And, we're back!

OK, so it's obviously been a long time. The rest of the deployment was fine. We were on the Navy ships for about 2.5 months. We were in the Philippines doing a field exercise (nothing very exciting there as far as pictures). We had to leave early because a typhoon was headed to that area. To avoid the typhoon, we sailed south around the Philippine Islands, then spent two days flying humanitarian aid and assessment issues to some of the remote areas hit by the typhoon. Luckily, damages to some buildings were the main problem, as opposed to injury and loss of life, which was minimal. I didn't really do very much, but managed to find my way into a couple of photos:

http://www.marines.mil/unit/31stmeu/pages/photos.aspx?Page=11

We then did some support missions, which didn't require anything from the Marines, before having some liberty time in Singapore and Hong Kong, both of which were very neat. I have some pictures, but they're on my other camera, which I don't have right now. We'll see if I ever get those up. If not, it was nothing TOO exciting, anyways.

Also, Tally came out to visit me before we came back to 29 Palms, which was great. It was a little bit of an adventure, since she flew "Space A" (which stands for "Space Available", and is a system of free military flights, with the catch being there's no guarantee you'll get a seat, and you can always get bumped at the last minute). However, we had fun, and she ended up being able to fly home on the exact same plane as me, sitting right next to me! Pretty neat. I do have a few pictures.

First is us at Pizza in the Sky. It's a really great pizza place with wood-fired pizza up on a bluff overlooking a little coastal town. It's run by locals, but the pizza is really, really good.

Next, we're at the Nago Pineapple Park, which was neat. The "tour", which was supposed to show the pineapples, how they are grown, etc., was pretty minor and quick, but they sure tried to sell us lots of stuff! The pineapple wine and cake were good, though.

Finally, here's us and the wife of another one of the officers in my battalion (she flew out with Tally) at Hama Sushi, this great little sushi place. It was SO good and ridiculously cheap.