A Glimpse at the Wildlife

This first picture is of Sophie, the Chappel's awesome dog, taking her stance on the cliff. The family has dubbed the cliff 'Pride Rock' as she sits here overlooking the bush like a Lioness over her kingdom. And boy does she have a lot to keep her eyes on. I have never seen so many different types of birds and bugs gathered together at the same time, ever. Colorful parrots, yellow haired cockatoos, geckos, lizards, wallabiess and kangaroos. Right after this picture was taken I called Sophie over to where I was sitting to give her a good scratch on the back. It could only have been 15 seconds before she darted into the yard giving me enough warning to turn around and catch a wallaby bouncing past the bushes with her in hot pursuit. FYI, wallabies are smaller than kangaroos. Don't feel bad, I didn't know the difference either. Next on the trip, I must find a koala.

12 Apostles on the Great Ocean Road

After arriving in Australia on Boxing Day we wasted no time in getting started on our first adventure, hitting up the Great Ocean Road. The GOR is a stretch of highway in the territory of Victoria that meanders along the coast of southeastern Australia, approximately 14 hours south of Sydney. There we found breathtaking sights such as the world recognized 12 Apostles. These limestone cliffs jut out 50 to 100 yards off the coast and have been forming and falling for as long as the Earth has been evolving. Although 2 of the structures have collapsed in the past 10 years, experts say that the Southern Ocean's force will form other to replace them over time. Besides awesome sights along the coastline we drove past farmland as far as the eye could see and stopped in towns as small as 1050 people. It was in Port Campbell, home to the Twelve Apostles that I got my first and only glimpse of Kangaroos bouncing through the fields. Just like a tourist, I thought all of Australia would be warm in the summer. However Port Campbell is less than 3000 miles from the South Pole. I hadn't anticipated the cold weather and was quite under dressed most of the time. Withstanding the wind chill was certainly worth the pictures. We stayed in a very cute quiant motel about 2 miles from the 12 Apostles State Park. The motel was situated on a few acres of land with horses, pigs, and goats. The remoteness was the perfect place to take in the night sky which was saturated by shining stars. This arch pictured at the bottom is a natural blowhole when the waters come rushing through. Besides the frigid water temp, the seas were rough and choppy so there were no surfers or snorkelers to be seen. Only the crazy seagulls battled mother nature and even they were being blown like pieces of paper caught in the wind.

The Flight of the Bumblebee

Here's a picture of Linds and I outside of the Botanical Gardens in Sydney. To have been able to sit with one of my best mates, my maid of honor and reflect on life was one of the most cherished things of all my trip. I can't quite figure out how I want to start my first thoughts in the New Year- so much has happened it's hard to recap life through eloquent lines of serenity and thanks. So I will compare it to a song. If my life in 2008 were to be represented by a musical composition it would undoubtedly be Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Flight of the Bumblebee'. You know of the piece, I'm sure. The cacophony of instruments seem to be battling each other, driven to make their noise heard among the other fleeting sounds. If you were to close your eyes and guess where the notes are fleeting to, what do you see? To me it represents all that goes on in life; the juxtaposition of jubilant victories with asphyxiating tragedies. Neither of which have any regard for the timing of the other, they just happen. Singularly, these moments may be negotiable or manageable, but when does life happen when you can manage it? Just as one could disassemble the 'Flight of the Bumblebee' and argue it to be nothing more than chaotic, sparring bursts of sounds, together these sounds comprise a mesmerizing score that makes me keep hitting the replay button. Life, too, with its untimely stages of triumph and defeat seems to be this mind blowing masterpiece of rhyme and rhythm that has it's own agenda, it's own direction. Although I can't control it, I am not afraid of what is in store, it's only 52 weeks after all. Because I long for the days when I could hold my Grandpop, my only solace is to capture my thoughts during these times of life and death, for without the memories of life with those you love, what is the point of life at all?

