Top of the World (or at least Sasebo)

Today was a beautiful sunny day. We had plans to walk to a video store (about a 30 min. walk) to rent some movies for 100 Yen and later take a bus to Mt. Yumihari to take some pictures overlooking the city. As we made our way to the video store Nick realized that we needed our alien registration card, which we had not picked up, to get a membership. We remembered that our alien cards became available for pick up yesterday. We turned around and headed towards the city office which is a 30 minute walk in the other direction.

The alien registration cards (pictured here) will replace our passport in being the only document we are required to carry. The alien card has our address, passport #, landing and expected departure date and other personal data in both Japanese and English. We were surprised to see that these cards are valid through 2010, given that we have our work visas renewed.

The next goal of the day was to walk to the Sasebo main bus station and board a bus to Mt. Yumihari. This is a 1500 ft mountain which sits north of downtown Sasebo. On our way to the bus station we stopped for lunch at Mos Burger. Nick is quickly becoming a connoisseur of Japanese burgers. Today he ordered what he thought was a double cheeseburger, but was surprised to find out that one of the “burgers” was actually a mild marinara sauce. Thinks like this happen when you order based on a picture. Anyway, it turned out to be the best tasting burger yet. I, on the other hand, ordered a Caesar salad to be safe. I originally wanted another salad that was pictured but I was not sure what the topping was (I believe it was chicken but who knows). After lunch we continued toward the bus station and picked up some Starbucks on the way. We were going to take a picture of Starbucks when Nick realized the battery in our camera was dead. With only a half hour ‘til the bus left we had to change our plans. We opted to go home and recharge the battery and take a taxi to Mt. Yumihari.

The taxi was our first experience riding on the left side of the road, and we were glad to have taken a small car due to the hairpin turns on the mountain. 15 minutes later we were at the viewpoint and the taxi driver offered to return in 90 minutes to take us home. This, we thought, was very nice considering how out of the way our stop was. Many of the pictures speak for themselves so for the remainder of the post we will simply show you pictures with captions.

Mt. Yumihari viewpoint pavilion

Here is a panoramic view of Sasebo Bay (the two photos overlap a bit).

The two-tone, orange and gray, building in the center of this picture is our apartment building.

These are the few US Navy ships that are currently on the Bay.

These two pictures show a trail and a series of steps found around the viewpoint.

Steph sought shelter from the high winds as Nick went for a final night shot of downtown Sasebo.