Itsukushima

We were not scheduled to leave Hiroshima today until 4 o'clock in the afternoon so we took the train out to the Itsukushima Shinto Shrine. It is on Miyajima, an island about 10 miles southwest of the city.

The day was wonderful to go to the island. It must have been oyster season in that part of Japan. On the ferry crossing to Miyajima we saw countless oyster traps strung out in long patterns on the waters of Hiroshima Bay.

The big draw to the island is the Itsukushima Shrine torii gate It is one of Japan's most popular tourist attractions. The first torii gate was placed here in 1168. Subsequent gates have stood in the same spot over the centuries. The present one, standing about 48 feet high, dates back to 1875.

There are all these nasty scrawny-looking deer running loose on the property. I cannot see how parents allow their young children to touch these dirty animals. They leave their droppings on the ground everywhere. With food vendors cooking their foods outdoors I would think that these animals would be a health hazard. The scene of these deer running free in such a crowded place seemed so out of character for the Japanese. They are such neat and clean individuals.

We pulled out of Hiroshima at 4:06 p.m. Melba and I got off at Shin-Yokohama at 7:45 p.m. The Shinkansen stops here for only one minute, so you have to move fast if you are getting on or off. A couple of hours later we made our way back to Yokosuka following a train ride and a couple of taxi hops. The Saenz went on to Tokyo, arriving at 8:13 p.m. After that they still had about two hours before they would get home.

Hiroshima

Hiroshima is one of the most vibrant places I have ever visited, but the specter of atomic war and the unimaginable destruction that is synonymous with the name of this city cannot be ignored when one finds himself walking its streets. The knowledge of the fiery hell that ruptured the calm of an August morning in the clear blue sky above this city sixty-three years ago is unsettling.

I "borrowed" the picture above.

We were here today.

It is a solemn, if not eerily, hallowed place.

We stayed a short walk from here at the Rihga Royal Hotel Hiroshima.

Kyoto

We were up at 3 o'clock this morning. By 4:30 a.m., without any breakfast in our bellies, we were standing on the platform in Fussa with tickets in hand for the train to Tokyo. It was dark, cold, and raining. Our sleepiness was exceeded only by the excitement of what lay before us; the Shinkansen, Japan's famous bullet train. I was anxious to experience the feeling of zipping along the rails at 188 miles per hour on the way to Kyoto, 350 rail miles to the west through the Japanese countryside.

I "borrowed" the picture above.

At Tokyo the train station was remarkably busy even at 6:50 in the morning when we pulled out. The interior of the Shinkansen is spacious with lots of leg room. The seating is great. If only the airlines would duplicate these conditions flying would again be an enjoyable experience.

And what efficiency! The train is staffed with the most professional and congenial people; from the conductor to the gal that gathers the trash. As each enters or exits the coach he or she will face the passengers and bow. What wonderful etiquette. I will miss this formality when we get back to the rough and tumble U.S.A.

We pulled out of Tokyo at 6:50 a.m. and arrived in Kyoto at 9:11 a.m. The stop in Kyoto to get off the Shinkansen was two minutes long. As quickly as that, the train was gone.

Melba and I pose in front of the Golden Pavilion Temple in Kyoto. Is that real gold on the temple walls? Yes.

The grounds around the temple are picture-postcard beautiful.

This young lady was one of many uniformed bellhops in the Kyoto Hotel Okura. I could not let an opportunity to pose for a picture alongside her slip by.

This is the entrance to the Fushimi Inari Shrine. It is home to countless torii gates. It takes about two hours to walk along the whole trail.

Some sources place the number of torii gates at 30,000.

I have to thank Melba for asking these Japanese blossoms to pose with me for a picture. When I laid eyes on on these beauties I lost my power of speech.

At day's end we were one tired crew. We stayed at the Kyoto Hotel Okura, a class joint.

Leave Kyoto at 1:29 p.m., arrive at Hiroshima at 3:05 p.m.

