Family in Town

My brother, sister-in-law, and their son (1 year old) arrived for their visit to Japan a couple of days ago. They are adjusting to the time difference from California, and are dojng OK with that. Unfortunately, somewhere in their travels, their son bacame sick, and was puking yesterday. Last night My sister-in-law also became ill, with similar results. Hopefully they will recover quickly, we won't all get sick, and their vacation can continue.

They were planning on trying to get to Kyoto while they were here, but have decided that there is enough to do here in the Tokyo area without the expense of traveling half way across Japan. We plan on seeing the Imperial Palace, Ginza, Kamokura, and Mt Fuji with them. Otherwise, they will be taking day trips around the Tokyo area to explore.

I have recently started to use a new web sight for posting and archiving my digital photos. It is called Smugmug.com, and my picture galleries can be found at http://eljusto.smugmug.com, which will hopefully eliminate the possibility of losing a large portion of my pictures again. Also, because anybody can look at them, it will help to keep my family off my back about sending them pictures. So everybody is happy.

Togo Shrine Sale

Finally, after being in Japan for more than a year, I went to my first shrine sale this weekend. I picked a doozy as my first, too. I went to the Togo Shrine Sale in Tokyo, probably the biggest regular shrine sale in all of Japan.

For those of you not familiar with the shrine sale, it is like a flee market or swap meet, but it is held at one of the local Shinto shrines. Vendors set out their wares along the paths and open areas around the shrine. The items for sale vary from used toys and old dishes priced at under 100 yen (about $1) to fine antiques and pieces of art going for several hundred thousand yen (sever thousand dollars).

We arrived early (a little after 6 AM), and got a great parking spot. We were there so early, that not all of the vendors had set all of their stuff out yet. We spent about the next three hours wandering around looking at everything, and making a few purchases. I personally bought four Ainu Bears, ten kokeshi dolls, and a small household shrine. The total for all of this was just about $100.

We were home by 10:30, and my wife was mostly fairly please with my purchases (she didn't care too much for the kokeshi dolls I chose).

Election Night Day

One benefit of living in Japan (and the 13 hour time difference from the East Coast of the US), is that all that election night stuff happens during the day over here. SO while people in the US are staying up until 4 AM trying to find out who won, it is just 3 in the afternoon here. The down side is, we watch hours upon hours of middle of the night election coverage...

So here is my analysis. The news media (at least the ones we get on AFN over here, which were CNN, NBC, Fox, and CBS) was plenty happy to call races in various states all day (or night in the US). This happened up to where Bush got just enough electoral votes to not quite win. CNN and NBC called Ohio for Bush, to give him 269 electoral votes, and FOX and CBS called Nevada, to give Bush 254 electoral votes. They then refused to call any more states (as that would have given Bush the solid win), and began into their "too close to call" coverage. It almost seamed like they were trying to make this election another 2000, and act like the whole thing was really up in the air. When you looked at the numbers, though, it was clear that Ohio and Nevada (and probably New Mexico) were clearly Bush wins, and the media simply refused to call them, because that would end the drama they were trying to manufacture. After all, who watches the election news after the winner has been declared (especially at 4 AM US time)?

So, the news media are a bunch of F**king liars (which puts them in good company with Kerry/Edwards), manufacturing controversy and indecision where there isn't any. At least Kerry/Edwards finally saw through all that in the Morning, and were good enough to admit defeat, rather than whine and complain about how unfair it was that they lost (a la Gore in 2000) .

I read an interesting blog about Kerry yesterday while I was watching election coverage. It proposed that Kerry was not a flip-flopper, but was rather a panderer (a point Saturday Night Live has also made). He does not have changing positions, but rather he holds no positions, and simply tells the group he is speaking to whatever he thinks they want to hear. I don't know why the Bush campaign didn't do a better job of establishing this.

At least in the end, no matter how close it was, Bush won...

SCUBA in Saipan

My wife is going to travel next week to Saipan with the Yokota Finatics dive club. They leave on Nov 11th, and return on the 14th. They will get in 7 dives, and it should be amazing. Both my wife and I just got new gear, and this will be her first chance to use it outside of the pool. I wish that I could go, but someone has to stay behind with the kids. That's OK, that just means that it is my turn next time (hopefully Phi Phi island, Thailand).

Professional Engineering Exam

This weekend I took the Professional Engineering (PE) exam for the first time. It was a butt kicker. It consisted of two four-hour multiple choice tests, 50 questions each. Lots of math, and lots of terminology I have never heard of before...

For those of you not familiar, the PE is THE registration for Engineers. Once you get it, your set for life, no need to take the test again. I don't think I passed, though, so I will probably be taking it again next year.

