Saijo-ji Temple

As you may have ascertained from my earlier posts, Japan abounds with shrines and temples. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 3000 official shrines altogether, I'm told; there are probably thousands more 'unofficial' shrines not counted in that number. And after having looked around the southern part of the country quite a bit, I can personally testify to the fact that there seems to be some type of shrine dedicated to almost every object, person, place, thing, body part, etc., that you could ever think of. I'm almost certain that there are shrines dedicated to each individual season of the television show "Friends". I think they also tried to build a series of shrines to follow the "E.R" series, but probably ran out of steam after the umpteenth season. (And realistically, what self respecting Buddhist would visit a shrine that was dedicated after Clooney left the show anyway?).

The temples, on the other hand are little fewer and farther in between. They tend to revolve around significant deities and places in the Buddhist culture. With help of a baby-sitter, Charlotte & I were able to shirk our parenting duties and make a quick Saturday get-away to the neighboring Odawara Valley to visit Dai Yu Zan Saijo-ji Temple. (It wasn't so much that Reese wasn't welcome at the temple, but more the fact that the Asahi Brewery tour that immediately followed the temple would have been a real drag for her). The Saijo-ji temple was completed in 1394 and is the third highest temple of the sotozen sect of Buddhism. It was dedicated to Guatama Buddha ...And that about ends the history lesson. We were mainly just happy to get out and experience some of the local country side. It's rainy season here in Japan, and the fact that it was mildly sunny on Saturday made it all that much better.

There are a number of rituals that a typical Buddhist goes through while praying at a shrine or temple. The first of these involves 'bathing' oneself in the smoke of the incense burning outside the temple. The idea here (if not already obvious) is that you're making yourself smell a little better for the deity. Thanks to the advent of modern personal hygiene, not everyone necessarily does this, so it's become kind of 'optional'. The second step is to wash the face and hands, again, to make oneself more presentable before God. All Buddhist shrines and temples feature a fountain or cistern with fresh, running water and a small copper cup mounted on a wooden dowel for exactly this purpose. It's also permissible to take a bit of water into the mouth and cleanse the tongue before speaking to God, but you're not supposed to drink the water. Saijo-ji temple is the one exception to this rule, in that there are several washing cisterns throughout the complex; one of which supposedly contains a special 'healing water'. Patrons are allowed to drink from this one station and enjoy the healing properties both inside and out.

Our tour guide was happy to point out this particular feature of the Saijo-ji temple to our tour group. ..But of course she identified the wrong fountain of 'healing water' at the beginning of the tour, so the whole ritual of putting some healing water from the first cistern onto my burgeoning bald spot probably went unheeded by the Great One. (Anyway, I got my healing drink on when we finally arrived at the appropriate water station).

The next step in the process is to remove your shoes before entering the temple. (Again, the reason doesn't require explanation. Other than the robes, the practicality of the whole thing is pretty amazing). The next part gets weird... This is where you attempt to get God's attention - either through clapping or ringing a gong - and then make your donation before praying. (This kind of reminds me of the whole 'tip jar' bit from the Seinfeld show, where it was important to be seen putting the money in). In some cases where no bell or gong is conveniently located, the large, rectangular money receptacle is actually designed to make a lot of noise as the money falls in, thereby waking up the deity. After all of these steps are complete, ...you then have the floor.

Now obviously, I've made a very casual overview of typical Buddhist pomp & ceremony. There's a lot more to the tenants and sanctity of the religion than I'm really telling here; all for the purposes of keeping the blog brief and entertaining. As far as the concept of picking out piecemeal bits of spirituality from the fray, there's a lot of things about Buddhism that appeal to me, (e.g. all of the politeness, hand washing & shoe shedding really jives with my anal-retentive/OCD nature). The things that really turn me off about Buddhism are the root forms of ambition that it's adherents normally pray for: luck, money, power, & success.

