Yokosuka City Tour

Today, we decided to step out of our little bubble of Americanized Japan that we've been living in for the first few days here, and actually take a walk around Yokosuka City. We started out after breakfast and found ourselves quickly outside of our element. Yokosuka City isn't all that big, but to untrained non-Japanese eyes, all of the buildings, signs, and other landmarks look pretty similar. We tried to take it easy, going up the first large street that we could find - for simplicity's sake - in case we needed to backtrack later on. We got about a quarter mile or so down the road and found Chuo Station - the first train station that we've been able to find in Japan (not that we've tried before). The intersection around the Chuo Station is a bit complicated and I think we must have made a wrong turn. As we started to backtrack, I got the funny feeling that we weren't on the same path that we started out on. As we continued, our legs started getting tired, our bellies started getting hungry, and our words to each other were getting less than friendly. But after what turned out to be another mile or so of a wrong turn, we found ourselves at the Mikasa Park, where there's an old Japanese warship memorial. We took a look at the area and found that we were right next to Yokosuka Naval Base, the perfect landmark to help us get our bearings straight again. The park was nicely landscaped, and being away from the busy streets for a few minutes helped us calm down a bit. From there, we decided to head back to base and grab lunch at the famous Japanese restaurant, Long John Silvers. Yes, we chickened out of getting food in the city, but we did make a giant step forward. We went out into the city, got lost, but survived. Maybe tomorrow we'll actually find the nerve to interact with the locals.

Picture update...

There's good news and bad news here. The good news is that I was finally able to upload my pictures from my digital camera to my external hard drive. Now, our camera is clear to take more pictures... I did get a few today in Yokosuka City. The bad news is that the computer here at the lodge is loaded with administrative restrictions, which have prevented me from being able to upload any of the pictures from my camera or the external hard drive to the internet for viewing by family and friends looking at the Japan Years Blog. Sorry... I'll keep them stored though and once I get access to a computer that lets me, I'll upload a bunch for your viewing pleasure.