December 22

Lonely Planet Japan is our best friend right now. Since we’ve got only a few days to explore such a culturally rich city, we’ve decided to take the advice of our trusty book and start our trip on the Southern Higashiyama walking tour. The good book says that if you’ve got only one day in Kyoto this walk is the one to do. The bus system is really easy and efficient in Kyoto so finding our way around has been relatively easy. My two favorite experiences today were the walk through Zuigu Hall and the trek through Fushimi—Inari Taisha. The basement of the temple, Zuigu Hall, has in it a large stone with a Sanskrit character on it. This particular character is known as the symbol for the motherly Buddha. Therefore, the stone in the basement with this symbol on it is considered the womb of Zuigu Bosatsu. Once you descend the stairs you are in complete darkness; you just as well could have your eyes shut as even a hand held in front of your nose cannot be seen. You are guided through the narrow path by hollow wooden baseball size Buddhist beads on the left side of the wall at hip level. In complete darkness this path twists and turns as if testing my faith in a higher power to walk blindly into the unknown, to trust that all will be okay in the end. After making one of the many turns a faint light outlined the large stone a few meters ahead and the Sanskrit was able to be seen on top of this chest high rock. You are to make a true wish in front of this stone and come out purified and feeling a rebirth with the virtue of Zuigu Bosatsu. I’m not sure if my wish will come true or if I felt this rebirth but it was certainly a peaceful experience. The Fushimi-Inari Taisha shrine was just as powerful but in a very different way. This was not one shrine but hundreds of small shrines spread across acres and acres of mountainside connected by over a thousand Torii gates.

December 21

After a 3.5 hour ride on the 200mph Shinkensen (bullet train) we arrived in historical Kyoto. The ride unleashed sights of great mountains, vast farm land, and remote towns in between the two. It was nice to know there is countryside away from the city, a reminder that most of the hectic happenings are concentrated in pockets across the country. Approximately an 8 hour drive west of Tokyo, Kyoto, with a population of 1.7 million, is another one of these pockets. Kyoto’s impressiveness is in its combination of modern skyscrapers, department stores and a downtown business district with the historical Japan that one imagines from the stories in fairytales. You can be on a busy street lined with trendy shops, sports stores, and high tech stores and turn down an alley that holds a beautifully raked Zen garden, an ancient temple, or a Shogun’s castle dating back to the 7th century. There is so much to see that perhaps 3 months would allow you to scrape the surface of Kyoto’s beauty, but we’ve got four days.

December 18

For those of you who have seen Jean Shepherd’s A Christmas Story, this sound clip should be familiar. All I can say is welcome to our world. Our world is one in which Ls are pronounced as Rs and Hs and the TH sound in Theurer does not exist! Most of the time when signing our last name to something (most recently the travel papers for our trip to Kyoto) the person behind the desk or counter looks at our name and then looks up to us in bewilderment. More often than not the person smiles because we both know what is about to come next. They cock their head to the side like they’re about learn something fascinating and ask us, “please say”. After slowly saying a truncated ‘Thor’ two or three times to the individual they try to say it back. Their tongue doesn’t allow the gaffe so the sound comes out like a S. Sheepishly they apologize for decimating the name. It’s a learning experience for everyone.

Deck da halls ...

Maybe We Packed a Little too Lite

The gas is turned on and the heaters fired up. The pillows and blankets are on the bed, the clothes are washed and in the dressers, the washer and dryer are hooked up, the bike is assembled, the fridge and freezer are installed and we've discovered we can 'borrow' wireless from a nice neighbor's connection. Ah, just like home. Well, almost. In our effort to simplify and downsize I think we went a little too far. As the movers brought our things and unpacked the boxes I was reminded of our overzealous let's pack lite strategy. Here is a video of Mark and I getting creative again in the kitchen. The pictures are from a stroll through the neighborhood of Ikedacho, our new home town. We ended the night back in Yokosuka with some friends from the Cowpens. They introduced us to the great Japanese art of Karaoke. The gentleman singing his heart out was the star of the night. He must have sung 4 or 5 songs while we were there. Not a bad way to practice your EngRish i guess.

This weekend has been relatively low key. Mr. Mark is not feeling well and has had a low grade fever, sneezing, coughing and an upset tummy. But he is a trooper. Last night the Cowpens had a Hail and Farewell for those who are new to the ship and those who are leaving. I have to say it was one of the most enjoyable affairs I've attended with the Navy to date. The wardroom is very friendly, jovial and close knit. I'm thankful that Mark is having a good experience on the Mighty Moo (Cowpens is the Thundering Herd). Hopefully this week is not too ardiuous and Mark can transition into two weeks of leave smoothly. We're headed to Kyoto for some sightseeing and mischief making. Surely some great stories to come.

WWHPD?

