I've been here almost two months now, I've hiked every trail I can find and photographed most everything. Today, I hiked back up the Tsunami trail behind Monde's house to the Nagasaki lookout over Nagasaki Cape, and then on up the road to the trail up Asahiyama Mtn to the peak. Incredibly beautiful views of many neighboring islands ,channels, bays,etc. While walking, I couldn't help but think about all the things I like about Japan, and ChiChi Jima in particular-this place is the nicest,cleanest , best maintained island I have ever visited.. The roads are perfect, with huge walls , tunnels, guard rails, fences protect the cars from falling rocks, and no litter anywhere. The hiking trails are equally well maintained , and the public bathrooms are so clean and neat and never run out of toilet paper. It's not Charmin, but it works. People ride bicycles and motor scooters, and the cars are all small and fuel efficient. The children are sweet and beautiful. I met a class of 9 yr olds on the trail one day. One of the girls stopped and asked me if I was having a nice day in English. She gave me the biggest smile. Very cool !. I was dumbfounded. I think the average age here must be about 6 yrs old. My favorite thing though is the Japanese toilet. The seats are heated, and they spray all sorts of things depending on which buttons you push. I have a Toto toilet in my house on Maui, but it doesn't do half of the things these toilets can do. On the down side, the cost of living is quite high. Gas and diesel are crazy expensive explaining the fuel efficient vehicles people drive. Soon the sales tax is going up from 5 to 8 % to help with the huge Gov't budget. They have this goofy system like our military where if you don't spend all your allotted budget, you will lose it the next year. Therefore they do things like tearing up a perfectly good road and rebuilding it. I suppose that also keeps everyone employed and off welfare. The local people are aware of this too, but they just shrug their shoulders and say- oh well. Maybe the new taxes will bring down Japan's debt to GDP ratio. I think if our governments raised the sales tax all over by that much, there would be rioting in the streets. Last night we had a feast at Monde's house. I cooked 20 parmesan pork chops and 4 monster chicken breasts. They made noodles with roe, noodles with sausage, strips of squid that Tsu caught , and salad. It was wonderful- Then I bored them to death with slide shows of New Zealand and videos of the dances and ceremonies and volcanoes of Vanuatu. Still waiting on parts for the boat, hope to leave here in about two weeks.