Not being one to debase another persons religious ideology or inherent right to believe in their own way, I still can't see myself banging on a gong and asking God for money. I simply can't imagine the universe working on that principle. In fact, I find that most of my prayers are more or less focused on asking God to deliver me from bad things, vice granting me materialistic advantages. For example, when I'm flying, a prayer would generally involve something like this: "Dear Lord, don't let that noise be my tail rotor falling off!" Or simply, "God, don't let me crash!" (In the case of prayers made while flying, they are generally preceded directly by the words "HOLY SH#T!" I guess that my Catholic upbringing has given me this alternate method to get God's attention. ...It's what I have instead of gongs and hand-clapping, but it genuinely seems to do the trick). Or maybe another example of the Christian "take away the bad stuff" ethic: "Oh Lord, deliver my child from the temptation of fast food. For we all know that the road to hell is paved with Chicken McNuggets. (...They're random chicken parts fused-together, for God's sake!)"

On the theme of fast food, the visit to Saijo-ji afforded us yet another opportunity to persue a favorite Japanese past-time of Charlotte and mine: finding the wierdest ice cream flavor ever created. Residing in a small roadside souvenir stand adjacent to the parking area we found this week's winning freaky flavor: Wasabi. (...And it was actually good!)

...The loser, by the way, was the beer flavored ice cream at the Asahi Beer Brewery. (Nice try guys! Don't bother quittin' your day jobs to become the next 'Ben & Jerry').

TWO!

Reese celebrated her second birthday yesterday... Blew out the candles, ate a muffin, then went tear-assing through the neighborhood on her new scooter! ...Now that's the way you do it!

MALABAR '09

An older post from Late April / early May. It's just been sitting in que, never having had the finishing touches put onto it. (Sorry for the delay!)

One of the many interesting (and often forgotten) aspects of being on a naval helicopter crew is that we are very probably the only people in the Navy who get to visit every type and class of ship in the inventory with regular occasion.


Take a typical F-18 pilot for example; he gets to spend plenty of time on the carrier, but never gets any closer to any of the other ships except for when he's zooming over them at mach 3 with his hair on fire. An even better example would be the land based E6-B and P-3 aircrews, many of whom have served full careers in the Navy without ever having once stepped foot onto a ship...



On a daily basis helicopters visit destroyers, frigates, cruisers, carriers, amphibs, et cetera-ad nauseum and never really think twice about it. Now the interesting part of this equation is that we also make landings on foreign ships with regualr occasion, making us the only part of the US Military who regularly land on the sovereign territory of other nations. On top of having landed on almost every type and class of ship in the US Navy, I've made landings on ships of the Japanese, German (which I guess is already a given quality), French, Belgian, and United Arab Emerites navies. Our recent participation in MALABAR '09 provided the opportunity to add India to that list as well. (What can I say? I'm trying to collect them all).

...Not that I really "geek-out" on ships or anything -- I could personally care less, (which is why I point out that it's often forgotten). The "varsity factor" here is that most of these countries have very different landing procedures and practices which require the pilots to not only posess a good working knowledge of the basic operational differences, but moreover require them to frenquently press the "I believe" button, and excercise some critical judgement while operating the US taxpayer's multi-million dollar helicopter in an environment that might not exactly meet the typical OSHA safety standards you're accustomed to. ...Which is very polite way of saying "relaxing your sense of self-preservation and 'going with the flow' while simultaneously not letting the crazy bastards cause you to crash the helicopter or get someone killed".

...So without further adieu, a few airborne pics from Exercise MALABAR'09, including contingents from the US, Japanese and Indian navies. I think that the submarine pictured below was the only vessel in the exercise that we didn't actually land on!

...Down Time

After the last few weeks of squadron and base events that usurped all of our down time together at home, we got an 11th hour pardon: the ship decided that they didn't need their helo until next week. Finally! A weekend to ourselves!

