Jan 12-17- Visit to Japan (1) Osaka, Nara, Uji

We met up with Aiko for 5 days in the Kyoto area. It was great to spend time with her and visit many of the sites. Japan is a very clean, polite country. All the streets and cars are kept in tip-top shape. There are also many temples and shrines. We visited 11 temples during our visit. Most of them were of one of the Buddist sects. Here's a snapshot of our time:

City of Osaka
Shitennoji Temple- the structure on the left is called a pagoda

Dragon well

Walking in Osaka

A seahorse made out of cabbages. This is the year of the dragon, I guess a seahorse is like a dragon?!

Osaka Castle in the background

View from Osaka Castle's upper floor

Another pic of Osaka Castle

Osaka Castle at dusk, with the wall and moat

City of Nara

We visited a large park with several temples and around 2,000 "tame" deer. Pretty neat

A 5-story pagoda

A mama and baby. The biggest adults' heads were up to our chests, not very big.

Very friendly though if you had food!

We thought it was funny they were hanging out at the ice cream shop!

There were rows and rows of these stone lanterns, and of course, deer near them.

Prayers on paper at one of the temples.

You can buy lanterns for different fortunes (from what we understand).

The temple of the big Budda, we didn't see the actual Budda though.

Aiko and Max feeding the deer, actually here, Aiko is trying to convince them that

she really doesn't have any more food! They didn't get the idea very quickly!

City of Uji

Koshoji Temple- one of our favorites. It is up the mountain some and is a quieter atmosphere.

A street in Uji, notice how clean everything is! and how narrow!

Green Tea bushes near Aiko's parents's house (where we stayed). Uji is known for their Green Tea.

Aiko and her parents at their home. We really appreciated their hospitality and

enjoyed getting to know the culture a bit more.

Manta Ray Snorkel Video

One of the neatest things we did in Hawaii was go on a night snorkel with manta rays. We saw 5-7 rays with the largest maybe a 10 foot "wing" span. They are attracted by the plankton, which are attracted to our lights. They were neat to watch doing sumersaults and gliding along as they keep their mouths open to catch the plankton. They came about a foot from Melissa and I'd guess 6 inches from me.

Amazing experience!

Jan 7- Tumon Bay snorkeling

This is the bay where the large hotels are, near the clinic.

Flounder

Pipefish (next 2 pics)

Jan 6- Sella Bay hike

This bay is on the southern part of the island, less than a 10 minute drive from us. It took us about 45 minutes to get down. Toby did pretty good- big dog grin.

An old Spanish bridge at the mouth of a river going into the bay.

A valient effort, but he ended up in the water. Poor guy. His right back leg doesn't give him much help.

Looking out into the bay from the bridge.

Dec 31- Hike on AWR property with Toby

This Sabbath afternoon we hiked on the path behind the antennas down to the ocean. It takes about a half hour to get to the beach- which is small but neat as there is no public access.

 Antennas #1 and 2

Toby enjoying the view. His first real hike on Guam (and since the accident)!!

Dec 26- Double dive at Double Reef

 The Dodds took us out to a dive site north of where we've mostly dove the past few months. There was a decent amount of current on the first dive so pictures were difficult to take. We enjoyed being with them and seeing a new area (although we both dove here 2 years ago).

 Garden Eels

Moorish Idol

Dec 25- Christmas dive at Gun Beach

God really blessed on this dive. We saw 3 turtles and a stingray! Whoo-hoo!