I should explain some of the photos from my last blog. The first one is on top of Mt Fuji. It must be good luck to stick a coin into the wood of the gateway. The streamers are from souvenir walking sticks that you can buy at the gift shops where the trails start. Along the trail there are about 16 hotels where you can rest up and pay too much for bottled water. Maybe they mark up the price because it was such a pain bringing the water up the mountain. Each station has a unique brand that they will burn into your walking stick for 200 yen. In the second picture you can see me gasping for air holding my walking stick at one of the hotel rest stops.
The next photo is me eating chicken feet in Hong Kong. They would be easier to eat if the chef would cut them up more, but it's eat one whole foot at a time with 11 herbs and spices. The chicken feet taste pretty good, but when I had to spit out the claws was about the time I stopped eating them! The third photo is my friend Troy and I in Beijing, Tieneman Square. The monument is dedicated to the Cultural Revolution. Behind it is Mao Tse Tung's mausoleum where you can walk through and see his body. We got kicked out of the line because Troy had flip-flops on. The last photo is in Hong Kong at the largest seated Buddha in the world. It's around 40m/120ft tall. It's on Lantau island not too far from the Hong Kong airport.

Wow my first blog! I guess it's about time I broke my blogging cherry since my journal hasn't been getting much use. Seems like a good way to let the familia know what's going on in paradise. Okinawa Japan is not paradise for everyone, but it's paradise for me. This might have something to with the fact that I lived in Grand Forks, North Dakota before arriving in Japan. ND is not that bad except for the winter time. Occasionally the "high" temperature in the winter months would be colder than Alaska's "high" for the day. I don't miss that at all! If you like hockey, ice fishing, and Norwegian women ND might be the place to go.
Okinawa is paradise because the average temperature is 75.2 degrees! There are beaches everywhere and the scuba diving is awesome. My second week on the island I got my scuba certification for only $180. Since then I've been diving almost every month after arriving on May 31, 2005.
My plan was to get out of the US and see the world. In 3 months I've already checked out a lot of what Asia has to offer. The highlight of June/July was the scuba diving. In August I climbed Mt. Fuji. At around 11,000 feet I didn't think I was going to make it. It took almost 5 hours to get from one of the trailheads to the top. Surprisingly everyone in the group wasn't that sore the next day. Another adventure I had in August was a trip to Darwin, Australia. If you want to see that "outback" then Darwin is the place to go. You can't just go for a swim whenever you like in the local lakes and rivers unless you want to end up as lunch for a 12 foot crocodile. While we were there a scuba diver got eaten by a great white shark! Needless to say we didn't do a whole lot of swimming, but the "jumping" crocodile is cool if you get a chance to visit Darwin. This boat tour takes you down a local river and the guides dangle chunks of pork in the water. The croc's swim right up to the side of the boat. The guides know all the local crocodiles by their size and scars. The older ones are pushing 12 feet and about 1000 pounds! One of them was missing all but one hind leg from fighting with the other croc's over territory. My last trip was a two week tour of China in September. A friend from college and I hit Hong Kong, Beijing, Lhasa, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and then back to Hong Kong. My favorite city is probably Beijing. Lhasa, Tibet is cool but the 15,000 foot elevation kicked my ass! The best way to describe the altitude affect is being in a constant hangover. Beijing traffic is crazy. All the pedestrians and bicyclers pull right up to the edge of your lane in traffic at the crosswalks. Doesn't matter if it's a red or green light they're crossing the road. The one weird thing about Beijing I didn't like was how clean it is. Most big cities are at least a little dirty but Beijing was too clean and we never saw anyone doing the cleaning. Alright I think I've blogged enough for one day.