Japan

Jonathan has been working on an ISS project with work over the past 9 months. His group is partnered with a group at JAXA (the Japanese space agency) and most of their communication has been over teleconferences. They got to the point in the project when they needed to work face-to-face and try out some of the hardware they've been designing. So off Jonathan went to Japan! 

He took several pictures of icy areas on his flight to Japan. These are the ones I loved the most. (They went over Alaska and part of the Arctic circle on the way there.) 

An origami crane on the bed in his hotel the first night! 

A sign on the walking path from the metro center to JAXA.  Jonathan likes the sign : )

This is Jonathan with a mock-up of the cargo airlock that's on the ISS. Jonathan's part is going on this airlock to adapt it for other functions. 

This Lego woman was at a sandwich shop near JAXA! 

The team (5 guys including Jonathan) spent the work week in Tsukuba and then took a train back to Tokyo to do some sight-seeing before coming back on Sunday. 

Playing in the snow. It was cold and wet most of the time they spent in Japan. 

My handsome husband!

The group went to see Mt. Fuji on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, the fog was too thick to get a good view of the mountain, but they still had fun touring one of the lakes around it and seeing some of the other sites. 

Heavy fog over Mt. Fuji

The "American" snowman the group of NASA engineers built while on their "business" trip! (I've been told that Japanese snowmen are made of two snowballs whereas American snowmen are made of three)  

 It sounds like Jonathan had a great first trip to Japan. He'll be going back at least one more time later this year as the project continues. He came back to craziness at our house! We switched to bottles while he was gone, so pretty much everything with Aaron is different and he's had to adjust. His other projects at NASA didn't stop while he was gone, so he's had a lot of work to catch up on this week as well.

We're glad he had a safe trip and we're even more happy to have him back home again!