Yokohama

I'm behind as usual. Two months ago we went to Yokohama with 2 other couples. We took the metro train from here, to Tokyo, then to Yokohama. Yokohama is unique in that it is more modern and more international than other cities in Japan. Highlights include:

The Landmark Tower (the tallest building in Japan) which also has the fastest elevator in the world.


The Waterfront (Landmark Tower is the skyscraper on the left)


Yes, we rode the ferris wheel.


Oktoberfest! With a real German band and super expensive beers.


With singing in German.

ROBO Japan 2008, which had all the famous robots on display with also some tournament Robowars. Below is a video of Honda's Asimo robot, which can run and go up and down stairs like a human.

Here's the winners and some other contestants from Robowars. The robots were required to be bipedal, and the strategy usually involved swinging the arms in order to knock over the opponent.


The Sankeien Garden, which was a bunch of restored historic buildings and landscaping around this large pond. Here's some of my best shots.


This plant (the Sweet Olive or Fragrant Tea Olive) possessed such a heavenly fragrance, we bought one for our courtyard soon after arriving home.


And the food and good times with our friends.

Our Courtyard

Our house has a small courtyard in front, that originally was just pea gravel and dirt. I've been waiting a while to have a small yard of my own to landscape. I appreciate the Japanese way of gardening, and I tried to model mine after it. The traditional Japanese garden has roots centuries ago with the tea ceremony. The garden was where you walk through to clear your mind or collect your thoughts or something, on your way to the tea ceremony. The plants tend to be evergreens or grasses of Asian origin and will usually mimic nature in the layout.


I built the pond, which I would estimate it to be about 200 gallons, so on the small side. I've stocked it with koi, goldfish, mosquito fish, white cloud minnows, bitterlings, Japanese dojo eels, and a couple turtles.


I didn't realize how much landscaping costs. It feels weird paying for rocks. But when you live in the city, you can't just gather some from the surrounding area. I tried to stick with smaller plants and items on sale, so it kept my costs to under $500.

Our New Car

It's called a Suzuki Lapin. It's only sold in Japan. I would call it a cross between a Scion xB and a Mini. Very cute, but not too bubbly that a guy can't be seen driving it. This will act as our car until we need 2 cars, which may be never. It depends on where Candice ends up working. Then I'll get to pick my car... fun times.


It's classified as a "mini-car" in Japan. Because of it's small size, weight, and engine (60 cc believe it or not), it gets reduced rates for taxes and random fees. But this thing can haul... a lot of packages. And WOW! Look at those rims! They've got to be 12's or something!

Married!

Below is our website we used for the invites. Sorry if you didn't get invited, because it was a blast! We don't have many pics available now, but I'll post some soon.... 'er or later.

http://www.andyandcandy.info/

Wonderful Worms

This entry is an ode to thee grand ol' worm. Whenever it rains, so many of these fantastic fellows lose their way onto the sidewalk and street. Then it's a race against time. Will they make it home before the weather turns nice?


Check out this video about an effort to save lost worms.

Wayward Worms Video

If you don't know what's going on here, you'd probably be too grossed out if I explained it.

On of the grossest things I've ever seen was this woman with a high fever in Haiti. When the body heated up, the worms started squirming for the fire exit. She started coughing up a multitude of worms that were crawling up her throat.

UNREAL!

Check this out and be amazed. You may want to turn down your sound if straight up beats annoy you. Click the center to get it started, then click anywhere to stop.

Trippin'

Japan

Just when I was getting excited about moving to Japan after seeing this video portraying their amazing talent, I found out that the Air Force is going to keep me in Korea for a couple more months. Looks like we'll be moving there in early September.

Moustach March

Here's the result of 3 weeks of work (I absent mindedly forgot of Moustach March the 1st week). It's a sorry 'stach, I know. My philtrum happens to have my blondest hair. We're all supposed to grow them. Here's my boys...

Engage

Sorry for the late post here. I wanted to write about the rest of time in Thailand, which was too daunting of a task that I kept putting off. So I'll write about it in several smaller, manageable posts. I'll start with the big news...

