Kamakura and the Great Buddha

I visited Kamakura for the afternoon and saw the Great Buddha, which was built in the mid-thirteenth century.

I had an Austalian couple take this picture for me. The guy's name was also David, which, I thought, was neat.

Yokohama Baystars

I went to the park and met up with my friends at Yokohama Stadium after the baseball game because it was across from my hotel. This is what I found...
Yokohama Stadium in the background. Home of the Baystars. In Japan, they name the team after the sponsor company and the stadium after the city; the opposite of the US. So instead of the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field it would be the Lincoln Financial Eagles at Philadelphia Field. The Baystars are the only team in Japan to not do this and have an independent team name. They get to play teams with intimidating names like the Nippon-Ham Fighters.
I took them on a walk through Chinatown to a great buffet I found the day before.
After dinner we went to a Korean restaurant for ... more.... dinner.... and while hanging out we started talking to these 50ish year old Japanese guys next to us. After they proceeded to get lit and made us drink more than we probably should have, they paid for our entire bill and then took us out to Karaoke.

Yokohama, Japan 2

I hate buses in Japan. They are clean, timely, efficient, and so so so confusing to me! I always end up further away from my destination than where I began and with less money. I will stick to the trains.
Bamboo forest
Sankeien Garden

Looking down on Yokohama from the top of Landmark Tower.

Yokohama, Japan

Yokohama is the nicest city I have seen in Japan... and there are many nice cities here. It has Japanese customs and politeness with wide western roads and western-style houses. Here is a view from the park.

Yokohama Bay Bridge. It leads North directly into Tokyo (which you can see from the taller buildings in the city).
The crowded streets on a Saturday afternoon

Landmark Tower, the tallest building in Japan.

Yokohama Chinatown

Yokohama has the largest Chinatown in Japan. My hotel was right around the corner from it. It was second most clean and safe Chinatown I have ever seen- the first being in Singapore.



Market street

This morning


You could see Mount Fuji from the ship this morning. I had to take a picture. It was much closer and larger than this picture would have you believe.

I know it may be hard to see me in my new Navy working-cammies (that was a joke). Please note the surface warfare device above "US NAVY" on my left chest. Hooyah!

Biopark, Nagasaki, Japan

Biopark is like a zoo except the animals aren't kept in cages. You walk around to different parts of the park and can touch, feed, and play with the animals. They have everything from snakes, monkeys, kangeroos, bugs, birds ... it's pretty cool.



Wallaby

Still in Korea .... ugh


I received my Surface Warfare qualification from the Captain. It took 10 months.

The corpsmen in the OR with some Korean guy

After weeks of working the same routine; 14 hours a day; 7 days a week; we get a little desperate to switch things up so we throw an Ice Cream Social!


Two Daves

Dave 2 doesn't like cherries

More Korea Ops pictures



A visit from the Army

MH-53E, the Sea Stallion. These things are huge and are primary used for lifting extremely heavy cargo.... or in this case to deliver pizza to the Admiral and his staff (notice the pizza guy at the bottom of the picture). No, I didn't get any.