Yesterday, we spent the afternoon at the beach near our house. While Melody went for a run along the shore, I took to the water for some bodyboarding. Due to a passing typhoon, the waves were really nice... Of course, that also meant lots of surfers and thus, lots of traffic, but since we walked, it didn't slow us down.
The weather was perfect...sunny, and about 70 degrees or so. Still, I wore a wetsuit, if for no other reason than all the surfers were wearing theirs. Call it peer pressure, or maybe me just figuring that if they were wearing theirs, there was probably a good reason to do so.
I hit the water, and spent about an hour out there, catching a few good rides. The trips in were fun, but that usually meant paddling back out while there were still a few big waves coming in. That meant duck diving under them, or getting rolled as they crashed on top of me. Some were pretty big...or at least seemed so from down there.
Overall, a great afternoon. Much of the time was spent trying to stay out of the way of the surfers, but, there were a 4-5 of us bodyboarders out there, all managing to catch a few good rides.
After her run, Melody came and we sat on the beach together. It was quite relaxing, and a simply beautiful day. We just hung out for a while, and I went back out for another 30 min or so.
After getting our fill of sunshine, sand and surf, we headed back home. Along the way, we saw a couple with 5 beagles. We'd seen them before, and they were making a racket, howling in that beagley way that they do. That evening, it was no different.
Well, I'm waiting on some folks that I'm picking up, and am hanging out in Narita international. They're delayed by about an hour, so I've just been wandering around. I did a little work on a presentaion that I have to give in a couple of weeks, but am now at a place where I really can't do any more. So, figured it would be a good time to update the blog.
Narita is a great airport. Lots to do if you have some extended time here. In addition to the normal shops and restaurants, there are some other things that you can do to keep yourself occupied.
Foot Massage. Haven't taken advantage of this, but seems like a good thing to have if you have to shlep your bags all around this huge airport.
Manicure/Pedicure: Melody usually tries to get up here with enough time to take advantage of this.
Massage Chairs: @ 10 min for Y200, not a bad deal.
Roof top viewing: This is my favorite place...a roof top area to watch the planes come and go. I've spent several hours up there taking pictures of the different planes going out. Mostly Northwest and JAL from this terminal, but a nice place to get some sun and relax.
Flight simulator game: There are a couple of these available, too. Never played them, but they look fun.
Internet access: $5 a day, so not bad.
Office workspace: You could actually hold a meeting here if you needed to. There are conference rooms available for rent.
Shower/day bed: Also, if you've got a lot of time and don't want to just wander from one end to the other and back, you can rent a small room to take a nap and get a quick shower.
Bottom line, Narita is a fine airport. I've had to come up here several times to pick up folks, and have never had a bad time. It's convenient, has a lot of amenities, and wouldn't be a bad place to end up if you got stuck here like in that movie "The Terminal."
Last weekend, we met up with our friend Toshi who had tickets to the annual Japan Ground Self Defense Force Firepower Demonstration. It's a chance for the general public to see the capabilities that the JGSDF has. Of course, as a guy, what better way to spend a weekend than watching helicopters and tanks and other implements of war shooting rounds downrange and putting steel on target.
So, Melody and I joined our friends Ed and Kirsten and met Toshi at a mall nearby. He picked us up in his minivan, and we all drove out to Camp Fuji, on the lower slopes of the mountain that's the most recognizably Japanese thing here in Japan.
We got there after a 2 hour drive from the outskirts of Tokyo, just in time to see (and hear) a pair of F-16s finish a bombing run. We missed seeing the explosions, but heard them and saw the billowing clouds of smoke they left. We hurried to our seats so we could catch the rest of the show.
We had pretty good seats in what seemed to be the foreigner section of the bleachers. We were surrounded by a number of military folks from around the world who were most likely defense attaches from the different embassies. We saw lots of different uniforms from places like Egypt, Pakistan, India, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand...quite interesting.
Anyway, the first half were demonstrations of the different weapons systems in the JGSDF starting with the small arms, and moving up to the big guns. We watched as they demostrated mortars, artillery, anti-tank missiles, AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters, Type 90 tanks, armored personnel carriers...they even had guys fast roping out of the back of a CH-47 Chinook helo. it was really cool. They even had a big screen TV showing what was happening out of eyesight.
After a short intermission when the band played a variety of marches and Beatles tunes, the show resumed. This time, it was demonstrating the different systems as they would be employed to defeat an attacking enemy. They started out with the scout helicopters and insertions of dismounted scouts. Some rappelled in, while others pulled motorcycles out of UH-1 helicopters and rode off to keep an eye on the enemy.
Then, the armored personnel carriers came in firing their machine guns as tanks began to move into position to fire. With a deafening crack of the big 120mm guns and huge flames erupting from the barrels, the tanks fired. Two kilometers downrange, one could see the impact, fractions of a second after the shot. Ed, a former tanker himself, had to strain to keep from letting out a thunderous "HOOAH!!" It was awesome.
I was juggling taking video with my small camera with one hand and shooting with my Canon with the other. In spite of the double duty, I managed to come out with a few good shots. Of course, I took over 500 in the space of an hour or so...a few had to work.
After the climax of the show, with a line of armored vehicles shooting white phosphorus smoke grenades, they cleared the field and reassembled one of each type of vehicle involved so people could go up for a closer look. We all did, and afterward grabbed some yaki soba, chicken, and a beer (except Toshi who was driving) before we headed back. As we walked to the van, we passed over a HUGE line of people patiently, quietly waiting for buses to come pick them up and take them back to wherever they came from. We contrasted this with the fact that, had they been Americans, they would not have been so well behaved...
It was an awesome day, and we're quite grateful to Toshi for setting it all up, getting us great seats, and driving there and back.
Below is a movie of one of the Cobras firing it's cannon. If you follow the tracers, you can see the impacts of the rounds downrange...kakui, desu ne?