My girlfriend Candice met me in Thailand after my work with the Air Force. On Valentine's Day, we were supposed to be in Cambodia at Angkor Wat, which is where I planned on popping the big question. But I came across trouble at the border. The Thai immigration officials wouldn't let me across the border. Because I flew into Thailand on a military aircraft, my passport had no Thai entry stamp. Even though I had a letter from the US embassy explaning my situation, and immigration spoke with an embassy liaison, they wouldn't let me across. So with a quick change of plans, we headed back to Bangkok.

The next day was Valentine's Day, and we went and visited the old palace and a couple temples which were simply amazing. I'll talk more about that later. That evening, we got a Thai massage and went to eat at The Breeze restaurant (http://www.breezebkk.com/index.php and http://www.bangkok.com/what%27s-new/breeze.html) which is on a rooftop terrace on the State Tower. With a call beforehand, I ensured we would have a nice table, and the Breeze pulled through with our table sitting on a private semicircle on the roof's edge.


After some romantic prologue and nearly knocking over the table getting to my knee, I opened the ring box and asked Candice to spend the rest of her life with me. She was shocked, and couldn't say a word but gave me a big tearful hug. She was looking forward to this day.

We plan to have our wedding in San Diego where her family lives. It'll likely be July 19th, which is after she finishes her internship and after I finish my year here in Korea. Right after, we'll move to JAPAN!!! I don't think I've posted this yet, but next assignment will be at Yokota Air Base, which is right by Tokyo. Candice and I are both really looking forward to this. She is half-Japanese herself (and half-Chinese) and even has relatives in Japan. After my assignment there, we'll probably move back to the West Coast and finish our residencies.

On the way out, the State Tower had this huge, sweet aquarium. In it, I saw the most beautiful fish I've ever seen...

Picasa

I've started created online photo albums with Picasa, which is another Google beauty. It's quite streamlined with Blogger and other Google entities. It gives you 1024 Mb of free storage. One of the best features is that it can upload scores of photos at once. So here's the link. http://picasaweb.google.com/drewbarnett
You can already check out photos from the first part of my trip to Thailand. It includes pics of the hotel the Air Force put me up in, Thai kickboxing, and more.

Cope Tiger

Part of my squadron of A-10's went down to Korat, Thailand, to participate in Cope Tiger 2008. This is a joint Thai-Sing(Singapore)-US Air Force/Marine exercise. They brought me to be their medical support. So late February, I flew down there on a C-17 Globemaster, which is nice new big aircraft.


This was a awesome assignment. The US Marines brought a couple flight docs and several techs, so we were well staffed in the clinic. I only saw 4 patients a day average, but we were always ready for anything. I also got a chance to fly in a E-3 AWACS. The big platter on top houses a radar, and inside the aircraft are air/weapons control stations. It gets exciting in there when the controllers are informing all the friendly aircraft about approaching enemy aircraft.


Another incredible part of this flight was the in-flight refueling. Watching from the cockpit as 2 large aircraft approach each other to refuel was quite awe-provoking.


Korat (which is in Northeast Thailand) is one of the biggest cities in Thailand, but it doesn't offer much to see or do. In the evenings, I would eat dinner with the pilots, and sometimes we would hit a bar or club. We did get a chance to see a couple Khmer temples from the 10th century.


Above is the center of Phanom Rung, which is considered Thailand's largest and best restored of the Khmer temples (the same folks that built Angkor Wat).


After 2 weeks of flying, here's the A-10's preparing to fly back to Korea. I was able to take some leave afterwards, so I stuck around in Thailand. I'll have much more about this in my next post.

World Heritage Sites

After writing that last post, I reminded myself to look into the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Being a guy, I like to collect things, and I think a good one would be "World Heritage Sites I've Been To". Anyways, here's a little history of these sites.

A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a specific site (such as a forest, mountain, lake, desert, monument, building, complex, or city) that has been selected by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, which is composed of 21 countries. The program aims to catalogue, name, and conserve sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance. As of 2007, a total of 851 sites are listed: 660 cultural, 166 natural, and 25 mixed properties.