Thanksgiving

In my fifty-five years this was the first Thanksgiving meal I ate outside the bounds of South Texas. It will be one of the more memorable in the years left to me. I had not shared a meal with such a gathering of young, intelligent and aspiring people in recent memory. It was genuinely good company. The meal was another winning combination of gastronomical wizardry. Ronda exercises her gift in the kitchen with mastery.

This is Brett, a co-worker of Rene's, with his daughter and wife, Micki. On the right is Sam. She works at the bank on Yokota AFB. Her husband, Song, also works alongside Rene.

Brett and Rene. A couple of real sharp characters. Brett was formally in the Navy and then finding more promise and opportunity in the Air Force, signed on.

The ladies and their million-dollar smiles are Micki, Brett's wife, then Ronda, Melba sitting, Sam in the white, she's Song's wife and then Katrina, a 27-year-old dentist, only arrived on Yokota last month. She's married to Ernie, a gregarious fellow.

Sitting on Ernie's lap is his son, sporting the Longhorn 25 is young Renie, and the calm and unflappable Song, also a co-worker of Rene's.

Song and Rene share some Asahi Dry, a very fine Japanese brew. Song holds the MAN-sized bottle.

The Two Lasts

School for Melba let out at two this afternoon. I picked her up and we headed up Highway 16 to Yokota Air Force Base. We are spending Thanksgiving with Ronda and her family. This trip is also the last time I will drive in Japan. The car goes to new owners and we're taking the train back to Yokosuka on Sunday.

This weekend also marks the last time we will take an excursion to explore more of Japan. Along with the Saenz' on Friday we are taking the train into Tokyo to catch the bullet train to Kyoto for a day of sightseeing. On Saturday we board the bullet train once more and head further down country to visit Hiroshima. Then it's back to Yokosuka on Sunday via Tokyo.

Anywhere you are Thanksgiving is a wonderful time in the Fall and I wish we were back home in South Texas with all our friends and family. Thank God we have Ronda, Rene, Renie and Larissa to count our blessings with way over here a través del Pacifico.

Puros Enfermos

I drove Melba to the base hospital to see what the doctors could do about her incessant nasal drip and cough. I waited for her in one of the lobbies populated by sick kids and equally sick grownups. It was probably the most dangerous thing I did today. After about a half hour of trying to take only shallow breaths in the midst of all that coughing, sneezing, and nose blowing I got up and left. There were cold metal benches outside and I sat myself down on one and continued to wait patiently. I know it's only fifty degrees outside, but that's plenty cold for me. I thought it better to sit outside and take in cold gulps of air than to draw in the germ-laden air in the lobby. Later, Melba was told that the 'epidemic' of respiratory problems on base was somehow connected to the falling leaves. Huh?

Begin Week #16

There is only one item left to be boxed up and shipped back to the States. It is a modest flat screen television. What is left in the apartment will easily fit into our two luggage pieces. That is it.

A mixed bag of emotions almost encourages a sense of melancholy to take root. Of course, I do not permit it. There is no time for sentiment right now. There are other things to contend with in the weeks that remain before we leave. We will keep our minds clear. In lieu of emotion, a cold rain begins to fall on this somber afternoon in Yokosuka.

A Brief Episode

We will be parting company with our wonderful little Nissan March soon. Our mechanical friend goes to new owners at the end of the week and we will miss this great car, but it belongs to another world; a world we are leaving behind. It was the perfect vehicle for the new life we had begun to carve for ourselves in Japan, but it seems that in God's grand design our new lives here were only a brief, if not memorable, episode in the script Melba and I have been writing and rewriting for over thirty years. God has creative control over our screenplay and we don't have a problem with that.

Once we get back from our weekend trip to Kyoto and Hiroshima Melba and I will be afoot once again in Yokosuka. We will have come full circle. It will not be long before we are down to living out of two suitcases at the Navy Lodge exactly as we did when we first got here. Most of our meager possessions are in packages strung like beads on a string on the mail route between Japan and Texas. The first of many boxes arrived only last Thursday.

