Cool New Ship

As you probably know by now I am a big fan of the ships. For the past few weeks our view of Kobe has been partially blocked by a great big ship with a huge tower on it. I have been trying to figure out what it is. Finally last weekend I walked over with Sean to take a look at it. The mystery is solved.

The ship is a deep sea drilling vessel called the “CHIKYU”. It is used for scientific purposes to drill down into the ocean floor (up to 7,000 m) for the purposes of studying earthquakes, global changes, the origin of life. You know, little things like that.

The ship looks pretty cool – its about 210 meters long, and is 30 stories tall at its highest point. (by the way – I know what you are thinking, what the heck is a meter). It has a crew of 150 people. There is also a cool helicopter landing pad on the front.

It turns out that on its last mission it damaged part of a whiz-bang propulsion system it has that keeps the ship perfectly still during drilling. It is now docked on Rokko Island for repairs. Sounds like it will be here until March.

Thanksgiving

We actually had a very nice Thanksgiving here in Japan. We celebrated on Sunday instead of Thursday. None of us had any time off during the week - Thursday was just another day. The pilgrims did not stop off in Japan on the way to the US so the idea of Thanksgiving is not big over here.

Before having a traditional turkey dinner with all the fixings we played football with some friends. Sean's hands are a little small, but he has a decent grip. It is too soon to say what position he will get a scholarship for.

There is a park on the island where we tossed the ball around. It is near the apartment of our friends who hosted the dinner. The weather has gotten cool lately so we have to bundle the little guy up when we head out. He seems to enjoy the hat and gloves. I know his mom loves putting them on him.

The dinner was great. It was nice to have most of the comfort foods of home. Of course we still missed spending time with family and friends from home, but it was the next best thing. Sean can certainly say that he had an interesting first Thanksgiving.

Pizza Scooter

Yes, you can get pizza in Japan. It just get delivered in a method different than what you are used to. You cant see it, but the helmet even says Pizza Hut. Very cool.

I have never actually seen one of the restaurants here, only the scooters. Do they really exist?