Friday

After work I headed over to the mall. Saw a few strange things. Such as an air guitar. Which is just 4 frets and the head of the guitar. So you can rock out. A lite up toilet seat. A dart board that has its own stand. When i got back darts was on the sports channel. I think they were speaking English, but it was extremely hard to understand what they were saying. I think they may have been English.

Time for bed, work tomorrow.

Pictures

Thursday

A full day of work. Always good times. For breakfast i had Kiwi Juice and yogurt. So much goodness in liquidy form. Awesome.

For dinner went and had a Gyro. Quite a few Christmas decorations up around town. And there is Christmas music everywhere.

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Wednsday

Woke up around 2:30 am. Managed to go back to sleep. Got up at 6:00 am, decided to try some Japanese McDonald's breakfast. Pretty much the same. The strange thing was that they put ICE in my orange juice. Stopped by Starbucks for a little go juice.

Did the rounds at the NEX and commissary, then headed into work.

After work went to one of the 100 Yen stores. Lots of Christmas stuff up.

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Long Day

Very long day. I got to the airport about 2 1/2 Hours early. Good thing, as i didn't have a ticket, a slight miscommunication between organizations left me in limbo for about 45 minutes. Finally did get through. Flight was decent, not too bumpy. The flight path took us more northern than normal. Got to see Alaskan glaciers from 40,000 feet, very cool.

Got to japan, went through customs. They are now doing fingerprint and pictures to everyone who comes in, except those on official business.

Hooked up with a few co-workers at the airport and took the train to Yokosuka. It is about 2 hours and 42 minutes, but you have more leg room than on the bus. Arrived at the hotel around 8 PM. Went to pepper lunch for dinner. On the way back bought two Dual Shock 3 controllers.

Time to hit it.

In other non japan related news BILL DOBA IS DONE!!!!!

It is about time, and he will get a say in who replaces him, so all is well. At least until next football season.

Pictures

Travel Day 3

More Fun with Airplanes Tomorrow.

Anyways I just couldn't resist.

GO COUGS!!!
WINNING THE DAY

Travel Day II

Long day yesterday. Left the hotel at 8:30 and got into Seattle 9:05. Flight was pretty smooth.

Photos

Thursday

Dropped off the bike after work today. Started packing in the afternoon. For dinner met up with some people and went to a pizza place called 1978. The pizza was about the size of a personal pan, but it was very good. The most expensive pizza was the cheese pizza. Strange, but it did have shaved almonds on top. It was very good. Came back met up with some people in the lounge and kicked back.

Photos

Say Eight

The hospital was an interesting experience. Monday night I was not feeling very well at all. I decided to go into the ER. Of course I went to one gate that had just shut, so I had to walk to the other gate. After using the shortcut I eventually arrived at the ER. It was about a 30 minute walk, so my blood pressure was pretty elevated. After waiting about 30 minutes I was seen by a Japanese Intern doctor. The Naval Hospital has 6 interns that are Japanese. After telling him all of the symptoms he said that he thought it was a viral infection, but that he had to check with the Navy doctor. He thought it was viral as well but to be thorough he wanted to do a Spinal Tap in addition to the blood work. He called it a lumbar puncture, I asked if it was a Spinal Tap. He replied yes. I then asked, "pretty painful right." He replied, no more than getting an IV. Of course after the corpsmen took three attempts to insert the IV, I was not looking forward to the lumbar puncture. After the Japanese doctor tried again and again, he finally called over the navy doctor and he got a longer needle and got it the first time.

I then had to wait for the labs to return. While waiting a drunk sailor was brought in to have a blood sample taken. He was very disrespectful to the staff. I was impressed with how they handled the situation. About 3 AM the doctor came in with another doctor and said that they wanted to admit me into the hospital. So about 4:30 AM I was in my room. It was a negative vented room to keep from infecting other patients.

All of the TV material except for the sports and news was about 3 months old. It was a pretty small room. So I did get a little stir crazy. The second morning the doctor came in and told me that they had someone else look at the sample and determined that I didn't have meningitis. It was another virus. The standard treatment is lots of fluid, rest, and tylonal. So I was out of there about 10 am. All in all, it was a pretty good experience. The staff is well trained and courteous.

After getting out, I went back to the hotel and rested. I went into work in the late afternoon to check email. After about an hour I took off back to the hotel. Now i am spending time in self imposed quarantine. I am watching Brian Regan, really funny guy.

Pictures

Out of Hospital

I was released around 10 am this morning. They had a pathologist look at the samples again. He concluded that it was not meningitis. It is some other viral thing. They think that it will go away in a few days.

Holding Steady

I checked in with the nurse this morning, and John is still in the hospital. She said that his condition has not worsened in the last 12 to 18 hours. As long as he remains stable he could be released tomorrow. (that will be this evening for us back at home!) Please keep praying! We thank God that things are moving along well, and hopefully we'll have him back stateside by the weekend.

:)

Guest Post

John's trip to Japan just became more adventurous. He has contracted viral meningitis, and is in the hospital in Yokosuka. In the past two weeks thirteen people on the base have caught this disease. His prognosis is good, they told him he has a mild case and that he should be released sometime soon. Part of the adventure was having a Japanese intern administer his spinal tap. He inserted the needle 4 or 5 times before he realized that the needle wasn't long enough!! Please pray for John, for quick healing and that he doesn't have too much pain. (Maybe that was part of the spinal tap, to give him some other pain to think about!)

:)

Monday 25th

After work, I just wandered around the base and took some photos. It was raining lightly this morning, but the rest of the day was just cloudy. Pretty much just like home.

