A Korean Show at the Officers' Club
	January 10-11: A Weekend at Dr. Kim's House
	Return to Index for 1971

The 17th of January marked the beginning of another major experience, my first trip to Japan. As with most any employer, Army personnel get a certain amount of leave (vacation) each year. Stateside, one's commander can authorize it just as one's boss has to approve it in the private sector. Assuming no impact on the unit's mission, leave is routinely approved.

January 17-19, 1971       Getting to Yokota Air Base, Japan January 19-20, 1971       Shopping at Yokota       A Shopping Trip to Tachikawa Shopping

But here in Korea, very few servicemen take leave back stateside- although some do, when family responsibilities dictate; it is just too expensive. Some soldiers just save their leave for when their tour is over, but a great many, probably most, take advantage of the fact that they've been given a free trip overseas and do some exploring. A few stay in Korea, particularly those who've acquired girlfriends. But the biggest chunk do their exploring in Japan (taking advantage of free flights there), while a few head to Hawaii (on mostly their own dime).

Being young and impressionable and not having traveled much, I have long planned to take my leave in Japan- a country I have certainly never seen and may never have the opportunity to see again. I could have gone solo, but another officer I know, Dan Gunn, was planning on also taking his R&R in Japan, so we coordinated our leave schedules and will be going together. That's good, because all our friends who've already been on their R&Rs have said that it is a lot more fun to have someone with you. Neither of us is married, so I guess we'll be footloose and fancy free.

I took hundreds of pictures on my trip to Japan, and putting them all on a single Web page would have had you scrolling up and down way too much. So what I have done is to break the trip into sections. Each section will deal with one event or one side trip that occurred during our Japan sojourn. And at left I have put an index into these sections.

As you will see, each section spans a period of time, although most cover a day or part of one. In any event, you can use this index to jump directly to a section that may interest you, based on the list of activities that are listed for that section. Clicking on any of the links will take you to the page for that section. At the top and bottom of each of those pages you will find links that will take you to the next or previous section in time sequence, as well as a link that will bring you back here to the index.

If you would simply like to follow us on our entire trip to Japan, you can just follow the links from page to page, and on the last section page use the link that will return you to the top of this page. You will need to return here to continue through the photo album, and look at my pictures from the period of 1971 prior to this Japan trip to the many 1971 events that followed it.

I hope you enjoy coming along with me on my first self-planned trip to a country outside the United States!