The Last 2 Weeks: Cherry Blossoms, Airshows, Sports, Tuxedos and Kids

Just photos from the last two weeks of "down time" back at home guard. They've filled-up my two weeks at home so completely that I don't have any time left over to type anything. ...So I'll let the photos do the talking instead

Snow Falling On Cherry Blossoms

With our requirements for this underway period completed, Loren and I launched 702 from the ship early on Tuesday morning for the 30 minute hop back to Atsugi. Even though this was only a short 5 week deployment, there's a been lot of transitional acvtivity on the homefront that I've missed. I left for deployment from the front door of our hotel-room abode at the Navy Lodge and returned to the on-base house that we'd been assigned in mid-March. Charlotte was stuck (for the umpteenth time) with the task of 'catching' all of our wordly possessions in my absence as they arrived on our doorstep a few days later. More importantly, little Reese has already grown what must be at least another foot taller than she was back in February ...and is babbling like a little creek! Other older and more experienced parents are always warning me that kids "grow up fast". I can verify that there is probably no better way to gain a fuller appreciation for this sentiment than by the painful process of getting to sit in the 'parenting penalty box' for odd months at a time out at sea and then observing how she's changed in the interim. As much I dislike this aspect of the job, it does make the time that I have at home with Charlotte and Reese a lot more precious.


It'll only be a short pause before we're back underway in a few weeks, but for what it's worth, I've never actually been in Japan during the Cherry Blossom season. (I've always been out on deployment). Cherry blossom season is a finite period in late March/early April when the cherry trees suddenly bloom, then fall away just as fast as they appeared. The Japanese tradition is to sit underneath a cherry tree with your closest friends, drink a lot of saki and just take in the view. (No, I'm not making up the saki part. ...This is the only other culturally endorsed form of public drunkeness that I've ever heard of besides Oktoberfest).


Over the next 2 weeks we've got a new pilot arriving, the Cherry Blossom Fest here on base, (featuring the Base Air Show this Saturday), BADMAN Week (an annual, week-long intra-squadron sports competetion -- what we like to refer to in the military as "Mandatory Fun": you WILL show up and you WILL be happy about participating, OR your fitness report will reflect your piss-poor attitude about it). In addition to those, we have a detachment NATOPS evaluation and the looming spector of the fact that we've got a lot of work to do on our aircraft in the remaining time in-between. ...It's going to be an action-packed "operational hiatous" to say the least of it. I'm convinced that this is all a scam put on by the Navy -- we're always inundated with work when we're at homeguard, so everyone is continually eager to get back out to sea where they can actually get some rest!

But none of that matters right now. I'm just enjoying the great feeling of finally being back home. I woke up this morning in my own bed listening to the sound of a light snow falling on the cherry tree behind our house that's just starting to blossom. ...And the pitter-patter of tiny feet in Korean-made slippers...

Helicopter Zen and the art of “Zapping”

We’re now approaching the middle of our second week of being tied to the pier in Korea. We took on several hundred additional Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Army and Korean military personnel for the current exercise. This is all a part of demonstrating “Joint / Combined Interoperability” with the other services and the host nation, and even if it doesn’t quite live up to the utopian ideal of inter-agency cooperation, at least it makes the ship a very colorful place to be right now. The majority of our guests are currently sitting 8+ hour shifts in darkened control rooms, engaging in computer-based warfare exercises. This is what is typically referred to in the Navy as a “Fast Cruise” – going through all of the motions of an at-sea war scenario without all of the hassle of actually pulling out of port, burning a lot of fuel, or worrying about anyone falling overboard in the middle of the night, etc. Of course it is a cheaper, lower-risk evolution, but it tends to be rife with artificialities. (I mean, c’mon. We’re still tied to the pier!). The exercise goes 24/7 for the participants: No liberty. No beer.

…Fortunately for the Air Detachment and a few other essential departments on the ship – (who have “real jobs”, as it were, and can be called upon for real-world tasking) – we are not classified as “exercise participants”. Therefore, we’re extended the privilege of going into town after normal working hours and even retain the latitude of attempting to gag ourselves by imbibing the Korean interpretation of beer. Out of shear politeness, we purposefully avoid mentioning this fact in front of anyone who is an “exercise participant”. (…Hey I did a month-long exercise in Osan, Korea, back in the day and the same rules applied then, so I have felt the pain!).

