硫黄島 (Iwo Jima)

This past weekend, I was lucky enough to go to a place that has great historical significance for Americans... and I guess Japanese. This picture may give you a clue as to where I'm talking about (or you could look at the title of my blog, but that's too easy!).

Or what about...

Yup, Iwo Jima (officially known as "Iwo-to" these days). It's open only to a select few military members, and seeing as I'm part of CVW-5 these days, we use it for "Field Carrier Landing Practice" (FCLP for short) for the non-helicopter squadrons. If you're a n00b like me and have no idea what that means, check out this article for your continual lifelong learning. Since I'm a doctor and not a pilot, I was there to provide medical support. Our clinic was straight out of Catch-22, I swear... like, it was bare bones. Totes.

Those three guys were my lucky (and awesome) corpsman.

I must provide a preface to this blog post. I don't have the maps that explain the different caves so please accept this sword of defeat at your feet for the lack of educational info I'm known for... my internet searching was not helpful since most of it was centered around the battle and not necessarily the modern day island.

My camera almost died from the humidity, so the first picture is very foggy... but I will include it for my dad.

Originally, we wanted to go to Mount Suribachi (the flag raising location) first, but we ended up getting lost. If you realize that Iwo Jima is only about 8 square miles, you'll understand the impressiveness of that last statement. Instead, we found ourselves on Shipwreck Beach, which is a place where reinforced cement ships were placed to create a reef or something like that. Since the tide has gotten so low, it now looks like you're the only survivor in a post-apocalyptic world war.

Next to that beach was a volcanic sulfur pit, so called "Warbler Hell" due to its color (I guess it has the same color as a the Warbler, a Japanese bird). I later heard that someone almost fell into it after the ground gave away, and I felt a little scared that I had gone so close.

Next up was the memorial for the flag raising on the top of Mount Suribachi. It was incredible to see and be present at such an iconic location. There were multiple monuments, one was to the Americans and the rest were to the Japanese.

 I took that one for the corpsman.

From the top you could see Invasion Beach, where the Marines and Seabees first landed. The front wave didn't meet much opposition because General Kuriyabashi wanted to wait until they were all on the beach and then attack. However, the first wave experienced devastating losses from the hidden Japanese.

If you can't tell from the photo, it was freaking hot there. On Invasion Beach, we found one of the old machine guns.

With all that excitement behind us, we then went cave diving. There are hundreds of tunnels around the island that were used by the Japanese, and it was fun to see the more well-known ones. I would try to scare the corpsman by playing creepy classical music while we were crawling around in the dark, dirty caves (alliteration for you right there). We found one that was a medical cave and had tons of old medicine bottles, helmets and rusted weapons. It was very weird to think that someone actually used that before us, and there it was, untouched (sorta). There was also a "Sauna Cave", which is now used as a sauna (clever) by the Japanese because it is so hot.

On the northwest part of the island, we found another monument. Unfortunately, it was all in Japanese so I wasn't able to translate any of it. Also, my trusty internet skillz have failed me in finding out exactly what it was for, so if anyone knows, please feel free to comment on it.

With that, I will leave you with two other photos... one is a picture of a jet at dusk, and the other is a picture of the trusty golf cart that carried us around the island without incident.

Tokorozawa Aviation Museum

The last blog post for today (I swear... really, I do) is about our trip to Tokorozawa Aviation Museum. This site is famous for being the "birthplace of Japanese aviation", sorta the Pensacola equivalent. If you know my dad, then you know that coming here was his idea, but it turned out to be pretty interesting!

Everyone knows that in 1903, the Wright Brothers achieved the world's first powered flight, launching the rapid growth of aviation research/technology. Naturally Japan wanted in on that, too, so in 1909, the Provisional Military Balloon Research Association (PMBRA) was established to perform aviation research. The first order of the day? Find a site for an airport. They decided to choose Tokorozawa, hence the location of the museum.

I bet you don't know who performed the first successful flight at an airfield in Japan, do you? Well it was Yoshitoshi Tokugawa, done on April 1, 1911, with a Henri Farman aircraft.

We also got really lucky because there was a *special* exhibit... the only authentic and flyable Japanese Zero left - and also the only one with its original engine! If you're like me and have no clue what the Mitsubishi A6M Zero even is, read on. It was a plane used by the Imperial Japanese Navy during WWII, and quickly garnered a reputation as one of the top dogfighters (kill ratio of 12 to 1) until mid-1943. As the war winded down, the Zero was used in kamikaze operations.

They had a little exhibit where you could look through the cockpit... naturally, the plane was poised to destroy an innocent American pilot. So tricky... 

If you've got some time to kill or can't fall asleep, you watch this instructional video for pilots during WWII on how to recognize the Zero: 

Arashiyama (嵐山) and the Golden Pavilion

The next day was spent at Kyoto, where I have been before (remember the Geisha post?)... but this time, we spent most of our time in a nearby city called Arashiyama. Arashiyama is known for a few things:

1. Sagano Bamboo Forest
2. Togetsukyo bridge
3. Iwatayama Monkey Park

It's your lucky day because we saw ALL of those things! Strap in, cuz you're about to get blown away (figuratively... hopefully not literally).

Our first stop was the bamboo forest, which is basically self-descriptive (a forest... of... bamboo). It's also known for the sound it makes as the wind blows through the bamboo which was voted as one of the must-be-preserved sounds of Japan. Shockingly, jet noise was not on the list -- I know, right?! Below are a few photos to be enjoyed with the imagined sound of bamboo swaying gently in the breeze.

After that, we walked to the "romantic" Togetsukyo bridge. I guess you can define romantic how you will, but apparently it's known as a good viewing spot for the autumn trees and the cherry blossoms.

We then went to to the monkey park... it was an insane hike up Mt Arashiyama to feed some wild Japanese macaque monkeys. The path was filled with little games about monkey trivia, along with signs repeatedly warning us not to incur the wrath of these little buggers. 

Monkeys taking over the viewing station, overlooking Kyoto. Below are the photos of each of us feeding them with little bits of apple we bought for 100 yen.

In this photo, my dad is inciting a fight among the two... you can see how the one of the left is biting the head of the one on the right.

Our journey complete there, we headed off to see the Kinkaku (Golden Pavilion). The building consists of three stories, with the upper two stories covered by gold foil on lacquer. Today it contains Buddhist relics. And that's all I have to say about that:

You can slightly see the crane in front of it... below is a better shot.























Exhausted, dirty, and slightly starving, my family and I made the trek back to Atsugi to regain our strength and prepare for the aviation museum and Mt Fuji.