Up in the air. . .

The sightseeing has taken some time off now that the work week has started, but I'm still definitely enjoying myself. I've gotten to fly twice already this week - once yesterday and a nighttime SAR flight tonight - to get used to the area, the crew, and the aircraft. Japan is a gorgeous country, and the geography along the coast is so much different than anything I've seen before. The chart shows dozens of islands within just a few miles of the air station, but there are even more that are even too small to chart. Amazingly enough, even if the island seems too small to live on, there are houses on almost every one. We even saw cars on an island no more than a mile or two long. Closer to the mainland, the mountains have been picked apart to build "new land." Japan is short on space, so they're solving the problem by building more of it. When we went up to Hiroshima, we definitely noticed that every bit of space was used for houses, gardens, and businesses. Even parking garages are built almost straight up. Anyway, I think I'm running out of stories, so I'll just post some pictures taken from the air. These aren't from my flight, but you can still get the idea.