Japanese Weekend

About 12 divers from the Finatics met up here at Yokota at 0630 on Sunday in order to caravan down to the Yokosuka area for a beach clean up, organized by a Japanese conservation divers association. The beach is the location where Commodore Perry first landed in Japan to forcibly open it up to the outside world.

The drive took about two hours (maybe more), but traffic wasn't bad, so it could have been worse. When we got there, we realized that it was a lot colder than we had anticipated, and there was a good breeze, which didn't help. It took at least an hour to get changed, get our gear together, and fill out these long forms (completely in Japanese), indicating that we probably wouldn't die under water from some congenital disease.

When we finally got into the water, it took a good 10 minutes to organize together to begin. We were told to follow a line along the bottom in our buddy teams, with one person following the line, and the other gathering trash. We dropped down a few feet, found the line, and were almost immediately in a mud black-out from the people in front of us. I felt my way along the line, holding the hand of Scott, my buddy, and groping along the bottom. I saw almost nothing, and sometimes it was completely black (a new experience underwater for me). It took about 5 minutes to get to the other end of the line, and we found a grand total of two bottles, both completely by accident when our hands just happened to bump into them in the dark.

We wanted to go back out to an area without other divers, in hopes of actually finding some trash. Plus, we both still had over 2000 PSI left in our tanks (for those who don't know, that means we barely used any air, and had plenty left), and our dive computers showed only a three minute dive. However, we were told to come in, because we has to "keep to the schedule". So after some complaining, we came in, washed our gear off, and got changed.

We then sat around and waited, and waited, and waited, for at least another hour, before the next event. This consisted of the people involved in the beach clean up standing around some trash and blown up pictures of sea life stuck in trash, while a women droned on in Japanese about god knows what. That took at least half an hour (although it felt much longer). Then we got lunch. This was the one redeeming part of the day. We were given bowls of curry rice, which was actually quite good (I had seconds). After eating, we left for the drive home. My driving companion, Jon, and I talked for quite some time about the insanity of the whole event.

So here is the balance sheet for the day:

Cost:
Time: 0600-1430 = 8.5 hours
Tolls: 1200 yen = $11.22
Gas: estimate 4 gallons = $6.96
Air Tank: Free for me, but cost somebody
Benefits:
Trash picked up: 1 bottle
Lunch: Curry rice
Coupons: Two free tanks at IOP (value 6000 yen = $56)
Gear test: first use of new gear
Story: How can you put a value on this?
Experience: Last beach clean up I will probably do

I guess, all-in-all, the benefits outweighed the costs. Unfortunately, the main purported benefit of the day, a cleaner beach, didn't really happen, at least not from my participation. I guess that this is the most disappointing part of the day, that while I benefited personally from the day, the beach did not.

Weather Changes

Talk about a radical swing in the weather! Wednesday was raining buckets, and I mean RAINING. Yesterday dawned cloudy with a little drizzle, and was sunny by the afternoon. Today is sunny and warm, just a beautiful day all around (except that I have to work).

Yesterday was one of those days. I had been having a great week, work-wise, and was busy Wednesday getting a letter staffed through about half a dozen people before it went out to the Japanese Ministry of Environment. I was in such a hurry at the end of the day, that I did the old "edit the copy in outlook, print the copy from the hard drive" thing. I am sure we all have done that, but my mistake got signed by my Colonel, and sent to MOE, before our lawyer caught it. However, when he saw it, he assumed that I had just ignored his comments, rather that making a printing error, so then he was pissed off, so of course my Colonel was pissed of (something you never want to do), and by the time I came into work on Thursday, I was pretty much in the dog house here. Anyway, we called the MOE, and explained the situation, and they were very understanding, and agreed to destroy the other copy, and replace it with the new one (which had only minor changes, anyway, so no big damage was caused). Still, it kind of killed my good week....

My brother and his wife and son are coming out to Japan in December (Dec 10 - Jan 3), and they will be the first people to come out and visit us since we came to Japan just over a year ago (actual anniversary was last week). While they are here, they will travel to China with my wife and step-daughter to see the Great Wall, Tienamin Square, and some other things around the Beijing area. I will stay behind with the youngest two, and then travel to see China at a later date. While they are here, I am planning on taking them to a couple of shrine sales, up to the fifth station on Mt Fuji, and to visit the Imperial Palace on the Emperor's birthday (when they open up more of the palace grounds to the public).

Typhoon a-go-go

Yokota Air Base is currently in Tropical Cyclone Condition of Readiness (TCCOR) 2, which means that winds of 50 miles/hour or greater are expected within the next 24 hours. This is at least the third time in the last month that the Tokyo area is being hit by a typhoon. The other two didn't do much here, just dome wind and rain, but this one is forecast to come almost directly at Yokota. It is supposed to pass within 24 miles of here at 0200 Thursday morning, but we have been getting rain from it for the last day or so.

