I met up with some of my old friends from Okinawa and went to a small Okinawan restaurant/bar to listen to a live Okinawan music performance. The singing couple were very good and reminded me of my one year in Okinawa.

I went with my friend Tatsuya and other friends on a two day hike to Tengudake in the Yatsugatake mountain range. We took a overnight bus and started climbing Saturday morning. The weather was pretty good as we made our way to the top of Nyu Peak. From there we hiked up to the lodge for lunch. Awards was the accent to Tengudake. The path up was mostly rocks and boulders and was not an easy climb. On the way I saw a person that had fallen and hit her head, and she was later helicoptered out. Thengudake has two separate peaks about a 20 minute hike apart but are both exactly the same height, 2646. We spent the night in the mountain hut. Due to an approaching typhoon, Sunday was raining so we decided to head down for onsen and soba.

I finally got a smartphone. The battery on my cheap flip phone died and decided it was time to join the rest of the civilization. I chose this green phone because: It was green, it wasnt too big so it can fit in my pocket, it wasnt an Apple. The good thing about Android phones is that you can root them and completely customize them to your liking.

The last two weeks were spent with Suzuna in the Canadian Rockies. We rented a car and drove from Vancouver to Calgary stopping at all the points of interest along the way. We had an amazing time driving, hiking, camping, eating, and mountain climbing.

The full photo gallery can be found here: picasaweb.google.com/andynewman/CanadianRockies

The diving course can be seen here: Google Maps