God is good. Once the new year begins Melba will again resume her responsibilities with the Benavides schools whose Board of Trustees in an act of good judgment rehired, and my post-retirement employer was gracious enough to welcome me back to my former post. Life is good. We may recover the material vestiges of our old existence once we are back in our old stomping grounds, but family and friends will only see the outer shell of who we once were. I think the grey matter on the inside has been rewired and we will experience a second dose of culture shock on the first morning we step out under a South Texas sky.

Colder Than A Witches...

Much of our day was spent boxing things up to send back to the States and cleaning up our almost empty apartment. No excursions for us this weekend. But all work and no play makes Atilano a dull boy, so late in the afternoon we drove over to the Fleet Theater to catch the latest James Bond release. Of course, this time of year it gets dark early and when the sun goes so does its heat.

Showtime was scheduled for 6 p.m. and expecting a big crowd we wanted to secure a good parking spot. That's not always easy. We got there at 5:15 and already found a group of movie goers bunched up outside the locked doors of the movie house. It was cold to wait outside, but we did.

Once the theater was opened for business we quickly bought our tickets to get in out of the cold. We needn't have rushed. It was colder inside than it was outside. I mean bitterly cold. Worse still was that the overhead vents were blowing air, damn cold air. We hopped around from seat to seat trying to locate a spot that was draft free but without luck. We hunkered down like a couple of deer hunters in a blind on a chilly morning and waited for show time. Surely, we thought, when the place gets filled up with people the body heat from the masses will help. It never did.

The movie was no disappointment. We got our six dollars worth of entertainment, but the recollection that is frozen, and I do mean frozen, in my memory is the unbelievably cold conditions under which a theater full of movie fans sat for the duration of the picture. Everyone was bundled up like fans at a Packers home game in December.

Room With A View

We sold our television to a DoDDS teacher from Melba's school and she drove us out to her place so I could set it up. She lives off base about five miles down the coast in Uraga, a suburb of Yokosuka. We had been told that she enjoyed a nice view. They were not kidding. Not only does she enjoy a great view of Uraga Channel, the inlet to Tokyo Bay, but her spacious apartment is on the top floor of a 14-story high rise. After I got through setting up the television I didn't want to leave. I could easily have sat there the entire evening watching the ship traffic while enjoying a good Cabernet Sauvignon.

Todo el Santo Dia

¿Que hice todo el Santo Dia? I boxed things up to ship home. There's not too much left and right now there's a steady stream of packages slowly making its way to South Texas. The guys at the base post office must wonder what it is that I am boxing up and sending off everyday, but they just look at me curiously and don't ask questions.

It would be more pleasant being out and about exploring, taking in as much of the Japan around me in the last weeks here, but the apartment has to be vacated by noon on December 12. All Melba and I are taking back on the plane home are two suitcases and a couple of carry-ons. Every last thing we didn't sell or give away needs to be packed and shipped off and that's been my job the last few days. I am just about done and it's costing a pretty penny.

I've become quite the expert with brown wrapping paper, bubble wrap, strapping tape, loose fill foam peanuts, and yards and yards of wide adhesive tape. When this stuff begins arriving back home in five to six weeks they will be like Christmas packages I sent to myself, only the contents won't be any surprise.

Happy Birthday

Yesterday was Evan's birthday. He turned six. Melba and I would have liked to have been there to watch him blow out the candles. We'll be home in four weeks to give him a couple of great big hugs.

What a Clear Day

Today we enjoyed a remarkably clear view across the bay. Monday is pictured above and today is pictured below. What a difference 48 hours makes.

Buena Gente

Melba and I have crossed paths with some exceptionally good people here. Many have been extraordinarily kind, helpful, and supportive, but none more so than Marissa. Weeks before we boarded the flight to Japan this wonderful lady had been in contact with Melba via email and phone calls offering information, advice and tips over what to prepare for working overseas. A longtime DoDDS teacher, she has lived and worked in a good number of places around the world. Her last assignment was at Ft. Stewart in Georgia, before transferring to Yokosuka last summer. She landed in Japan only an hour after our flight had touched down. She's been a great friend to us, my wife especially.