I called our base radio station yesterday when they were giving away Hilary Duff tickets, and have gotten 3 tickets for my wife, daughter, and one of her friends to go to her concert in Tokyo on Thursday evening (hopefully it will have stopped raining by then).

Now for something work related. The Japanese love to answer a question without answering your question. They are masters at it. However, I had a meeting the other day, and repeatedly did the same thing, giving non-commital answers, and half answrrs to their questions, and they didn't seem to like it very much. Go figure...

News from the States

I just received some interesting news from my wife about a good friend of mine back in California. His name is Dave, and he is married to a Ukrainian woman named Anna. They have two children, Anastasia (from Anna's previous marriage) and Vladimir. For the last four years or so, they have also had Anna's Sister and parents living with them. They had sold all of their belongings in the Ukraine, and moved to America (Dave made a huge mistake in this, in my opinion). Dave sells tapestries on the internet, and does pretty well at it. Take a look at his site at www.realtapestries.com if you like.

Anyway, I just learned from my wife that they all had some huge fight about the fact that her parents expected to be taken care of for the rest of their life, and Dave and Anna didn't think they had signed up for that. I guess the fight was pretty big, because everybody (parents and sister) moved out of Dave's house. The parents are apparently moving back to the Ukraine, and her sister has moved out, quite her job working for Dave, and is going to make a go of it on her own. Good luck, especially without a work visa (she is currently in the US on a student visa, which doesn't allow her to work).

At least my wife will have a place to stay for here trip at Thanksgiving, with all the room Dave will have in that huge house.

Asian Bazaar Weekend

This weekend was the semi-annual Yokota Officers Spouses Club's Asian Bazaar, where vendors from all over Japan set up shop in a hanger here at Yokota, and spend two days trying to sell us stuff. It is a great place to get furniture, dishes, and other Japanese and Asian items. It can get kind of hectic, but this year the turn out seemed kind of low, even though the weather was pretty nice all weekend.

I worked the Finatics' food booth outside of the bazaar on Saturday from about 0800 to 1200, and my wife worked the two Girl Scouts booths from 1200 to 1800. The Finatics sold breakfast burritos, soft tacos, quesadillas, coffee and soft drinks, and I think we did pretty well, at least on Saturday. I went by on Sunday to do some shopping, and it didn't look like they were getting much business, but the bazaar itself was pretty empty.

At the bazaar, I bought a bunch of stuff I don't need, some of which are going to be Christmas presents, including: silk robes, sake bottles and sets, earrings, pearl necklaces, jade chopstick sets, chopstick rests, napkin rings, shi-shi dogs, and I am sure some other things I can't think of right now.

Elizabeth, my 3 year old daughter, had another modeling job in Tokyo on Sunday. She modeled pajamas and jogging outfits, and was done quickly. It only paid 18000 yen (about $170), which is less than the normal 25000 yen ($230), but is was fast, and she and Renee were home before 2:00.

The Finatics are having a dive trip over the Veteran's Day weekend to Saipan, and we put down our 15000 yen deposit on Friday so Renee can go. She and Jane-Ann will be going to the States for Thanksgiving, and they will be going to China with my brother and his wife and son sometime in December. Just paying my dues, though, so I can go diving in the Spring (again with the club), and I will be going to China, when I get the chance. Renee and I have decided that it will be easier to do major trips separately, so we don't have to take the youngest kids. I would love to take them, but they won't remember these trips anyway, and they make it nearly impossible to really enjoy a place.

Japanese Olympics

My god, two posts in the same day. I guess this will slow down when the newness of this blog thing wears down. Anyway....

I was inspired to start my blog by the blog of a friend of mine, Jeff Laitilla, another American Environmental Engineer here in Japan who works for the Commander, Naval Forces Japan out of Yokosuka Naval Base, about 1-2 hours south-east of me here at Yokota AB. He has a very good blog, which he has been doing for sometime, about his experiences here in Japan. I recently read a blog he wrote back in August about a set of Japanese Olympic games, which I thought was very funny, and accurate. If you want to see it, it is at:

http://www.sushicam.com/2004/August/040818/040818.php

If you really want to know about Japan, read his blog, it is much more complete (and probably better) than mine, plus he has a lot of great pictures in his.