I'm no where close to being homeless. Sure, I've worked with my fair share, I've given change to some and food to others and at Saint Joe's we'd go around Philly telling the ones on the street where the shelters were, but thank the Lord, I've never been homeless. Why would I be thinking about the homeless now? We just moved into our new pad for pete's sake! But we have no heat yet and it is cold and raining outside. Japanese houses are known for their poor insulation and their meat locker-esque temperatures in the winter times. This is no joke. At one point i was huddled in a ball on a military issued couch with only enough flesh exposed to jot down my thoughts on paper. The kerosene heaters the military delivered to us this morning have no kerosene in them, go figure. And our blankets and winter coats from home will not be delivered until tomorrow. Bullocks. I am wearing a wool hat, two fleece jackets, a sweatshirt, sweatpants under jeans, and two pairs of ski socks and I'm still chilly. That's got me thinking---WWHPD? What would a homeless person do? Too bad I threw away the newspapers this morning when cleaning out our room at the lodge. They keep in the heat I hear. I could never be homeless, I don't have the stamina for the cold. A lot of people knock the homeless for being this or being that, but i can't do what they're doing and i bet you can't either. So what would a homeless person do? Nothing, I guess just sit it out and wait to thaw in Spring. And then it hit me. Aha, the heated toilet seat! It's like a homeless person's city steam vent. With much excitement I dashed into the bathroom and opened the door to the toilet. The bathroom is actually broken up into three spaces. There is a door to the potty, a shower door that leads to a huge shower and soaking tub, and a space with the sink and medicine cabinet that connects the two. So there I was staring at the buttons next to the toilet-- too many button and all in Japanese. So I just started pushing them and watched what would happen. First button, nothing. Second button, a light came on but nothing else. Third button, a soft errrrr erupted from the back of the seat. Uh oh I thought. Before I knew it a small nozzle swung down from underneath the rear of the seat and squirted out a strong stream of water. No way! I just found the bidet. It caught me off guard and because I was standing in front of the toilet when it went off I was hit with the stream of water right in the thigh! I didn't know how to turn it off so I just put my hand over it until the thing stopped. So much for getting warm. At least I had a good laugh. I guess I too will just have to sit it out and wait to thaw. At least I have a home.

The city's abuzz with the sounds of Christmas

More specifically, it was Jingle Bells over and over and over again. In the train stations, on the escalators, outside of small shops and inside department stores. Throughout our adventures in Akihabara and Shibuya Mark and my ears were harangued by familiar tunes of cheer but with indistinguishable lyrics. "No way, is that 12 Days of Christmas playing?" Mark stopped dead in his tracks just to make sure he wasn't hearing things. It was quite comical, trying to pair up the words we know to the words we were hearing. The crowds were dizzying-comparable to New York City with the hustle and bustle but without the move it or lose it aggression. So no matter what corner of the planet you live (granted I've never been in a Muslim country during Christmas) the holidays are the holidays are the holidays.

Here's a fun fact. According to the CIA World Fact Book, only .7% of the Japanese people are actually Christian (about 900,000 people give or take a few) so you'd think that festivities would be a little more subdued or at least a little more diverse with 84% claiming to be Shinto or Buddhist. To a degree, it's unfortunate. I guess if gift buying/giving is done in a way that shows appreciation and value for the human spirit it's not so bad. It's the buying for the sake of buying because it's that time of year again that drives me crazy. So the culture of consumerism hasn't suffocated just the United States. Japan's cities' billboards and newspaper ads show what is hip in the in crowd and given the young and trendy outfits we saw (yes rainbow bright standing next to the Mark City pic is a common style) it looks like many people try to be in that crowd. But with the Japanese economy in a recession and the commercialization of the holidays, I guess retailers are capitalizing on whatever pushes the products. And right now it happens to be jingle bells.

Apparently our first stop of the day is crazy with electronics whether it's the holidays or not. Even the exit sign from the train pointed to 'Electric Town'. Akihabara, bring it on. Block after block, high rise after high rise this area was a big kid's dream. This section of Tokyo is Best Buy, Lowes, and Home Depot on steroids. Every alleyway had a theme and every store was floor after floor of things to make your electric bill soar/sore. And if you didn't want to purchase a new state of the art computer, vacuum, rice cooker or camera, you could just wander around until you found the individual parts to put one together yourself.

We finished our day in Shibuya, the NYC could be if there were more horns, smog and people yelling, 'Yo, foggettaboutit!'. Mark had some ipod issues so we hit up the Apple store and came out with a brand new one. Ah, thank goodness the world is flat.