I could fill a notebook chronicling all the help this good woman has willingly offered. She lives off base in a charming neighborhood in Ikego. This afternoon she invited us to go see her place. What she has done with this rental property is amazing. Few places have made me feel so at home as this one. She is genuinely buena gente and we will miss her terribly.

Begin Week #15

If the weather is exceptionally nice at lunchtime Melba and I will sometimes drive out to a small parking area on the north end of the base. It's a quiet place to eat and enjoy a great view of Tokyo Bay. Because Melba lunches early at eleven o'clock we have the place to ourselves for a while before others with the same idea begin pulling up at noon. We like it here because the boxy nature of our little car encourages a sense of intimacy in its confined interior. It makes for good quality time. We enjoy the parade of ship traffic in the distance, the 'flying show' that these strange fish put on sometimes by continually leaping out of the water as if they are trying to snatch a nibble in the air, or just watching the sea birds sail lazily on the currents of air over the bay. We sit there and talk quietly to each other about home, friends, and family. It's easy to do that when you let your gaze extends far beyond the hazy blue horizon where the sky drops like a curtain to meet the sea. It can be a dreamy place when it's quiet like that.

Our meal of choice is from the local SUBWAY; a six-inch turkey on wheat, no cheese, with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, jalapeños with spicy mustard. We throw in a couple of bags of chips and some delicious chocolate cookies to the order, washing it all down with diet Pepsi.

At times, when another vehicle parks alongside, we'll look over and catch a quick glimpse of the lone occupant sitting quietly, staring into the distance, not really focusing on anything. It almost always is a young person. We know what they're thinking. Estamos muy lejos de casa.

Something in the Air

A couple of days ago we were going through some of our things that were still boxed up from the time we left Benavides and I think we inadvertently released some South Texas allergens into the air. Melba started up with a drippy nose on Friday, added dry itchy eyes yesterday, and this morning woke up to achy, watery, runny, scratchy, coughy and worst of all sneezy conditions. Much like the weather today in Yokosuka, she wasn't looking so good. Except for a quick trip to the Navy Exchange and the Commissary, we stayed put indoors all day.

Lunch with Jimi Hendrix

Melba and I took a one-hour train ride into Yokohama today to meet Ronda, Rene and the kids at MM21, the commercial-plex we went to last weekend. The four are exceptionally good company, and for the Saenz' their commute by train was a two-hour trek. When we finally met up in Yokohama we were all famished.

Ronda led the way, and loyally or blindly, we followed. She knows where all the good food joints are and her nose landed us at The Hard Rock Cafe. The waitress, a pretty little nymph of a girl, led us through the Rock-n-Roll sanctuary adorned with music memorabilia and offered us a good table against a wall with a large colorful poster of the late great Jimi Hendrix smiling down on us. I found everything to my satisfaction except for the music being piped in at decibel levels that matched a rocket launch. It wasn't long before my ears began to ache. Luckily, the alcohol in my ¥1300 margarita numbed a little of the unpleasantness.

Everyone ate very well. On the world currency market today one U.S. dollar equalled 97 Japanese Yen. Melba's and my tab for lunch came to 5550 Yen. You figure it out. Unlike in the States, the one advantage here in Japan is that you never leave a tip, regardless of how pretty the waitress was.

The Yokohama Museum of Art is located at MM21. It had an exhibition of the works of Cezanne. His art influenced the big art movement that happened in France and Japan in the beginning of 20th century. The entrance fee was a bit steep, ¥ 1400, but Cezanne is important.

Déjà Vu

Did I dream this or did I already pack this stuff once before? I spend the better part of the day going through much of the personal effects I had packed to ship over here in the first place way back in August. Now it's going back. Having a good sense of humor helps..., a little.

There was no time today to go exploring. The remnants of my sparse material world are being culled like cattle through a chute. Some of this stuff are "keepers" while others are tagged "sell it." Much is simply going into the trash bin eight flights down out in back of the tower. I didn't bother with the elevator a few times so at least I got some exercise today.