While we’ve been sitting on our duffs in Busan, we have had the opportunity to do some flying. I flew my first VIP transfer last Sunday, transporting the Admiral over to Chinhae – a Korean Navy base about 20 miles west of here. The interesting thing about the Chinhae helo pad is that it’s perched atop a steep 900 foot hill in the middle of the base. The pad is at the pinnacle of the hill, so there’s basically nowhere to go after lifting off but back down the side of the hill, gaining speed as you careen below the elevation of the pad. (O.K. – yeah, so you could just continue to maintain altitude or climb away from the pad, but what fun would that be?). After we dropped the Boss off we talked the tower into letting us make a few rounds in the pattern. Max took the first go from the right seat and planted it in the middle of the pad, (…it’s easier to fly from the right seat, o.k.). After lifting back into the air, he coaxed the helo over the edge of the pad, gradually getting faster and then dumped the nose of the bird straight down the hill as we cleared the edge, quickly accumulating airspeed. Max had a giddy smile on his face as we sailed through 100 knots and I could see that a few pedestrians on the paved road below us had stopped dead in their tracks, trying to figure out if we were actually going to continue the descent into the ground (…and probably to ponder in which direction they should make a panicked flee for their lives). We leveled the dive around 400 feet and I laughingly accused Max of being “still in Saigon”. We took turns making a few more steep approaches to the pad and the now obligatory kamikaze descent off of the pinnacle into the valley below.

Later in the flight we had to take the Admiral into a port storage facility located at the head of pier. The approach was interesting because we were flying up a sort of canal with several huge shipping cranes at eye level on both sides of the helo, terminating in a steep approach to a very small pad. The only way out of this spot was the exact reverse of how we’d gotten into it. It was interesting flying to say the least of it, and I have to once again here admit how much I like this gig.

In the mean time, being the only ship in Busan for the last week, and not having a lot of competition for available resources, we’ve pretty much exhausted just about everything that there is to do here (which is not much, by the way). …And what happens when aircrews get bored you ask? Hi-jinks & shenanigans, I tell you!

Our little run of being the only game in town came to an abrupt halt on Wednesday, when an entire US carrier group pulled into the pier next to us. Let me tell you, after being on the Kitty Hawk for 3 years, there’s nothing like hitting the pier with 7,000 of your closets friends. It’s as if a plague of locusts has descended onto the town: all of the ATM’s are empty, all of the stores are sold-out, all of the beer is gone, and you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting at least 25 obnoxious, round-eyed sailors in their baggy Hilfigers’.

Max and I are both former carrier aviators, so our fascination with the big boat next door has long since expired. “Been there. Done that.” This carrier is, however, the first to deploy with two squadrons of the latest Navy helicopters off of the building block: the MH-60 Sierra and Romeo models. With naval helicopter aviation being as small a community as it is, we figured that the chances of us running into someone we knew from our former squadrons was pretty high up there and that it might be worth a visit to the big boat after all in order to get a first-hand look at the new digs. This also introduced the possibility of engaging in a little ‘ole tradition in military aviation know as “zapping”; that is, slapping your squadron or detachment sticker onto another unit’s aircraft while they ain’t looking. On occasion, limited time & opportunity dictate that you have to quickly “zap” it onto an obvious external part of the airframe. But if the situation is right, you can get your moniker into a place on their aircraft where it may not be found until a depot-level aircraft inspection reveals that they’ve been flying around with your squadron insignia on their aircraft for 100 hours or more. This is a pretty typical example of inter-squadron hi-jinks. Back when I was with HS-14, I went on a mixed detachment aboard a small ship with another helicopter from HSL-51. During a pre-flight inspection, I decided to look inside the transition area compartment – an interior section of the helo behind the main fuel tanks where the radio amplifiers are located and which, thusly, hardly ever gets looked at. I found that the inside was covered – completely – from head to toe with little HSL-51 zappers. There must have been over 200 stickers inside that compartment!

Max and I made our way over to the carrier and visited both helo squadron ready rooms, and - just as expected - bumped into several folks that we’d known from other squadrons in the fleet. Mike O’Neil – an old nemesis of mine from HSL-51 – offered to give us a tour of one of his brand new Romeos. What he didn’t know was that two of our enlisted guys were holding a ‘loose trail’ formation on our little show & tell, zapping everything that they could get our stickers onto. Now some of the zapped locations were pretty obvious, …but there are some others that are going to take a little while to find. "Welcome to Asia, fellows. Happy hunting!"