I've long been thinking of trying to set up some kind of blind that I can use that would help camouflage me so that I could take better close ups on the critters that show up around the house and in particular the back yard. Today I got lucky. I was in the computer room (where I am now) and happened to look out the back window and noticed this guy perched in a tree.
This is the same Flicker Wood Pecker that I photographed a couple of days ago on the telephone pole in our back yard. I realized that if I removed the screen from the window, all I would have to do is carefully raise the window to be able to see a large portion of our back yard and get some of the photos that I've been wanting. This is the first.
I realize that there are days, sometimes weeks that go by without me making a blog entry. So - to try to maintain the blog on a more regular basis, and to keep me busy and out of trouble, I'm going to post some of the photos that we took while we were stationed overseas during our Naval career. It probably won't be everyday but at least more frequently than the past, unless I'm working.
This first entry will be one of our tours in Japan, Misawa, Japan to be exact 1981-1984. Ya have to remember - this was 33-34 years ago so we looked a little different. Heh Heh. Anyway - this was one of our camping trips to Lake Towada in northern Japan.
I looked a little rough, probably need a shave. Lake Towada was a dormant volcano crater, about a 3 hour drive from Misawa. My duty station, Misawa was located about 400 miles north of Tokyo. It got kinda cold during the winter there and we had an average of 120 inches of snow accumulation during the 5 month winter. We usually stayed about a week and went touring the country side.
We came across this Tori, which marks the entrance to a Japanese Shrine or temple.
After passing under the Tori we followed the walkway until we came upon the actual temple, seen here at the end of the trail. You can see a couple standing in front of the Shrine. Our next stop was in town.
This is the only place in Japan where the Hachinoe horse in made. You can see the red one just outside the door in front of the car. You can get them unpainted or decorated. Each horse is hand painted by an individual local artist. These represent the horses the early Japanese warriors rode into battle. If you watched "The Last Samurai" you saw the warriors and their horses.
Here you can see two Japanese women painting the horses. I was given one when I left Japan with all my co-workers signatures on it.
We still have most of the stuff we collected overseas but did lose a lot of it when Hurricane Andrew hit Homestead, Florida, where I was the Operations Chief for the Naval Security Group Activity.
Anywho - we attended one of the many parades held locally every year.
This was just one of the floats in the parade. Don't know what the celebration was but it was probably something historic. This float has a very large drum on it. There are four guys on each end of this thing and they continually hammer a rhythm that you wouldn't want to listen to for long. It's extremely loud and you can hear it from a long way off.
It may be hard to tell but you can probably judge by the warrior riding the horse that this horse is huge. He stands well over 17 hands and is about the size of a Percheron. Usually the horse would be outfitted with heavy shielding on his hips, chest and neck. When you add the weight of the warrior and all his protection and weapons, it would take a pretty large animal to carry it. This would be comparable to the Armored Knights of England.
This is a typical food stand that you find along the parade route. The Japanese version of our SoftServe ice cream in the back, ears of corn that they bake on the grill smothered in saki and soyu sauce, and the ever present squid on a stick. The squid was also grilled while you waited and smothered in the sauce, kinda like a bar b que. You can't really tell but this lady was actually smiling at me when I took the picture. By the way - I was the only one in our family that ate the squid on a stick. It kept me occupied and was like chewing on an inner tube from a bicycle tire but tasted a lot better.
Next we went rural again, just driving around the area to take in a more local, non tourist agenda. Came across this rice field that had been harvested and stacked. They shock the rice stalks like this to let them dry before they beat the stalks to get the rice at harvest. It's really amazing. The Japanese are sooo neat with just about everything they do. All the fields looked like this. By the way, all the local Japanese we encountered were extremely polite and helpful. Even if they couldn't speak English, and we didn't speak that much Japanese, we pointed and signed together enough to get a general understanding.
This last picture I just threw in cause it was from one of the trips that Cathy and her friends took to Osan, South Korea. Cathy and I have been to Korea numerous times, shopping, believe it or not.
I bought a 3 piece suit, tailor made for me for $40. I had it made by SAM's, the tailor shop shown on the left of this picture. Things like tennis shoe (nike, reebok etc) that were going for $60-70 in the states were only $9 here cause this is where most of them were made. The vendors loved to haggle over prices and actually were disappointed if you paid the first price they quoted you. Things like gold, silver, pewter, brass ware, copper, handmade bedspreads and quilts etc etc. The list just goes on and on. We usually took a hop on a military cargo plane - C-141 to get back and forth to Japan. I have been to Seoul, Pusan and Chinhae also. Pusan and Chinhae are in the very southern end of the Korean peninsula and are about 150 miles north west of Nagasaki, Japan.
Well, that's enough for today. My fingers are tired and my neck is getting stiff from sitting this long. Actually didn't take that long cause I already knew what all this was and where. I guess I'm just old and getting crotchety. He - what the heck. It's bed time anyway. Ta Ta...
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