I got this info from the glorious Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Heritage_site
and the actual UNESCO website http://whc.unesco.org/en/
So here's my collection so far.

Africa:
Zambia: Mosi-oa-Tunya/Victoria Falls

Americas:
United States:
Carlsbad Caverns National Park - New Mexico
Grand Canyon National Park - Arizona
Independence Hall - Pennsylvania
Wrangell-St. Elias Park - Alaska
Mammoth Cave - Kentucky
Redwood National and State Parks - California
Statue of Liberty - New York
Yellowstone National Park - Wyoming
Yosemite National Park - California

Asia and Australasia:
Cambodia: Angkor (going there next month)
China: Historic Centre of Macau
India:
Agra Fort, Uttar Pradesh
Humayun's Tomb, Delhi
Qutub Minar and its monuments, Delhi
Red Fort, New Delhi
Taj Mahal, Uttar Pradesh
South Korea:
Changdeokgung Palace Complex
Hwaseong Fortress in Suwon
Nepal: Kathmandu Valley
Thailand: Dong Phaya Yen – Khao Yai Forest Complex (next month)

Europe:
United Kingdom:
Palace of Westminster
Tower of London
Westminster Abbey
Westminster School

I missed the several sites in Haiti, Canada, Ethiopia, and Costa Rica. Oh well. You should check the list out, because you might have one next door to you, like this one I just found. Jongmyo Shrine

India: other travels

I had a post about the Taj Mahal earlier, but we saw so much more in India. Here's some other highlights from traveling with Max Janosky.

Red Fort, Old Dehli, India. Used to be the palace grounds.


Itimad-ub-Daulah's Tomb, the "Baby Taj", Agra, India. This white marble beauty is just down the river a bit from the real Taj.


Another photo of the Baby Taj.


Agra Fort. This UNESCO World Heritage site is also an old Mughal Palace/Fort and is considered by many the 2nd most important site to see after the Taj.


Another from Agra Fort. This place is huge, and on top of that, it's composed of very ornately carved red sandstone and white marble.


Monkeys, like cows, are considered holy in the Hindu religion, so they just roam around wherever. So different from most of Africa, where the monkeys run for the lives.


Train toilet. We took the train from Dehli to Agra and back. Going there we were in AC 1st Class which was like an airliner 1st class with air conditioning. Going back we thought we'd try the cheapest class, which was so crowded I could stand on only one leg. And my one leg was standing by an open door. And then all these people would squeeze through selling snacks. And here is the bathroom. That is not a piece of doodoo, but it is open to the tracks below.

New York City

While out in Texas, I spent the 1st weekend of September up in New York City visiting Candice, a friend from medical school. The first night there we went to a trance show/rave by DJ Tiesto. This is one of my favorite DJ's; he has been rated the world's best DJ a couple times in the past few years; and he did the music for the last Opening Ceremonies for the Olympics. Awesome show. Here's a clip from one of his other shows, which shows the enthusiasm of the audience well.

Tiesto's He's A Pirate Mix

Well this turn out to be an amazing evening with Candice, and I fell in love with her quick. She came out to Korea a few weeks later for the week of my ankle surgery. It was such a blessing to have her there. Here are some photos from our travels around Seoul.

Overlooking Seoul.

Palace grounds.

We've gotten the chance to see each other a few other times with my frequent trips out to San Antonio. I really enjoy the weekend trips to New York City. She has a beautiful apartment with the view below. (Photo courtesy of Scott)



New York City is an amazing melting pot. I don't think there is another city in the world with such a mix of cultures. Great ethnic foods... I've enjoyed delicious Ethiopian, Middle Eastern, Peruvian food, and Vietnamese food. Plus great chocolate and coffee were partaken of! Another highlight was the chance be meet up with a couple of my best friends (Jeff and Scott) and their wives.

Janelle, Jeff, Jenny, Me

Scott falling with grace