in Hawaii. He certainly looks like he is enjoying the weather and the company.~jp
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
New Year, New Blog layout
I know it's been awhile since I have posted. I figured, if Kristin can pull it together enough to post so can I.
Winter has come to Japan. We are in a chilly part of the country in which the tempuratures typically dip into the 30's at night and up into the 40's during the day. Of course this varies depending on the cloud cover.
So to defray the costs of heating our luxurious 1250 square feet, we have borrowed 2 kerosene heaters from the housing self help office. Given the fact that we haven't run the HVAC units as heaters I don't if we are actually saving that much money because the cost of kerosene is pretty obscene. ($2.98/gallon I think)
Since posting last I have had the chance to goto Hawaii for a couple of weeks. This was not a vacation, but travel for a school (class) that I had to take to be qualified to perform my job. Nevermind that I have been doing my job for the last 6 months without any major mishap.
During that trip Kristin and Ronan both had the opportunity to join me for about 10 days. That was o0ur holiday travel. Kristin and Ronan got to visit with the McCann's and I was able to goto class all day. But on both Friday's I did go and play golf. My first time ever picking up a club. It was pretty interesting. Mike Gabiga, one of my co-workers who was in the same class guided me and his enthusiasim for the game became contagious.
Christmas and the New Year were pretty slow, which was good. President Ford graciously gave us a day off in conjunction with our New Year's Day liberty, so we all had a five day weekend.
I went golfing with Mike again up at Atsugi NAF. That was the first time playing 18 holes. I am now a little sore.. My shoulder doesn't like to move like a golf swing very much, so I have to do some training. Of course my score was hilariously high. I think it was a 144. That's twice par which is on the edge of politely not playing anymore for the sake of the people playing with you.
That's about it for right now. I'll make a more concerted effort to update this thing on a more regular basis.
~jp
Winter has come to Japan. We are in a chilly part of the country in which the tempuratures typically dip into the 30's at night and up into the 40's during the day. Of course this varies depending on the cloud cover.
So to defray the costs of heating our luxurious 1250 square feet, we have borrowed 2 kerosene heaters from the housing self help office. Given the fact that we haven't run the HVAC units as heaters I don't if we are actually saving that much money because the cost of kerosene is pretty obscene. ($2.98/gallon I think)
Since posting last I have had the chance to goto Hawaii for a couple of weeks. This was not a vacation, but travel for a school (class) that I had to take to be qualified to perform my job. Nevermind that I have been doing my job for the last 6 months without any major mishap.
During that trip Kristin and Ronan both had the opportunity to join me for about 10 days. That was o0ur holiday travel. Kristin and Ronan got to visit with the McCann's and I was able to goto class all day. But on both Friday's I did go and play golf. My first time ever picking up a club. It was pretty interesting. Mike Gabiga, one of my co-workers who was in the same class guided me and his enthusiasim for the game became contagious.
Christmas and the New Year were pretty slow, which was good. President Ford graciously gave us a day off in conjunction with our New Year's Day liberty, so we all had a five day weekend.
I went golfing with Mike again up at Atsugi NAF. That was the first time playing 18 holes. I am now a little sore.. My shoulder doesn't like to move like a golf swing very much, so I have to do some training. Of course my score was hilariously high. I think it was a 144. That's twice par which is on the edge of politely not playing anymore for the sake of the people playing with you.
That's about it for right now. I'll make a more concerted effort to update this thing on a more regular basis.
~jp
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