For dinner we wandered back over to Pepper Lunch, I got th pepper steak. For about 8 bucks it is a pretty decent sized meal. After dinner I walked around the city for a while before turning in. Monday's are Monday's where ever you go.

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BASEBALL Sunday

Slept in today, the new pillow is nice. After breakfast I looked at my watch and realized that some people were headed up to a baseball game in Yokohama about that time. I called them and they were at the station hopping on a train. I decided to follow and meet them at the stadium. I road my bike over to the station to save time.

I got to the stadium no problem. Got there about 10 minutes after them. An outfield ticket was 1800 Yen. We sat on the opposing teams side. The whole experience was very different than American baseball. Overall there is a lot more speed, but not as much power in the hitting game. They chant during most of the game. About halfway through the game i figured out that it was a mixture of English and Japanese. The Baystars beat the Buffalo's 5-4. There was about 10 pitching changes. Three home runs. Decent game.

Got back to Yokosuka and went to a really good Japanese restaurant. Finishing up the night by watching Seven Samurai (Wiki).

Pictures and Videos

Rain Again

It sure rains a lot here. And I lost my umbrella somewhere in Tokyo. Good times.

Tokyo Saturday

Got up early to head up to Tokyo this morning. Left the hotel at 7am, we ended up getting on the milk run. There are three types of trains on the particular line. A green, red and black car. The green and red as express, that only stop at a few stations. The black is the every stop train. The only appearance difference in the actual trains is what color the city name is on the car. But it was good because the train was pretty empty. Lots of room.

Got up to Akihabara about half an hour before the shops opened. Walked around and checked stuff out. When the shops opened up people just appeared. Every single square inch of the place has a shop in it. Model train shops, electronic shops, and toy stores. After about an hour it was time to move on.

From the Akihabara it was about 20 minutes to the Yasukuni Shrine (Wiki), that is counting train time. The Torri gate at one entrance is steel and weights about 100 tons. The thing is huge. In the back corner of th shrine is a war museum. Pretty interesting place. Unfortunately they did not allow pictures to be taken inside. For every display case there is usually one or two English display boards. All of the items labels are written in Japanese. So it goes pretty quickly. This shrine is very political in its wording. Whenever a Japanese official visits, a bunch of groups protest. It is worth checking out if you are in the neighborhood.

The plan was too check out the palace gardens, but by this time I was ready to get back. This time we hopped on the right train. Much faster. Stopped by the french pastery shop on the way back to the hotel.

Finished up the night by going bowling with a few of the guys. And had a little bit of pizza.

Lots of pictures.

More Rain

Not sunny today. Right after I got to work it started raining and the wind really picked up. Rained pretty much all day. But it was not like the rain a couple of weeks ago. This was a light rain, but the wind was really strong.

Fun to ride a bike in the sideways rain. Had to lean into the wind to keep upright. Fun times. Fantastic Four ROSS came out today so I decided to check it out. For the price of one ticket back in the US, I got soda and popcorn as well. Pretty amazing.

The pillows in the hotel are rock hard, so I picked up a pillow tonight.

Another note I almost lost my cell phone and camera today. Right before I left today I noticed that my cell phone was not in my pocket. So I went out to retrace my steps. When I was looking around, one of the Japanese engineers came up and handed me it. It is very different here. Then after I got out of the movie I realized that was missing as well. Went back to the movie theater and it was there waiting for me.

More Pictures, Luckily.

Thursday

Got a little burnt being outside today. Very sunny and warm. Most people here always carry umbrellas for the rain and the sun. Different ways of thinking.

There is no real method to the madness of ridding a bike here. People pass on the left on the right, dog in between cars. Puts a lot of responsibility on the drivers.

After work went over to the post office to ship a package out. Pretty easy process once you figure it out.

For dinner went out to Chinese, had stir fry. Very different from American style, but very good.

Pictures

Wednesday

Having a bike in Japan is required if you cannot get a car. Takes about a third of the time to get anywhere. One thing that is strange is that bikes fly through crosswalks and sidewalks. And most of the bikes around town are pretty rusty because of the environment here.

Baseball game was all sold out, so we didn't go. Next week they are going to play the Ham Fighters, so we will probably catch that game.

Headed over to the malls and checked a few stores out. Watched the sunset over Tokyo bay, very pretty.

Finished up the day up by watching the game we were going to go to. Pretty good game

Photos

GPS Tuesday

Got the GPS that I barrowed from a guy at work up and running. At the very least I will know where I am in coordinates.

Went back to the mall and did a little more exploring. Just like any mall in the US. Except all th people are about a foot shorter.

For dinner, went over to the MORE city mall and ate at a noodle place. Had to take my shoes off, and sat at the window looking out over the square. The watriss knew some english but not a lot. I pretty much got what i asked for, can't complain though.

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Monday Monday

Decided to pick up a bike after work. After looking over all of the bikes i decided to rent one on base. It has Disc brakes and a decent front shock. Still a quarter of my real bike but it sure is handy. Instead of taking about 20 minutes to walk out, it takes about 5 minutes.

Decided to wander over to the HOME's shop. It is kind of like a conglomeration between home depot and target. Very strange. They also had animals over there. After that we headed across the street to an electronics store. Unfortunately they were all sold out of the PSP GPS module. Which is good i suppose because it is only displayed in Japanese.

Rapped up the day by stopping by Mr. Donut and trying a green tea and sweet red bean donut. And then went next door to Subway and had an Asparagus BLT.

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