In that Olympics blog, he included several games, and I thought of a few more:

• Salaryman Synchronized Street Peeing - Groups of drunk middle aged Japanese men pee in the street outside of a Pachinko Parlor. Extra points for not getting your or your team mates' shoes wet.
• School Girl Stair Climb - Japanese High School girls must climb the stairs of a train station in the fastest time, without letting any of the business men behind them see up their skirts. Extra points if they are sucking on a lollipop or wearing any article of clothing that has the playboy bunny on it.
• Train Sitting (Mens) - Middle Aged Japanese businessmen must compete to see who can sit the longest in the train seats reserved for the handicap, the aged, and women with small children, while women holding sleeping children stand in front of them and stare.
• Meeting Addition - This is a unisex competition, but men seem to excel at it. The contestant must arrange a meeting about one subject. This subject must take no more than 10 minutes, after which the contestant will ask to bring up a few other items, as long as they are there. These other, unscheduled agenda items, must take up at least 1 hour. Extra points if they are able to arrange a meeting without divulging any agenda items.

Morning in Japan

I live on Yokota Air Base, which is located about 30 KM west of the City of Tokyo, Japan. Being an air base, it is centered around the flightline (aka runway), which runs roughly north-south, dividing the base into two sections. The western section is where most of the base is located, including almost all of the work centers, and a significant amount of base housing. The east side of base is almost entirely base housing, and that is where I live. In order to get to work, I have to drive across the south end of the flightline, heading west.

It has been raining and overcast for what seems like several weeks here, but this morning it finally dawned clear and beautiful. As I was driving to work, I had a magnificent view of Mt Fuji in the distance, with the air so crisp and clear that it felt that I could just reach out and touch the mountain. With all the wet weather we have been having, I was surprised to see that the mountain showed no signs of snow (which makes it look even more beautiful).

I am a member of the Finatics Dive Club at Yokota. We dive frequently on the Izu Peninsula, about a 3 hour drive south of base. The diving is surprisingly good, with lots of tropical fish and corrals. We regularly see clown fish, lion fish, several types of eels, damsel fish, needle fish, and the occasional small ray. The water temperature has been around 77 F most of the summer, and I am quite comfortable in a 2mm shorty wetsuit (although some of the Japanese we see there actually wear dry suits, quite crazy). We have a trip planned for the Veterans Day Weekend to the island of Saipan, which is supposed to be just gorgeous, but there is a problem. When our club president went to the travel agency to make the reservations, they told him that the flights coming back on Sunday were all full, so we may be screwed, which would suck.

This weekend Yokota Air Base is having its biennial Yokota Officer's Spouce's Club Asian bazaar, and the Finatics have a booth selling breakfast burritos and tacos to raise money. We are not getting very good participation from the club, though, so we will see how it goes. The club is also doing a beach clean up dive on October 24th, which seems to be getting better participation. We will be going to a beach just south of Yokosuka and cleaning trash up out of the water. They are providing free tanks, weights, and lunch. My wife (she is the leader of a Girl Scout Troop) is bringing her girls scouts out to clean up on the dry side.

Well, that's today's entry. Have a great weekend.

First Post

This is my first blog post, so I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Justin Lancaster, and I am a 33 year old Environmental Engineer currently living just outside of Tokyo, Japan, with my wife Renee, my step daughter Jane-Ann(12) , my daughter Elizabeth(3), and my son Holt(2).

I am originally from the North Coast of California, from a very small town in the mountains above Eureka, California. Beautiful place, if you get the chance, I would highly recommend a visit, but go in summer, and still bring a coat and umbrella. I went to college at Humboldt State University in Arcata (just a few miles north of Eureka), and graduated in 1995. Upon graduation, I got my first job working as an Environmental Engineer for the Air Force at March Air Force Base, in Riverside County, California. After 5 years there, I got a job with the Navy in San Diego, traveling to Navy bases throughout the Southwest doing environmental audits and the like.

After three years of that, I got the opportunity to come to Japan for three years (with return rights to my job in San Diego), so I jumped at it. I am currently the Chief of the Environmental Branch at United States Forces, Japan. I have been here for just a few days short of one year, and have loved almost every minute of it.

A few of the things we have been able to do while we have been here are:

• View the Emperor and his family on his birthday
• Drive to the Fifth Station of Mt Fuji and play in the snow
• SCUBA dive on the Izu Peninsula
• Spend a weekend in Kyoto (the old Capitol of Japan)
• Witness a firewalking ceremony at a shrine in Takao
• Walk through the streets of Ginza
• Visit what must be the worst, most crowded, Disney Park in the World
• Walk on the Sand at Iwo Jima, and stood atop Mt Cirabachi (incredible)

Some things I would still like to do while I am here are:

• See the Monkeys that bath in the hot springs
• Climb Mt Fuji
• Visit the Great Wall of China
• Visit Hiroshima
• Dive Truk Lagoon

I guess that that is enough for my first post. Thanks...